The Charlie Kirk Show - The Tyler Robinson Trial Delay: What Now?

Episode Date: May 11, 2026

Last Friday brought two key developments in the Tyler Robinson case. First, a key hearing has been delayed a month and a half, but also, cameras will be allowed in the courtroom. Legal expert Andrea Burkhart dissects what each of these developments means for America's most important criminal case. Kane gives his assessment of the midterms as Democrats implode over their Virginia gerrymander being snatched away. Steve Moore assesses the economy, and Daisy rejoins from maternity leave to discuss just how far over the line a Pete Davidson joke about Charlie's death went. 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.

My name is Charlie Kirk. I run the largest pro-American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic. My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth. If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable. But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful. College is a scam, everybody. You've got to stop sending your kids to college. You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible. Go start a turning point USA college chapter. Go start a turning point you would say high school chapter.

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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 noble gold investments.com. That is noble gold investments.com. All right, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show. It's Monday. I hope you guys all had a very celebratory in, if you were men out there, servant-minded Mother's Day. I hope you took care of the moms in your life. Blake, did you take care of the mom? And she sort of took care of herself. She went to my sisters in Georgia. Well, there you go. So she was sort of being, she was helping my sister celebrate Mother's Day, I suppose.

But that's what she wants to do anyway. She doesn't spend all the time with her grandkids. You know, I can't blame your mom for not wanting to spend Mother's Day with you. That's her choice. Well, it's funny is I ended up having a very long call with my dad because my dad was just, he was alone back in South Dakota. So we were just talking, he was batching it up. And we were talking about, uh, talking about the show and stuff.

Oh, good. I'd love to hear his perspective. It's May 11th. And we are here at the Y-ReFi Studios in Phoenix, Arizona and I have my family in town. My father-in-law is in the studio watching on, which is a, which is a treat. So welcome, welcome. Hope we don't disappoint. We're going to get the show started off the right way with Andrea Burkart, back by popular demand. We had her on. She is a legal commentator, experienced trial and appellate litigator. She can also find her at Substack at

Andrea Burckhardt.com, spelled B-U-R-K-H-A-R-T. That's how you find her. But we had a hearing obviously with the Tyler Robinson trial on Friday and there is much to discuss. So we'll welcome in right now. Andrea, welcome back to the show. Hey, thank you so much for having me back. Yeah, you know, I have to give you a little, I have to chide you just a little bit because last time we had you on, you let us know that your prediction was that the trial was not going to happen until early 2028. I saw you clip that and we're making fun of our reaction. I think the whole world was groaning along with us, I would like to say, because it's sitting in this seat, I will tell you, that is not what you want to hear. I know. You know, it's just the whole, the wheels of justice move,

in my opinion, almost a little bit too slow. But that's where we're at. And hopefully you are wrong. And we get the under on that, not the over. All right. So on Friday, we had a hearing that was basically to decide the issue of cameras in the courtroom, as well as the defense's request for an extension before the, I guess, preliminary hearing, evidentiary hearing. I've heard it referred to both ways. Tell us what did we learn? Obviously, there was a ruling on the cameras that the judge graph was going to deny their request, but it's more complicated than that. Yeah, it's a little bit more nuanced than just the cameras are in or the cameras are out. What had happened with this motion was that the defense was seeking a categorical ban on cameras in the courtroom, essentially for the rest of

the case. And that's in a bit of a conflict with Utah law, which has some of the most camera favorable rules anywhere in the country. And so they have a number of procedures and requirements that you have to go through to get a camera in the courtroom. But once, assuming you follow those procedures, they are extremely permissive. And there's a presumption that they will allow it to happen. So what has happened is that Judge Graff denied the defense motion for a category He said that is not consistent with what Utah law provides. However, because Utah law in its own procedure already allows for there to be objections or concerns about certain factors the judges to consider, such as the defendant's effect on the defendant's right to a fair trial, that the defense

can still continue to raise those issues. They're just going to have to do it on a hearing by hearing basis and not as a general overarching rule that that cameras would not be allowed. So there was a, it's like a 14 week or 14 day advance, right? So if I am, let's say I'm CBS News or any island. Let me get centered up here. I get, I have to present my request 14 days in advance. And then there is an opportunity for the defense to basically object. And I saw a clip of yours basically saying the defense is now almost obligated to object to every single request for a media credential to this hearing. Am I reading that right? They may be if this is an issue that they are intending to preserve for future review down the road, which is kind of classic for defense lawyers

to be doing, to be thinking, you know, through the appeal, through the post-conviction process and so forth. They have framed this issue as one of a federal constitutional. magnitude. And so there are a lot of procedural hurdles that go along with potentially raising something like that in a federal court a long time down the road. And one of them is that you have to exhaust your remedies in the trial court and you have to fully preserve the issue. So there is, I think, a potential argument that a prosecutor on the other side would be able to make that if they did not object to cameras at any specific hearing that the defense has essentially waived any kind of objection to cameras being in the courtroom for that, at least for that particular proceeding.

So I do think it puts a little bit of an onus on them if their objective is to have an opportunity for a future appellate court to look at whether cameras in general as a big picture, specific to this case, whatever, are a problem with a fair trial. they are kind of stuck now with having to do a little bit of extra work to make sure that they have not waived that right. Yeah, they've just made more work for themselves, essentially. And one of the things I've learned from your commentary, Andrea, is just how much of these motions, these hearings, and you call papering the record, are really done with the express intent of future appeals, essentially, because then it will be appealed. if you make the presumption that this would end in a guilty verdict because of the evidence that you already are aware exist against Tyler Robinson, then you're going to say, well, we're going to then appeal it at the state level. And then eventually the federal courts are going to get involved on a follow-up appeal.

And it seems like so much of these chess moves that we're seeing play out where you're like, what are they doing? It's all playing down the line, the long game, assuming appeals. Is that fair? Absolutely. I mean, that's always going to be part of the role of defense counsel, particularly in a case like this, a death penalty case. It's very consistent with the strategies that these particular defense lawyers kind of traditionally employ in the cases that they work on. And it's just, it's one of the aspects of being effective as a defense attorney is having to think five years down the road, 10 years down the road, which I know now, now it's, Now we're throwing out numbers you guys really don't want to hear. But that, you know, just is the unfortunate reality of death penalty litigation. There's many, many steps to it and many pitfalls along the way. And so that is what they're being attuned to as they go through this trial process.

So what about like just the court live stream that's not connected to a CBS or a local affiliate or anything like that? Is that that's going to be permitted or do we not know? Well, so when the court has these WebEx hearings like they had on Friday, where they are just digitally present in court, they're not all there in the courtroom. Typically, we have been able to view those and restream them. And so the cameras in the courtroom is generally referring to a media agency from the outside, bringing a camera in. But if they are having live courtroom hearings, not clear to me if WebEx is available or some kind of alternative camera feed of the court's own system that they might be able to rely on. Interesting. So a little bit TBD on the mechanics of this, but we know generally, directionally, we're going to probably have video of the actual trial.

