Kevin
Appearances
48 Hours
The Ivy League Murder
What's up, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Fitness with Kevin. I'm Kevin. It still doesn't feel real. You know, like, it still doesn't feel real.
48 Hours
The Ivy League Murder
US Marshals are leading a nationwide manhunt this morning for the man charged in the murder of a Yale grad student. You give me a real sense of the pressure.
Morning Wire
Jack Smith Report Blocked & Congestion Toll Avoidance | Afternoon Update | 1.7.25
We don't have to shut TikTok down. It just has to change ownership to abide by American laws as deemed by the order of Congress.
Morning Wire
Jack Smith Report Blocked & Congestion Toll Avoidance | Afternoon Update | 1.7.25
This company is living in a dreamland thinking the Supreme Court of the United States is going to uphold spyware against its American people. Ain't going to happen. And then you've got this timing situation.
Morning Wire
Trump’s ‘Golden Age of America’ Begins | 1.21.25
Yeah, I experienced firsthand why they chose to move the ceremony indoors. It was absolutely frigid. I am still thawing out. I met folks from around the country, and world for that matter, who had come to D.C. to celebrate, and they certainly got their chance.
Morning Wire
Trump’s ‘Golden Age of America’ Begins | 1.21.25
The entire city felt like a giant Trump party, and because the ceremony was not on the National Mall, impromptu viewing parties formed all across the city all day long. When Trump gave his inaugural address after taking the oath of office, he struck an optimistic but defiant tone, saying the golden age of America was about to begin.
Morning Wire
Trump’s ‘Golden Age of America’ Begins | 1.21.25
Along with presenting that extremely optimistic view of the country's future under his administration, Trump also did not shy away from a key theme of his campaign, widespread government corruption. He vowed to immediately begin taking action to rip it out root and stem.
Morning Wire
Trump’s ‘Golden Age of America’ Begins | 1.21.25
And we should note that Trump supporters say the timing of that declaration could not be more appropriate, as the now former president, Joe Biden, issued a series of extremely controversial preemptive pardons in his literal final hour in office. Those included open-ended pardons for five members of his immediate family.
Morning Wire
Trump’s ‘Golden Age of America’ Begins | 1.21.25
Also among those pardons before any charges have been brought were Dr. Anthony Fauci, former U.S. Army General Mark Milley, and members of the J6 committee, including Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. There was a lot of blowback over those, but even more so over Biden's decision to pardon his own brother James and his wife, his sister Valerie and her husband, and his brother Francis.
Morning Wire
Trump’s ‘Golden Age of America’ Begins | 1.21.25
This all comes, of course, amid a number of allegations against the Bidens for corruption, as well as fears on the left that Trump will pursue charges.
Morning Wire
Trump’s ‘Golden Age of America’ Begins | 1.21.25
Right. A lot of anticipation about how he would handle the January 6 pardons. And Trump did not disappoint his base in his first moves on this. He announced to the crowd at the Capital One Arena that he was about to sign some of his initial pardons of what he called the J6 hostages and teased a lot more to come.
Morning Wire
Trump’s ‘Golden Age of America’ Begins | 1.21.25
As we reported, the Biden administration slapped over 1,400 people with charges and convicted more than 900. Trump has so far already signed pardons for all but a handful. He's commuted those final sentences and will do, quote, further research on them. So we'll be tracking how he handles those cases going forward. Right. And one final note before we go.
Morning Wire
Trump’s ‘Golden Age of America’ Begins | 1.21.25
Another memorable moment from the day came during the swearing in when the music in the venue malfunctioned right as Carrie Underwood was supposed to sing America the Beautiful. After a long, awkward moment of confusion, Underwood stepped up with a beautiful acapella rendition and the crowd joined in.
Morning Wire
CA Wildfires Fuel Tensions & DHS Blocks Deportations | 1.13.25
The death toll and property damage continues to rise in Los Angeles as wildfires rage on nearly a week after they started.
Morning Wire
CA Wildfires Fuel Tensions & DHS Blocks Deportations | 1.13.25
How contained are the fires now and why do some fear they may get worse in the coming days?
Morning Wire
CA Wildfires Fuel Tensions & DHS Blocks Deportations | 1.13.25
The Biden administration on Friday shielded hundreds of thousands of immigrants from deportation just days before President Biden will leave office.
Morning Wire
CA Wildfires Fuel Tensions & DHS Blocks Deportations | 1.13.25
And as the Supreme Court considers the issue of so-called gender-affirming care, a new documentary from TPUSA and The Daily Wire exposes its harsh reality.