That's kind of what I'm gathering. Okay. The court grants defendants motion and reschedule the preliminary hearing for July 6th, July 7th. the afternoon of July 8th, July 9th, and July 10th, 2026, in order to protect the defendant's constitutional rights while minimizing a necessary delay and preserving the fair, prompt, and impartial administration of justice. This is the order of the court. All right. So we have just played that clip from Judge Graff announcing the delay of the preliminary hearing to July 6 through the 10th. Andrea, what do you make of this type of delay? They were obviously asking for more time. He erred on the side of less than half of what they were asking for. What do you read into this?

This is in many ways, I think, the judge's equivalent of what we were just talking about with the attorneys looking down the road for future appeals and so forth. Generally speaking, the defense can only appeal rulings that go against them. And so in cases where you want to maybe just minimize unnecessary grounds to potentially argue that there was some type of problem in the process, you can just err on the side of granting the defense what they want. And so in this particular case, I think this is Judge Graff playing it safe. He cited primarily the very large volume of discovery that has been produced in the case. I have to tell you just from my perspective, the numbers that we have been talking about in terms of the terabytes of information that have been handed over are pretty mind-boggling. And they kind of previewed this at the last hearing when the defense had been arguing that they wanted more opportunity to investigate some of the state's underlying DNA evidence and firearms evidence and so forth.

But the judge kind of cut them off and asked them very specifically about just the extent to which they'd been able to review the discovery so far. And all of the attorneys in turn indicated, no, just given the volume, they haven't had time to review everything. So I think it's largely that that is driving this particular decision. That's why it was not the extended continuance that the defense was asking for. It's not for purposes of greater investigation or expanding the purpose of the preliminary hearing. It's just to make sure they've had an opportunity to be familiar with what is going to be presented and where it fits into the discovery picture. So I think if I remember right, the first time we had you on, Andrea, I think you predicted they wouldn't delay it. Does even this short continuance, does it adjust your expected timeline for the trial as a whole?

or do you think we'll probably end up on the same timeline as before, which was already, unfortunately, quite long? Yeah, you know, that's a very good question. I mean, in general, I would say it gives us a little bit of insight into Judge Graff's perspective on the case and the timelines. So it may show a little bit more lenience towards allowing the defense of the time that they need to develop their strategies and their case. Obviously, when you're getting ready for trial, it's a different situation in terms of what you actually have to do to prepare than getting ready for this preliminary hearing.

So it may be an indication that he will allow them, you know, a greater opportunity to pursue leads. And like I mentioned last time, we already know there's going to be challenges to scientific evidence and so forth. And so it is possible that he may be more amenable to extending the trial date further down. the road. Yeah, interesting. So I, you know, my basic gist of what happened was that, hey, I'm, I'm grateful for the ruling on the cameras. That is something that Erica herself has, through, through her legal team, expressed that she wants to happen. I agree with that. Charlie's assassination was extraordinarily public. And it only follows that we would have a public trial where, you know, sunlight is the best disinfect it. I want to see everything. I think it's good for this entire

conspiracy cottage industry that's emerged around this case for them to have to confront the actual evidence, the physical evidence. And I want everybody to see that. And they get to see the defense challenge it, too. That's the system of laws we have. And we want that. We don't want this to be sort of jammed through the court system. We want the real process to play out. And I think it'll be good for the country to have an education on the way that a capital case like this could work. And by the way, if it had been reversed that there was no cameras and with no delay, I would have been upset about that. And so, you know, okay, a little bit of an extension, five, six weeks, whatever it is,

as opposed to six months. And we're getting that sort of definitive ruling that the motion on cameras in the courtroom is being denied. I think I take this on the whole, I guess is what I'm saying. You know, if I had to have it the other way, I wouldn't want it. So I'll be sort of begrudgingly satisfied with the judge's decisions here. It's kind of my basic take. It's the end result that matters. Yeah, it is, ultimately.

What are we looking for next? I mean, Judge Graff has been extremely fair so far throughout this process. In many ways, he's been kind of a blessing of a judge for this particular case. He's just demonstrated a lot of patience, a lot of understanding, and they're very much skills that a judge is going to need over a long run case like this. Yeah, I've seen that actually sort of across the board. People have been complimentary of this judge. And it does seem like, you know, from my perspective as somebody that does believe that Tyler Robinson is guilty in this case and that I want to see justice served, I may not like some of the hoops that have to be jumped through to sort of protect this on appeal.

But it does seem that he's being prudent. He's being fair. And he's not giving a whole lot of opportunity. I mean, the appeals are going to happen. It's a capital case, right? This is how it's been explained to me. It's just going to happen. there's no way around it essentially with our system.

And so on the whole, you do take it as a blessing that he seems to be cognizant of the fact that this is going to be drawn out over years, maybe a decade. And he's playing that long game already right now to make sure everything's on the up and up and doesn't give them unnecessary opportunity for getting this overturned on appeal. What are you looking for next? So is there additional hearings that we need to keep our eye out on between now and July 6th? Yeah, so the next hearing that is coming up, since they had already set aside the time the week of May 18th to do the preliminary hearing, they went ahead and rescheduled some pending motions to be heard. They're actually going to be heard on the 19th in the morning. And the primary one that I think is going to be of interest is that the defense is asking to hold one of the prosecuting attorneys in contempt of the court's gag order. And this is based on a series of public statements that the prosecutor made in response to headlines that were primarily in the Daily Mail, but, you know, got proliferated through other sources and so forth, that indicated kind of misleadingly that the FBI was unable to match the bullet recovered from Charlie's autopsy, the bullet fragment, to the rifle

that was associated with Tyler Robinson. this had been reported as, you know, being exonerating and no match and so forth, but that's not the, that's not what that result means. And so the prosecutor had given some statements kind of clarifying, here's what this result means. And the defense is arguing that that's a problem. They should not have been allowed to do that. So we're going to see that on May 19th. Yes. Andrew Burkart, check out her substack and her live streams. Excellent work, Andrew. I'm sure we will see you soon. Thank you. My pleasure. If you're about to turn 65 and you're already on Medicare, this message is for you. Charlie cared about America's seniors.

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Dial pound 250, pound 250, and say Charlie Kirk to make sure you're in the best available plan. That's pound 250 and say Charlie Kirk or go to askchapter.org slash Kirk. We are joined on set by Daisy. Welcome back. Happy Mother's Day. Your first Mother's Day as a mother. So congratulations. It was lovely.