Morning Wire
CA Wildfires Fuel Tensions & DHS Blocks Deportations | 1.13.25
Here with more is Daily Wire culture reporter, Megan Basham. So Megan, we've seen a rapid sea change when it comes to public opinion about transgenderism, particularly as it relates to children. Only a couple of years ago, it was an expanding field within the medical establishment. But since then, 25 states have moved to outlaw these practices and we're actually well behind Europe in that regard.
Morning Wire
CA Wildfires Fuel Tensions & DHS Blocks Deportations | 1.13.25
Several countries, including the UK most recently, have banned the use of puberty blockers for gender dysphoria. Why is the sentiment shifting now?
Morning Wire
CA Wildfires Fuel Tensions & DHS Blocks Deportations | 1.13.25
Now, 20 years ago, there was virtually no parents transitioning their kids. How did this happen so fast, and what was driving it?
Morning Wire
CA Wildfires Fuel Tensions & DHS Blocks Deportations | 1.13.25
Megan, thanks for reporting. Anytime.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
The FBI is a rotten institution, thankfully, with many great men and women in rank and file roles. But for too long, the FBI has been too independent of any real overview by either the president or the attorney general or Congress, which would be appropriate. Congress has largely just abdicated its responsibility to do so.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
We believe at Heritage that the best way to reform the FBI is to go into the legal code that created it, select all, delete, and start from scratch. We believe there's, to be clear, a very proper role for a federal bureau of investigation. We think that in its current constitution and structure, it is so unreformable that that would be the best way to actually fix it.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
Because of politics, it's most likely that reform will have to come from a very vigorous director, but also real vigor from the president and from the Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader of the Senate. They've got to play ball when it comes to reforming that agency. It's rotten. It is used to persecute Americans.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
There are probably people in our respective organizations, The Daily Wire and Heritage. I happen to know factually that's the case, at least for some of us at Heritage. The FBI was on the brink of persecuting. They've done so with the former president. I wouldn't like that at all if it were someone on the political left. This is something that ought to transcend politics.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
And it's very important to sum up here as the president prosecutes this political case against the FBI, that as much as he could make it personal that he explained as he did during the campaign, the reform is about the ordinary American and making sure the FBI works for us rather than against us.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
I hope to see a real discipline about what the policy priorities are. Obviously, those don't have to run in such a linear fashion, but to some extent, being excellent in communication about what those priorities are and why is the first step. The second step, I would argue, at Heritage is to completely close the border.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
And I think President Trump, keep in mind his first appointment was a border czar, our Heritage fellow, Tom Homan, who taught me several years ago as we started working together on border security, is that it isn't just about closing the border, but about interior enforcement.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
And that's where Americans in the interior of the country, obviously a majority of Americans, believe that their interests have been forgotten on that issue.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
Not only is it important to do that for its inherent purposes, it's also important to do that to prove to the American people that Trump meant it, that he's going to spend political capital to do so, including deportations of millions of people. And then that gives you the political will to move on to point two.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
And I think point two is largely going to be focused on the economy, ranging from very important deregulatory efforts to policies of the Treasury Secretary to re-upping the Trump tax cuts. All of those are very important in step two, and Americans will feel the benefits of that relatively early. And then, as I speculate, John, The third step is sort of up in the air.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
Bottom line is the top lesson Democrats should be talking about right now is that when you govern like radical leftists and attempt to run to the center very late in the campaign, that does not work. Sometimes it works for Democrats to govern on the radical left, but they, over many, a long period of months, will move to the center and it works.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
There are a lot of possibilities, but I think I would recommend, as a friend to the president and vice president-elect, that they pick some example of the reform that they will be doing throughout the government. Maybe it comes from the work at government efficiency that Elon and Vivek will be doing. Maybe they decide they're going to focus on the Department of Education.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
And my point is spend a lot of time, a disproportionate amount of media time, explaining to the American people what this is about. Why they're doing it, how they're going about it, that they're treating federal employees well as they're doing so, sort of the human level that Americans pay attention to, which is good, and then go do it.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
And I actually think that that gives them an expanded popular will to move on to step four, whatever that may be. The pressures in D.C. will be such that they're going to try to push all of those together so that only one of those things can happen.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
It's really important that the president and his team, who thus far just look terrific to us at Heritage, be very disciplined in how they go about that and when.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
In this case, their record prevented that from happening. And the more the vice president tried to present herself as someone in the center, there were two problems that she had. Number one, enough of the American people realized that was a lie.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
And number two, it actually underscored this persistent concern that they had about her and have about a lot of politicians, especially on the left, which is that they're inauthentic. And so they try to run an inauthentic campaign against whatever you think about Donald Trump, the most authentic man in politics. Right.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