Good. Yes, you are sort of like officially, unofficially back coming into the office. As much as I love my job, I do miss my baby. Well, we figured we'd throw you in the deep end and put you on the show day one. So welcome back. All right. So I woke up this morning to a number of press inquiries. This was like TMZ.

Z, Entertainment Weekly, Fox. It was like the whole, we ran the whole gamut. And they were asking me about a particular comment by a particular, we'll say, comedian, actor, that made a joke, I guess, at, I guess, kill Tony's expense, but it was really sort of at Charlie's expense. And I don't want to go into detail, but many of you in the audience probably know about it. There was a roast of Kevin Hart on Netflix over the weekend. And it was sort of the follow-up to the roast of Tom Brady, which I actually watched and thought was funny.

It was a little bit raunchy at times. The Tom Brady one was good. I did not watch the Kevin Hart one last night, but I watched the Tom Brady one. I thought it was like pretty good. All things considered for a raunchy roast, which all roast are pretty raunchy. But at least Tom Brady's, it felt light. It felt genuinely happy. Everybody was kind of in good spirits.

This just, I didn't watch it. So maybe I should hold back my full opinion. But this just felt a little bit darker, a little bit more vicious. The jokes were less funny and more sort of like, like cringe-inducing. Anyways, Pete Davidson made a comment that referenced Charlie's assassination. And apparently, I mean, it was all over my ex-feed this morning. So we brought in our cultural commentator to help us address it. Well, I think we should say what the joke is.

You want to say it? want to say it. I found it that distasteful. I get it, but if we're going to discuss it, I think we're not going to show the video, but I think we should say what it was. So if you're sensitive to this, mute this briefly, I'm just going to explain what the joke was. So Pete Davidson

was at this rote of Tony Hinchcliffe. What was of Kevin Hart? Yeah, so, but as a roast, you're ridiculing a bunch of different people. Yeah, you go after everybody. Yeah, so a roast of Kevin Hart, Hart, but he was roasting Tony in the audience. Yeah. And Pete Davidson, who's a comedian, celebrity, who just got all his tattoos removed.

Famous for dating way out of his league. Yes. A variety of things. He did get his tattoos removed, which we discussed positively on thought crime, I will note. But he said this joke going after Tony Hinchcliffe. Tony is here looking like both a child molester and the doll. They give to the child to show where he touched them. And then he continues.

Tony reminds me of Charlie Kirk in that he's definitely been on camera letting a guy unload in his throat. Now, I will note, the Hollywood Reporter says, and I confirmed watching the video, the audience response is not positive to this. There's actually a very big groan in the audience. You see a couple people laughing, but mostly the audience is not into that joke. So that's a good sign. I think a lot of people do see it. The Hollywood reporter went on and said, right, that it was too early? Yeah, yeah, the audience response suggested that it's too early for jokes about what happened to Charlie. Well, and I just want to say this. So when Charlie got, I would say, roasted by South Park, I remember my first reaction was like, this is amazing.

This is the coolest thing ever happened. Like, lean in, lean in Charlie. And he absolutely did. It's not that we don't love humor and that we can't laugh along with actually funny jokes. I would make two observations. One, this is about somebody who was murdered. and in really the most grotesque, like, public way imaginable, and he happens to be our close friend. And so for me, my perspective is just I can't obviously divorce myself from the immediacy of the person that we're, you know, talking about here, Charlie.

But two, you know, I just, I don't think it was funny. And when I saw the clip this morning, my instinct was my, I just cringed because kind of in the similar vein that the people, in the audience, like, that groan because, you know, I'm, listen, I'm not here to tell comedians that they can't do it. You can joke about whatever you want. I think comedy can be a really powerful outlet, especially when the culture was getting increasingly woke, guys like Dave Chappelle, or like this release valve on some of these tense cultural moments. I thought they were really important. I think comedians can be very important. For this particular moment, I just, just felt distasteful. Well, it's not a question of can you or can you not say something.

Anyone can say what they want to say. It's more of a question of should we be saying all these things? And it's also just a question of morality, I feel like. Maybe we all need to be called to a higher standard. I know that comedy is supposed to be crass and it's supposed to be on the line. It's not supposed to be crass necessarily. It's supposed to be challenging and provocative. Comedy has more of an allowance to be crass.

You can lean that. way but the issue that I have with this more so than anything is that we were talking about Pete Davidson's roast that they did of him Pete Davidson's dad died in 9-11 he was a firefighter in New York he died going up one of the towers and then the tower collapsed and his roast was filled with jokes about that which I equally think is disgusting like not just as people who are was he upset about it or no he laughed along with it I'm pretty sure I'm sure like well because he was seven when it's dead so little context here though is just before that kill Tony had gone on stage and made a joke about

his dad being in the rubble or something uh and and instantly i sort of wondered was pete davidson's response a reaction to that maybe like he had the joke on standby and he was thinking about using it maybe wasn't but then once kill Tony did that he was like i'm definitely doing it now well and maybe i don't think so because 10 years ago in the roast of pete davidson it was already such a topic it was very public this is ground that's been tread before. So it probably didn't shock him. And I do wonder if maybe not even just a reaction specifically to Tony's joke, but just a reaction over all that, you know, Pete Davidson was seven when his dad died. He has been in comedy. So I think he is a lot more used to these kinds of jokes,

which I think are gross. But maybe for him, they're not as personal because he's had to separate himself from that. But I would have loved for him to have thought about, hey, I grew up without my dad. there are two kids out there who are growing up without their dad right now. And the less difficult I can make this on them throughout their lives, the better. Like I think that it's, I think it's gross to what, yes, it's so close. Like I think that's what the Hollywood reporter said. It was too soon. The audience didn't care for it.

To make these jokes, the audience didn't care for it. But I think, like I said, it's not a question of, sure, you're allowed to say these things. But I think we should all be thinking about should we say these things when they are, one, so many people that are affected by this. This, two, it was so public. And three, there is a family growing up there without their dad. And this is not going to be helpful or age well at all. I have a few thoughts on this.

I would say, as far as getting upset about it, I think there's other humor I've seen from other people that makes me a lot more upset. Like, I would say stuff that happened basically right away, dunking on Erica over, like, while she's very clearly grieving. I found that a lot more appalling than this. I didn't like this. I'm not going to laugh at it. But in a sense, what we are being reminded of is Charlie is an iconic figure, a very famous figure.

He, even people who didn't follow Charlie's stuff while he was alive, his death was basically the biggest news story in the country for that entire, arguably the entire year. And so a lot of people are going to have knowledge of that. a reaction to that and understanding of that moment. And that's going to lead to comedy. If you want an example, people make jokes about the JFK assassination. And they've been making humor out of that for a long time. And I don't think those jokes will ever be funny if you're RFK Jr. Or if you're someone from his family.

But it's just, it's inevitable because they're such a cultural touchstone. Yeah, I agree. I think this is inevitable. At some point, I feel sort of just bound to the fact that, I am now facing an existence where I'm going to get media inquiries for the foreseeable future because people reference it. In a dark way, I am happy that Charlie is an iconic figure because he deserves to be. And it's going to have a lot of upside for faith, for revival, for setting a role model for conservatives. But the downside is he's going to be a subject of humor because anything great is subject to humor.

So we were sort of talking about how Kill Tony and Charlie had, I wouldn't say they were friends or anything close, but they didn't know each other. Mutuals. There was a time, especially before the election, when comedy and the conservative movement were kind of conjoining forces. All the podcasters were in the mix. Well, yeah, at the Madison Square Garden, he made the joke about Puerto Rico that went viral. Oh, gosh. Yes. We have a picture of them from our inaugural ball.

And there you can see Tony in the back. The other thing I would note is it did happen at a roast. And I think roast set apart in terms of this is where comedy is really offensive and anything goes. And if you don't want to see it, you should not watch roast. Yeah, I mean, you also can't escape the clips on the Monday morning. Yeah, I would just say. I still don't like it. I still don't like it.

But that's where this is going to happen. My full reaction is, did I like it? No, of course I didn't. Do I find it distasteful? Of course I found it distasteful. Am I shocked? Not at all. Hollywood is a pretty dark place and they make pretty raunchy, bad, inappropriate jokes.

A lot of these guys are just going to do that. So what are you going to do, to your point? He is an icon. He is a figure of history now. And that has upsides, that has downside. So it is what it is. I want to close the real quick on the topic just now because producer Angelo had some very good thoughts on it, which you just pointed out,

said it was at a roast roast, roasts are offensive humor. And he says, the point of a roast is to cross the line, but you keep receipts on everyone who crossed those lines and the people who laughed at it. Those are the stakes. Those are the rules.

All right. So Pete Davidson, you cross the line. So anything goes with Pete Davidson jokes in the future. Maybe we should host a roast. Yeah, we're going to do a roast of Pete Davidson. Oh, dear. He should come in studio. I bet that would actually, that would be great. We should get Pete Davidson and kill Tony.

right here we'll have to make sure that we are capable of making funny funny jokes first but uh i could make some funny jokes about pete davidson all right um he did just have a baby like around the same time i did yeah four four to half how l c hughett don't have babies him and i believe it's his wife but him and elsie huitt had a baby and yeah he's married i don't know if they got married but i know that they he was they have obviously done married things with his partner with his partner welcome their first child on December 12th 2025 anyway we'll keep that in mind we have the receipts there uh mr davidson and uh we we probably will use them because why not you did um all right so i want to get into this story we haven't talked much about it president trump gave and i i do feel obligated sort of give the you know necessary

we're going to get into it with citizen kane in the next segment but uh iran is in a stalemate still, they sent a, I guess a counterproposal to President Trump. He didn't like it over the weekend, so we're monitoring that story. We're keeping tabs on the Iran story. But in the meantime, there is a haunt of virus outbreak,

and we have not talked about it at all, because, you know, it's kind of like We don't want to feed the next... Yeah, we don't want masks, and we don't want mass hysteria. Do we have two weeks to control the spread? I will tell you, people on TikTok are getting PTSD already. Yeah, oh, dear.

You know, it's like, I totally agree. This is why I'm bringing it up because I've seen some ridiculous, I guess, reactions online. And so we want to deal with that. Let's go ahead and play SOT 22. CDC teams are working side by side with Asper, with UNMC, and with state and local officials to conduct assessments and provide ongoing monitoring and care. This is what strong public health system looks like. experienced professional, seamless coordination, and a shared commitment to protecting the American people.

We'll continue to follow the science. We will stay vigilant and we will keep the public informed every step of the way. All right. So there, I mean, obviously this is, you know, we've got, we've got the Assistant Secretary of Health, Admiral Brian Christine on the CDC's response to the haunted virus. That means they're bringing out, you know, official people and making sure everybody feels safe and secure. So there was a cruise ship. This is another example of why cruise ships can be problematic. Actually, a lot of people love cruise ships. I'm not saying you shouldn't do them. But this does seem to be.

Remember when we... That was also a thought-com topic. Where coronavirus was a cruise ship. Remember we had... I forget what the name of that cruise ship was. Oh, gosh, you're right. I totally forgot about it. It was stuck out there.

And it was kind of like the first petri dish for people to study. And like five or six people on that ship died, didn't they? People died. And I think they were stuck on the ship with the dead. Passengers. Yeah. Yeah, they were. And it was kind of like a test case to see what the survival rate was, what, you know, how it was going. But so here's the truth about hauntavirus is that it can be passed person to person, but it's very rare. And I've heard the description of it is that it is inefficient. And then so I get into the office and Daisy's like, well, it's in Arizona now. I'm like, wait, what? We have confirmed cases. That's not quite the case. There are, I think, five states that they're monitoring. It was New Mexico. California, California, Arizona, Washington, New Jersey. In Virginia. Yes. Oh, and it says Georgia as of May 26.

Okay. Sorry, not Washington. Yeah, no, not Washington. So, okay, what this means is there were people on board the cruise ship that have been flown back. They went to, I believe, Nebraska, and they're being monitored for if they exhibit any signs of the Haunted virus. Yes. Also, I just need to apologize. I was reading the previous high. of states that had it the current states Arizona California Georgia New Jersey Texas and Virginia those are the states

they're being monitored monitored they don't have some huge outbreak okay they're tracking residents from the crucially the hauntivirus is about 30 to 40% fatal so I've never even heard of it have you guys heard of it yeah I've heard of it I've heard of it but it's not a very common disease it's just I don't know if they have any intel yet on where this originated from

but we will get the assistant secretary in his own words again explaining comforting you out there that this is not COVID 2.0. SOT 21. And let me be clear. Let me be crystal clear. The risk of hanta virus to the general public remains very, very low. The Andes variant of this virus does not spread easily and it requires prolonged close contact with someone who is already symptomatic. even so we have taken this situation very seriously. Yeah. So that's usually how it is. If a disease is going to have that high of a fatality, it does at least spread more slowly,

more with more difficulty. It's like Ebola. Ebola is an absolutely horrible virus, but you only got it by direct contact with body fluids as opposed to aerosol. Yeah, exactly. That was what made COVID particularly challenging is the way it's spread. Yeah. And by the way, I got the OG COVID because I went to Florida.

I've never had it. Never had it. My husband's gotten every single fan. I bet you've had it. I just thought it was a cold. But now, now, you know, COVID coronavirus is, it's like basically the common cold at this point. It's weakened over time. But the OG was the original COVID was legitimately.