And so the lesson that they should be drawing, Democrats should be drawing is either run as radical leftists and convince the American people that they are with you, which they are not.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
or which is what I would recommend they do, be a center left party, be less ridiculous about abortion, be less ridiculous about the power of the state in our lives, be less ridiculous about basically your whole program. But I'm just telling you now, at least spending the daytime many days in Washington, D.C., those aren't the conversations they're having.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
And they've actually pushed out very thoughtful folks like Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut. I think I disagree with Senator Murphy on everything, but he had this very thoughtful analysis on X several days ago. And those conversations just are not happening. It's bad for the Democrats, but good for those of us who believe that this commences a generation-long era of conservative policy reform.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
I will describe it two ways, and I will, in the second way, acknowledge your point about principles, maybe even versus pragmatism. But the first, and I think arguably more important way, is that the Republican Party is once again a working class, multi-ethnic coalition. And of course, it includes middle class and high net worth people, too.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
But the reason I say once again is not even to harken back to Reagan or sometime 100 years ago, but to its very roots. You know that I'm a historian and the very roots of the Republican Party, particularly when Abraham Lincoln ran in 1860, certainly had something to do in that election with anti-slavery.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
But even more important than that in that election was the sense that the Republican Party stood for the American worker. what Abraham Lincoln termed free labor ideology. It was his way of saying sort of working class, blue collar, middle class, and so on. And that's the most important thing that the Republican Party has become. But it's also important to acknowledge that there is a tension.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
between principles, which we, by definition, don't have the power to change, at least in a social sense, but in a political sense, Trump and his campaign put an emphasis on pragmatism, that we're going to water down, they are going to water down, the party's position on abortion. They have stopped fighting on marriage.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
And there are questions about what Trump will do as president regarding using the federal government and the administrative state for certain aims that may in fact be very good, but those are going to, this is going to be sort of a tense conversation with other conservatives who are very Trump aligned. I'm not saying that all of that is bad. I'm just saying that there's a tension there.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
And I think one of the goals that we have, certainly at Heritage and I think across the movement, is to reconcile those, not just for politics.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
That's almost the least of my concerns, although it's a concern, but more importantly for the long run to make sure that the Republican Party, as it has been my entire lifetime, best represents the principles that Americans believe are upstream of those political considerations.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
That's not only a thoughtful, but a very valid position to have.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
And for example, in the months following the Dobbs decision, as Heritage and other pro-life organizations were trying to figure out what do we do at the federal level regarding further restrictions on abortion, I was surprised, although as a friend, when a couple of members of Congress, I'll leave them anonymous because I don't know if their positions on this were ever stated, but really thoughtful stalwart conservatives, men you would never say are squishes on this issue, said,
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
This is not a federal issue. Heritage's position is that there ought to at least be some mild parameters put on abortion at the federal level. And if you go that step, then it's difficult to say then everything else is for the states. But to the heart of your question, yes, it's a valid and consistent Republican position to say the states are going to handle that.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
The caveat that I would issue on that and that Heritage will be talking about is as it relates to morality, the Republican Party has also always said that that's something that needs to happen at the federal level. Hmm.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
I use second American Revolution for two purposes. The first is I'm a historian of the American Revolution. And while I can tell you a lot about military battles, the most important part of the American Revolution was the building and rebuilding of institutions that put into place American associational life, our daily life, the founding principles.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
And so when I talk about the Second American Revolution in a historic sense, I'm not talking about military battles or violence of any kind. In fact, quite the opposite. The whole point of referencing that is to talk about how peaceful the most important part of the American Revolution was, which went on for many decades. But the second is...
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
And it's fascinating to me, just in the weeks following the election, we have seen President-elect Trump and a lot of his advisors talk about this re-founding of America. And I think what they're getting at is the same thing that I talk about in the book, which is that the worst part of America today, the most challenging part of America today, isn't our political discourse.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
It isn't some terrible policies. It's that for two generations, our institutions have deteriorated. And they've deteriorated because they have stopped cultivating a sense of self-governance in Americans. They've stopped cultivating a sense of truth for that matter. And that goes directly to your point about this presidential campaign being one that I think came down on the issue of common sense.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
In fact, the Trump-Vance campaign could have, as early as August, just run campaign ads that said, just trust what you see with your own eyes. Boys are boys. Girls are girls. And you can go on and on and on. Or the economy. Trust what you're paying at the grocery store as being a problem. But that's connected to the Second American Revolution idea because...