It would not be on your back. The panic was, it was the diamond princess. And 700 people on the ship got infected. And as many as four. 14 of them die. It says 7 to 14. I don't know how they have that big of a range for this discrete group of people. But that's what happened to them panicking. They made a documentary about it. Did they? COVID Cruz. Yeah. COVID Cruz. Goodness. It's going to be a horror film. It's what I need more documentary. Yeah, exactly. All right, but here's the bottom line. Do not panic.

This is an inefficient human to human spreader. This is not COVID 2.0. And even if they tried to start doing that stuff, we will fight back. We will leave the charge. Okay. I want to talk to you about an issue. so many Americans face, and that's health insurance. There's an organization I really, really appreciate called Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM is a faith-based alternative to health insurance. And this is real stuff, folks. Like, you've got to listen in. With CHM, you're not paying into a company's profit margin. You're investing in a community with less overhead than the competition. You get reliable support through the giving and prayer of fellow members. Members contribute every month to

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Happy to be here. Well, we appreciate it. I think we should start just calling this segment vibes or vibe check with Kane. Vibe check with Kane. Kane, you have your finger on the pulse of the conservative movement, the base, probably better than anybody else around. You get this constant feedback loop with your audience, millions and millions of people every day checking citizen-free press for their news and updates. So the question, Kane, what are the vibes? Well, they're very positive after the end of last week, obviously. we had some really nice you know

a Virginia Supreme Court decision and the U.S. Supreme Court decision so it was a really good weekend yeah people are you know I think a lot of as we look forward to midterms obviously you know we don't really even know the issues that are going to be in play in you know in late October early November

but a lot of it is excitement and getting you know and getting millions of voters sorry I got a phone call there That was actually my mom. I just hung up on her. We'll see how she responds to that.

Right after Mother's Day, hopefully you got a lot of credit for a job well done yesterday. I did. It was a huge amount. I think she actually, that's about a bathroom cabinet that she needs moved that was delivered this morning. But yeah, look, I'm going to go ahead and predict it. I don't think I'm really going out on a limb,

really going out on a limb here, but I think we're going to have record turnout for midterms. I think these midterms are going to be the highest turnout, at least of the modern era. I'm not sure what turnout used to be like before the Internet. So that's sort of the vibe. You know, we're already kind of getting into that mode. You've got Texas, you know, May 26th is that Texas runoff election,

and the early voting for that actually begins on the 18th, which is next Monday. And so people will... people will you know they need to get better right because Texas has sort of a weird thing they have an open primary so if you haven't if someone didn't vote in the earlier part of the or in the first primary

not the runoff they're actually able to come in and vote for either party so there's a danger that Democrats could sort of sneak in in Texas and try to vote you know try to vote and and affect that race vote for Cornyn and prevent us from getting Paxton. Although I'll say last thing, there's a chance, you know, if Democrats actually believe, I don't believe it myself.

I think that if Cornyn's the nominee, I think it depresses turnout on the Republican side. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, that electing Paxton is dangerous. I think if so, so anyway, but Democrats, at least they're spewing that. So, you know, I'm not sure how they would get involved, you know, what they would do to, you know, in that open primary if they would try to vote for Cornyn or Paxton. But anyway, people need to be aware. If you're in Texas, you can start voting early on the 18th.

And then we have the Virginia sneaky plan. I don't know if you guys talked about that. We should 100% because that's very fascinating. I guess they have to do it by tomorrow if they're going to do anything. I don't think they're likely to. Explain what it is. So this happened, the surface over the weekend. As you remember, last Friday, we got the great ruling from the Virginia Supreme Court,

struck down the referendum with their map because it was the illegal. they flagrantly broke the Constitution to do it. And Virginia Democrats started to flip out and over the weekend reported in the New York Times as a real idea that was passing around, they were contemplating convening the legislature and rush passing a bill to lower the mandatory retirement age on the Virginia Supreme Court because they have one from mid-70s to, I believe 53, which would be younger than all the current justices. Yeah, the youngest is 54. They force retire all of them, replace the entire Supreme Court with people who will just

instantly bring back the referendum, let them do whatever they want. An insane constitutional coup d'etat if they do that. And I was thinking what you said about turnout, getting amped up, and there's two ways to read this. On the one hand, we hear people think, oh, Democrats are doing well, they're polling well, they might have a good midterm, but they seem to be flipping out. They are in constant panic. But the other, the flip side of that is they seem so agitated, that would be a sign they're probably going to turn out in big numbers. Yeah, you're right. So here's the headline from the New York Times.

It says a private call reveals Democrats' desperation over tossing of map, a conversation involving House members from Virginia and the Top House Democrat. We do have this image, guys. Top House Democrat reflected the fury and desperation that has gripped the party after Friday's ruling in the state. And of course, that's Hakeem, the bad dream. Jeffreys there. And I will just, let's play this clip just because, Kane, I think this gives a good indication of the current mental state of the Democrat Party. You know, Hakeem Jeffries, you've got to

imagine, given his role is, you know, within the leader of the minority party in the House, he's getting incoming from everybody. You need to look like you're fighting. You need to fight back. This is a bloodbath. You guys are losing the addition. You can imagine the pressure from the activist base is going to be tremendous. Sats, Republicans are in panic mode. Remember, Ali, when we took the House back in 2018, we were 24 seats short. We crossed over that hurdle, and in fact, in 2018, we flipped a total of 40 seats. So we're going to take back control of the House of Representatives. We're going to continue to make clear to the American people that we will lower their high cost of living, fix a broken health care system, and clean up the corruption that we're seeing in the country, in the Congress, certainly with the Supreme Court, and the deal with the most corrupt administration in American history. Now, we're going to need nationwide judicial reform. We're going to need nationwide electoral reform.

We're going to need nationwide campaign finance reform, which is why we have to take the House back, take the Senate back, keep pressing forward, and then in 2028, take the presidency back as well. Do you hear what he's calling for, Kane, there, electoral reform, nationwide judicial reform? They, they, what they're trying to do in Virginia with, you know, mass retiring, forcing the mass retirement of the bench there is exactly what they would try and do, dramatic, dramatic, probably I would say unconstitutional steps, really certainly beyond the pale of our norms and customs and traditions as a country and as a body politic.