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
Just briefly, permit me to play historian for one moment. In the 1760s and early 1770s, British colonial officials in the then colonies were telling American colonists, oh, no, it's not a problem that you have to go get a stamp which cost you a couple of pence. That's not a problem. That's not the empire imposing our will on you. And they scratched their heads and said, no. The heck it isn't.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
Of course it is. This isn't uniquely American, but that just skepticism we have about elites, whether it's in the 1770s or in the 2020s, is natural to us. And it is glorious to see it being reanimated right now.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
I name names in the book. I talk about the New York Times, which I think is largely a den of liars. But they're really in microcosm, which is a perfect example of the legacy media writ large. And part of a common sense presidential campaign is more Americans realizing they should stop getting their news from places like that. There are many others, especially in Washington.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
but also name an organization that I'm not only fond of, but as I write about in the book, was instrumental in my overcoming some difficulties in my family when I was growing up in Louisiana, and that's the Boy Scouts of America. I'm a very proud Eagle Scout. I would not be the person I am without the leadership and virtue lessons I learned from Boy Scouts of America.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
Therefore, it was one of the great... civic tragedies when the Boy Scouts of America, of all organizations, decided to go down the path of the woke mind virus. And now it's not even called the Boy Scouts of America. Nothing against girls, obviously. I'm a dad of three girls. But this is also a war on men, which is against common sense. So they just need to go away. They're not salvageable.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
The New York Times is not salvageable. But the institutions or the category of institutions I really hone in on are K-12 schools and universities. I love public schools, but the system as it's currently structured and funded must be totally reformed.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
I hope that they're salvageable because this promise that we make to American schoolchildren that regardless of where they come from and how much money their family has or doesn't have, that we're going to give them the opportunity for the best education in the world. The public school system isn't delivering on that. And also universities.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
I was at Ivy League College recently as part of the book tour. I was grateful to be there. It was a mixed audience ideologically of students on the left and the right. By the way, all of them were not only respectful, but just wonderfully engaging intellectually. Good to hear. But I went to the hotel room after that and I called my wife and I told her, she said, this is shocking.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
Do you think there's any hope? And my answer to her question is my answer to your question, which is no. Because the administrators at places like that are cowards. They're not bad people. They just suffer from cowardice.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
So until there is some factor within those institutions or external to those institutions, which might be federal policy, they're just going to wither on the vine, even though they are blessed with very significant endowments.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
There is no policy arena I am more optimistic about than education reform. And almost all of that optimism comes from what states have decided to do. Oklahoma is a great example. The leadership of Governor Stitt there, Superintendent Ryan Walters, Heritage has helped them as we've helped other state officials develop not just an improved vehicle for funding education,
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
universal school choice or close to it, but very importantly, also the content of this. So for a long time, some of your audience may not know this, conservatives only focused on that, the delivery vehicle, the structure of how we do this, vouchers, education savings accounts as they now are.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
But I realized a few years ago, along with many other conservative education reformers, is that we have to also play in the curriculum game. Because if all you're doing is making it easier for children to have access to really bad content, then you're not helping the situation. So I'm hopeful about that. I'm hopeful about what has happened in Florida. And I'm also hopeful that those examples
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
in the aggregate as the new administration comes in and the new secretary of education and her team, which will likely be a very good team come in, will give them wind in their sails to at the very least get the federal government out of the way of those state-based reforms. That's like hitting a single in a baseball game.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
A double or a triple that would score a couple of runs would be eliminating some of the education programs. The Grand Slam would be eliminating the department entirely for the purpose of improving education in this country. We believe at Heritage there is a strong correlation between the 45-year history of the U.S. Department of Education and declining educational attainment.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
That's the kind of thing that would be one of the great policy victories of the Trump administration.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
I think that it's as likely as it's ever been. It is probably a jump ball. And I think if it does happen, obviously it must include legislation. Heritage is very clear about that. And that legislation is likely because of politics, but maybe also because of good old-fashioned prudence.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
to include an incremental approach to this in much the same way that as I was coming of age as a college student conservative during the Clinton presidency, credit to him and the House and Senate conservatives for passing welfare reform. That's the model. The problem was it only went one step. because of politics.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Second Term: A New Dawn for Conservatives | 12.27.24
We need the Secretary of Education and the President and Vice President to articulate what 10 years down the road looks like, and to have benchmarks, and to constantly message to the American people, this reform, this reform of the U.S. Department of Education is the most important thing we're going to do as a people as we celebrate our 250th birthday.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Ask Charlie Anything 209: Keeping TikTok Legal? Winning Political Debates? AI Lawyers?