They would do this nationwide. Yeah, they would. And I think they would, I think they would end the filibuster and they would pack the U.S. Supreme Court. I think that's, yeah, I think that's pretty obvious. Hakeem Jeffries, yeah, I mean, Blake explained it pretty well. They had, they're freaking out in Virginia. They had, they had, you know, conference calls and meetings all weekend long trying to look at what alternatives there might be to kind of, you know, to kind of flip this again. I don't see, I don't see Spanberger agreeing to it. I think there are a lot of sort of constitutional issues, and I think it would, it would just be

such blatant naked hypocrisy if they were to do it. But, you know, one thing, I watched a lot of CNBC, excuse me, a lot of MSNBC and CNN this weekend. You know, they're all freaking out about the Supreme Court, Louisiana, the Calais decision. But what they're not talking about is the fact that they were perfectly happy, and they're perfectly happy right now to have the Northeast, have zero, you know, 13 states in the Northeast have zero Republicans, and yet they freak out about what, you know, what may happen in the South. So it's blatant hypocrisy. I enjoy listening. to them cry, getting back to Blake's point about turnout. I think it's going to drive their turnout, though. That's why I think Trump's going to really turn this in to try to make this a

presidential midterms, really do a lot of rallies. So we're going to need it. We're going to need turnout. So yes, this, this, the vibe check is positive. I'm still worried about our turnout. I agree with you that the gutting of section two of the Voting Rights Act will definitely inspire them to get out. They're, they're already doing the Jim Crow 2.0 and the, the, this is white supremacy stuff and it i mean it's it's literally it's pure insanity and they're they're doing all that stuff i'm still worried i have not seen proof yet that our turnout is going to be robust and that's my concern and no and again i'm i'm worried about the iran stuff i think iran is going to be depressing a lot of turnout i think there's a lot of support in this audience for the

president's action in iran but i'm worried that some of that coalition that we built and had of 2024 is not as enthusiastic. Your your your your your your vibe check came. Well, I think that you know, the last statement you made is correct. There's no doubt that a certain percentage, you know, a certain part of the of the Trump base vehemently opposed to this war. And so it's going to hurt us a little. My, you know, look, I'm trying to be optimistic. But I also know that Susie Wiles has set a that this, you know, that Trump is going to campaign for these midterms like no president, no sitting president has ever done before. So I'm sort of counting on that. I'm counting on lots of rallies in August and September and October. And I'm counting on sort of, you know,

people understanding what's at stake, that impeachment's at stake, that, you know, I guess, you know, packing the Supreme Court, I think to do that, that's a complicated thing. I haven't really looked into. Let's say the Senate were to pass that. that, right? And the house. Let's say they won both, you know, they won both houses of Congress. I'm not sure if that's something that has to be signed by the president, so Trump would still be able to veto. So maybe they won't be able to pack it and, you know, maybe you guys can do that research really quick. But either way, you know, I think we need to scare our base. We need to scare the elector, the Republican electorate, the Republican electorate, the Republican electorate, the

MAGA electorate and let them know how important this is. You know, we're talking about the maps. I'm still, all weekend long, I've been pissed off about these maps. There's that meme going around where it says, like, it shows, you know, the Northeast with no Republican seats in 13 states, and they call that protecting democracy. And then they show the South where there would still be a few Democrat seats. And they call that, you know, treasonous to the Constitution. And I want to remind people, because I wanted to know the numbers in Texas. So Texas used to be 2513 in congressional seats before. before the change made three or four months ago.

Now it's 30 to 8. So I think, you know, this is getting a little bit longer term. But once the new census kicks in in 2030, maybe even in 2028, Texas can change their map again. I mean, if Virginia is willing to go to 11 or excuse me, 10 to 1 and all these northeast states can be zero Republicans, I'm not sure that Texas, you know, we'll see. We'll see how rough it gets. But I just want to remind Democrats that we've got eight seats, or they have eight seats in Texas,

that we don't necessarily have to allow them to have if they really want to play hardball. Yeah, and I love how we've seen examples where they're discussing, oh, should we gerrymander Illinois even more? They have that map where they call it, is it time to computer chip Illinois? Because it literally looks like circuits on a computer chip. And they do all of that to pick up two seats in Illinois. And then you look at Florida and, you know,

a similarly aggressive deranged gerrymander. And it's just like normal looking districts. They all like nice squares and blocks. and then every Democrat jurymander looks like it was dropped from a Tron movie. Yeah, it's literally spaghetti where every, they have a proposed map. Kane, I don't know if you've seen it where every single spider web goes right up to Chicago. So you could be in the south of Illinois and you'd be sharing a district with some portion of Chicago because that's just, it's so dominated by Democrats.

On the question of turnout, I just had the bizarre thought because we're saying Trump needs to do a bunch of rallies. Can the GOP turnout if President Trump isn't on the ballot? And I did just have the deranged thought Enter my head. What if every Senate and House candidate changed their name to Donald Trump? So then Trump would be on the ballot? That would be extreme. That would be extreme.

All right, I got to play. This is Mark Elias. He is erupting. He's in rage mode, Cain. This is, of course, the Democrats dirty trickster lawyer who says he's fighting for election integrity and for fairness in election. Really, he's just trying to rig the

game further for the Democrats. That's not heard you this angry in a long time. Have we learned nothing? I mean, have we learned nothing? Has the broader legal community not learned anything? Have the other than the civil rights groups? Have people not learned that when you do this to black voters, it turns out bad for democracy for everybody? So, yeah, I'm angry.

I'm angry because of the appalling silence that's going on right now around this case. I am here for it, Kane, right into my veins. If Mark Elias is that upset, then something good is happening. Something good is definitely happening. Mark Elias, freaking out like that. Man, I'm going to put that. That's going to be like my wake-up tone, like my alarm in the morning. That will get you right up out of bed.

Kane, your reaction. Yeah, I enjoyed it. I can't remember what headline I pulled with that, maybe wah, wah, wah, Mark last. Yeah, I mean, you can, you can just watch him and judge how, you know, the far left socialist base is reacting. But I wanted, I wanted to comment on a few things you guys mentioned. So one of you mentioned the Florida map. That's another, that's kind of like the Texas map. Like, even after the four seats that just switched, Democrats still have a large number of seats in Florida. And that can be, that can be for, you know, if they want to mess with this, they just need to know that we can mess back,

that we could take, you know, we could take more of their seats in Florida. You mentioned the Illinois thing everything's stretching up to chicago you know as a guy in southern indiana bloomington indiana university and by the way signetti and i u is going to the white house today at 4 p.m so if people want if there are signetti and i u fans you may want to turn yes they're football triumph the great indiana football triumph yeah that's correct but so my point is you know southern indiana is all rural there's indianapolis and then you don't get anything until evansville in the deep south southern Illinois is exactly the same way. That state, most of Illinois, votes 70% Republican, 70% for Trump, but they get, you know, they get over, their numbers are, are canceled out by just crazy Cook County numbers.

And who knows how much cheating actually, yeah. Yeah, I mean, listen, if the Democrats end up trying to push through this Puerto Rico and D.C. as a state and all this garbage. I mean, I think we need to, I think we need to go full, full bore ahead with like Eastern Washington, Eastern. Oregon. We need to like break California into like three to five states. We need to get southern Indiana, or we need to get southern Illinois as a, as a, it's own state. I mean, we should, I mean, candidly, it's like if we have no rules and norms anymore, then we have no rules and norms anymore. And by the way, yeah, we've made other states in the, in the past, but it wasn't for partisan purposes. I'd love to make Hawaii a territory again. My goodness, that'd be great.

I'm not kidding. Like, that's just where I'm at right now. Kane, Citizen Free Press, it's a must go-to site. The stack is always active, and he's updating it every day. Citizen Kane, thank you so much, my friend. We'll talk to you soon. Enjoyed it. Thanks, guys. The war in Iran is having a devastating effect on the people living there locally. What most people don't realize is it's affecting everyone on the global scale as well,

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All right. Without further ado, I want to bring in Stephen Moore, author of the Trump Economic Miracle and chairman and co-founder of Enleash Prosperity. I sign up for his newsletter. You should to every day. Solid is a rock, consistent. Last time we had you on, Stephen, you're like, do you get the newsletter? And I was like, no, what are you talking about?

What newsletter? And now I get it every day and I read it every day because you always have interesting insights and a new vantage point on kind of how to think about. the economy. All right, we're hearing that Iran is kind of at, it's not going well. Like we were hoping there was going to be this peace deal. President Trump is saying the ceasefire is essentially on life support. What does that mean for the economy? Energy prices in particular, obviously 20% of the oil goes through the straight there, straight to Hormuz. What are you looking at? What are you expecting? Well, great to be with you again. And by the way, if people would like to get the, what we call the hotline,

just go to Unleashprosperity.com and sign up and it's absolutely free. It costs nothing. So there's no reason why people wouldn't get it. And if you want to be the smartest person in the room, listen to the Charlie Kirk show and get the hotline every. Thank you. So, look, it has been proven. It's been harder than we thought it would be, I think harder than I think the president thought it would be to get the situation, the supply chains open for the oil to flow

through the Strait of Hormuz. And we're now paying nationally about $4.25 a gallon for gas. That's up from less than $3 a gallon a few months ago. And that's like a tax on the U.S. economy. So it's one of the reasons that, you know, people are angry about prices. But I still remain confident that within, you know, a month or so, we're going to get the straight open. We're going to get gas prices back down as low as they were.

I mean, people forget that back, you go back to January and February, gas prices adjusted for inflation. under Trump were as low as they'd been in 50 years, everybody would love to see a return to that. Yeah. And so obviously that has trickle-down effects across the economy. But the upshot here is that we have got a great jobs report from April and then we adjusted up March. So I don't know how that's all working. I'm going to play a clip here. And you can tell me what you make of it's not for. This is a payroll for the last two months dominated by private payrolls. How do I know, Nicole, another 9,000 federal jobs lost. That means since the peak

in October 24, October 24, remember that date, the federal government has done 348,000 jobs. That's 11.5% cut in the federal workforce. Despite that, jobs are gaining. It's all private sector. It's quite amazing, actually. All right, so federal government is its smallest, that been since 1966. It's a huge accomplishment when we had this bloated federal bureaucracy, and yet jobs are still, we're still gaining despite what's happening in Iran. What do you make of it? What's driving this? Well, that phenomenon that you just talked about, the short way of describing this is to say that Donald Trump is doing what he promised to do, which is to drain the swamp. And we have three million civilian federal government workers. It should be about half that number.

And so Trump has done an amazing job against huge amounts of resistance in Washington, D.C. to reduce the massively the size of the federal workforce. And so kudos to Trump for doing that. All of these presidents who come in, they promise they're going to downsize the government. Trump has actually done it. So what we've seen is virtually, not virtually, but every single job that has been created under Donald Trump in his second term, every one of them has been a private sector job. remember when Biden was president we'd get these pretty good jobs reports saying oh 250,000 jobs were created and like half of them were government. Yep. Yeah. I wonder how long it's going to take actually just to like chip away at what Biden added to the federal workforce. Like when do we get to

parity there just to reset back to 2020? He's all Trump is almost fired as many federal workers as Biden has added them. So this is very good news. Now we have to start cutting the, you know, expenditures because it's a good thing to reduce the number of federal workers and regulators. And now we've got to get the spending down. I mean, look, we're facing a deficit of about $2 trillion. As you know, our national debt, this is a disgrace, is now larger than our annual GDP. And that is a prescription for economic disaster. That's why I love Doge. We need Doge Part 2, part 3, part 4. Keep finding. By the way, if you notice, the liberals do not want to expose the fraud in the programs. The report just came out last week from the general accounting

office, the auditor is finding $200 billion of fraudulent payments in these income transfer programs. And that's just the fraud that they know about. So the real number is probably four times higher than that. Yeah, it's obscene, actually. I want to talk about this issue of the federal deficit because affordability is such a huge topic of conversation. And rightly so, Steve, how do you make the point? Because listen, I understand that Iran is not helping things when you go to the gas pump and you realize gas is a $5 a gallon. But a lot of this came under Biden, right? We are still dealing with structural affordability issues that we inherited from Biden. Yeah, the attention span of the average voter is pretty short. They're just going to put that on the economic power that's in office now. They're going to blame Trump as opposed to understanding that's Biden. How do you make the case? When you're asked about affordability, whether that's housing, energy, what have you, explain it in layman's terms so people can understand it. A lot of this had to do with the massive spending that we experienced under Biden. And in general, the affordability crisis is the lords of easy money, this printing of money now in the 30 trillion plus.

So that's a great question. And we just ran these numbers that unleash prosperity. We estimate over the last roughly six years since the end of COVID. 80, ready for this, 80% of the increase in prices for things like groceries, things like housing, things like health care. 80% of that happened under Biden, not Trump. Now, the prices have trickled up a bit in the last few months because of the higher energy prices.

But I always say, yeah, are you angry about prices? Are you angry about what it costs to go to the grocery store? You should be. And you should be blaming Biden for that, not Trump. In fact, in Trump's first term, we had record low inflation. So it's really important for Republicans to make that message all the time and to connect the dots between it didn't just happen by coincidence. Why did we see the inflation grow up to as high as 9% under Biden, the worst record since Jimmy Carter was in office? And that happened because Biden came in and spent and borrowed and printed $4 trillion, period, hard stop.

And when you do that, when you spend that kind of money and you print that kind of money, what's going to happen to prices? they're going to go up. Milton Friedman taught us that. What is inflation? Too many dollars chasing two few goods. That's what we had under Biden. When you look back to the late 70s and 80s, Stephen Moore unleashed prosperity, when did that affordability crisis, that inflation crisis, when did people actually start feeling the relief? How long did it take? Well, so, you know, I was in my teens in the 70s and I arrived in Washington in the early 80s when Reagan was president. And it took Reagan about 18 months to get the, I mean, he succeeded three of the worst presidents in American history, Nixon Ford and Carter.

And so it took, it takes up a while to, but here's the thing. And I think this is exactly what's going to happen to Trump. So I'm glad you asked this question. You know, by the end of about the middle of 1982, everybody said, oh, Reaganomics is a catastrophe. It's a failure. We have to change course. And Reagan's up saying, no, stay the course, stay the course. Stay the course. And by the beginning of 1983, we had the biggest economic boom in American history was what the Wall Street Journal called the seven-year boom. And I think we could see that under Trump. As soon as we get oil prices down, I think you could see one of the great

economic booms like we had in the 80s. When I came to Washington, the Dow Jones was at a thousand, As soon as the Reagan boom started, here we are at Dow 50,000. So I'm very bullish on the U.S. economy if we can get a victorious and peaceful settlement there in the Middle East. Well, and Stephen, a lot of the reports right now is that corporate earnings are remaining high. That's why you're seeing the stock market go up. Are you seeing the economic underlying data that says that that is getting to the people, that we're seeing that in higher wages, whatever? Yeah, we are. In fact, we do a report every month that unleash prosperity that we give the data about six months before anybody else reports it.

So in Trump's first term, we saw a $6,000 after inflation increase in median income in the United States. That was the fastest growth of median income in terms of dollar amount in history. And then through 2025, Trump's first year of his second term, we saw a $2,500 increase. in real median income above inflation. So, yeah, Trump is now in the last couple months, inflation has gone up, so wages have fallen a little bit behind. But once we get inflation back down to 2%, I think you're going to see a real boom,

what Reagan used to call rising tide that will lift all boats. Stephen Moore, co-founder, and, I mean, honestly, unleash prosperity is a great resource. Everybody needs to check it out. Thank you. Get that daily email in your inbox and get educated. Be the smartest guy in the room. Stephen Moore, thank you.

God bless you. Thanks, guys. Have a great week. You too. All right, Blake. It is Monday, and we've had a lot of news here, and so much of it is now hinging upon President Trump's next move in Iran. We just talked about it with Stephen Moore. So much of the economy, this inflation, this uptick and inflation, is hinging on this.

the midterms hinge on this, it doesn't seem like we're about to get out of this anytime soon. That's my read on it. It seems like the blockade is working, but the Iranians are not just bailing on their aspirations to maintain a grip on power or to stop being a thorn in America's side. Yeah, I mean, it's the fundamental split of this war, actually, when you read about it, it's we obviously have way more resources, we have way more weapons, we can essentially bomb them at will, We can kill their leadership at will. But it's one of the most asymmetric conflicts ever in terms of, I think, commitment on each side. So, and that's what balances out.

That we have vastly more ability to project force on them. But actual enthusiasm for the conflict is very low with half the country. And even with the part that's in favor of it, it's not that they were chomping at the bit for the conflict, it seems. And then on the flip side, Iran, they're dying in large numbers. They're not really able to strike us. But it's an ideological conflict of such intensity that it does seem a lot of them have decided they'll just handle whatever pain it takes. And they'll just hope, you know, maybe we'll get a better deal in a year or a better deal in three years. Or maybe it just doesn't matter if we die.

It's in a law's hands. Well, and here's the issue. They, we have to remember, they killed 42,000 protesters in the streets in January in Iran. So I'm beginning to become convinced that this conference. conflict will not come to any sort of pure, clear, clean resolution with the regime that's currently in power, remaining in power. I'm not advocating for regime change. I'm simply saying that this regime was deeply entrenched into the power structure of this country, and the citizenry is not armed. Now, Trump has hinted that they could arm the Iranians, that they might be

getting weapons, and maybe that changes the calculation. But it doesn't seem like we're prepared to take out the regime and probably rightly so i think that would be a quagmire of incredible uh a incredible depth and duration that we do not want to enter into right now so the citizenry is terrified they're frightened they're probably traumatized from 42 000 other protesters being killed and then on top of all of this we have the chinese aspect right so president trump is going to be traveling to meet with ji over in china and apparently he's going to be bringing Fink, Elon Musk, Tim Cook, and about 15 other industries, Titans from the United States, talking about AI, talking about trade. There's a new Wall Street Journal report that President Trump might be

importing more beef to help lower prices and beef. It is a very tricky set of variables that President Trump is trying to navigate because on the one hand, he's got to bring down prices for affordability. He's got to show economic advancements and progress. But, he's got these international, I guess, you know, issues that we still have to work out in order to get forward progress in those areas. Well, it's such an interesting with him bringing those industry leaders because it gets at the double-edged nature of this, which is President Trump wants to bring up American industry. He wants America to be economically powerful and not just rich, but specifically productive. That's why we have all the tariffs that he wants to bring manufacturing back to the United States.

He wants things made in America, done in America, a very old-fashioned, but in my opinion, I think you would agree, correct view, that a nation is not strong unless it is actually wielding the elements of strength. We can't just import everything from China. And yet, those business leaders who are the best manifestations we have of that are probably the ones who are also lobbying him the hardest to lower those tariff barriers because it's always that temptation.

It'll actually work out better for us if we have, more trade with China, if we offshore more things to China, if we build more things in China. It'll work out better for everyone. That was the sales pitch we were made in the 90s and 2000s, and we now know that that was kind of a sucker's play. Yeah, well, it's a very interesting thing, because again, Trump is balancing multiple inputs all at the same time. Okay, so we want to lower the affordability issue. Again, Stephen Moore just said that 80% of the affordability issue was created because of Joe Biden's terrible policies. I think that's, That's a really important talking point. I want you all to log that. 80% of the affordability crisis

that we are currently experiencing for blue-collar working-class people in this country was created as a direct result of Biden's policies. So then you inherit these problems where your population is suffering under a mountain of affordability issues, housing, health care, education. How much can you push the envelope to achieve long-term beneficial goals, namely tariffs, right? If you're tariffing goods that are hauling out, your working class, your industrial base, how much pain can the population take to achieve a long-term end? That is the conundrum that you're in when you inherit such a mess from the previous administration without getting saddled with it politically.

And 100%. And it's interesting because President Trump is, he is a man of tremendous political instincts. And so he put it lightly, like he often is a guy who's very focused on how does this play in the next few weeks, in the next few months. He's a guy who he often takes the short-term view of politics, which I think is innate to his attitude. If you read the art of the deal, he says, I don't get too high or too low because everything can change in a moment. And so I think he thinks, I should focus on short-term stuff because I have no idea what the future is going to be, so you might as well do what makes sense now. And tariffs are actually one of the big exceptions to that, where he really is taking the long view. It's the thing he's most committed to.

It's the thing that he plows ahead on despite opposition from his own party. from his own base, from his own economic advisors, he's most fervently committed to that. It's like the thing he believes in the most. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.