Yeah, it was specifically that TikTok question. I didn't know if this had come up today, but there is a clip that you might want to play, and you probably already know about this. All the terms and conditions that are embedded in the app that we all agree to when we download TikTok are quite concerning. I understand your reasoning behind wanting to keep it.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Ask Charlie Anything 209: Keeping TikTok Legal? Winning Political Debates? AI Lawyers?
I think it's a great platform, but there's a lot of privacy concerns. And there's a video... with Joe Rogan, you could probably pull it up on YouTube, where he goes into a rabbit hole of TikTok terms and conditions. A lot of privacy concerns there.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
So, for example, if you ask DeepSeek to tell you what happened at Tiananmen Square or to say something mean about Xi Jinping, the leader of China, it won't do it. And I would not be surprised if in the coming weeks and months, we do see lawmakers in the US saying, wait a minute, we passed a law to ban TikTok. Why are we not also passing a law to ban DeepSeek?
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
So I think that's one potential outcome here, but there's a key difference, which is that TikTok is not open source software. You cannot download TikTok and create your own version of it. And so already the DeepSeek platform models have been downloaded and recreated all over the world by lots and lots of different people and companies.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
I think what the DeepSeek story suggests is that it is going to be quite challenging to contain the spread of powerful AI without some big moves.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
So there are people in the American tech scene who are calling this deep-seek moment the Sputnik moment for the AI race, because just as the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union kicked off the 20th century space race and created profound fear and anxiety among Western nations about whether they were behind, their biggest political adversary when it came to technology.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
A lot of people are looking at this moment with DeepSeek as kicking off a new era in the AI race where we really want to stay ahead of China. And there are people who say that having a lead in AI, if you are the United States, even if it's just a lead of a couple months or a couple years over your political adversaries is very important. And that may be true.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
But people who study AI, people who look at this industry closely, who are paying attention to the trends in AI, believed that these models would become cheaper and cheaper over time as well as becoming more powerful over time. So this really fits neatly with a lot of what people had been predicting for years.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
Now, they might not have predicted that this sort of moment would happen from a Chinese AI company. They might not have predicted exactly what the breakthroughs would be that allowed for the models to get cheaper. But this is in keeping with the overall trend in AI that we have seen over the past few years, which is that the models keep getting better and they keep getting more efficient.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
Goes to number one on the App Store charts. It vaults ahead of ChatGPT and all these better known apps.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
Yeah, so that is what happened here, but just maybe a little faster than people had expected. But I think the larger point is that these systems are now improving so rapidly and in so many places all at once that I think it is only a matter of time before nearly everyone in the world has access to very powerful AI models.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
And I just think that world looks a lot different than the one we live in today.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
And the more notable thing, the thing that really caused the American AI industry to start to panic was how cheaply this model appeared to have been built.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
So we think that this model cost DeepSeek about $5.5 million to train. Now, that might sound like a lot of money, but it's really not compared to what many of the American AI companies are spending. Meta said that it was spending $65 billion.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
Microsoft says it plans to spend about $80 billion. Microsoft said it was spending $80 billion.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
And OpenAI had just announced this giant partnership where they were planning to spend up to half a trillion over the next four years. As much as half a trillion dollars to build the infrastructure for AI. Whoa. Yeah, it's wild.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
And on top of that, DeepSeek says that they built their model without access to the latest and greatest American AI chips, which up until now were thought to be necessary to build the most powerful models.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
And so investors start saying, wait a minute, if it only costs $5.5 million to train a leading-edge AI model, then... What the heck are all these American companies doing spending hundreds of millions of dollars or even billions of dollars to train roughly equivalent models?
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
And so the stocks of many of the American tech companies start to fall.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
And so after all of this, people in the American tech industry start asking questions like, who is DeepSeq? And how are they getting these incredible models with so little money spent on them?
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
So it depends who you ask, because there are a couple kind of overlapping panics that are starting to happen around this time. Of course, again, there's the investor panic. I mean, imagine if you had your whole portfolio invested in American AI companies.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
It would be like if you just bought like a very high-end sports car, like a Lamborghini, and you had been driving it around and were so proud of how fast it could accelerate and how well it handled. And then like some random guy shows up with like a soapbox car made of balsa wood, and it can go just as fast as your car. You'd be like, what the heck?
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
Why did I just spend all this money on this Lamborghini?
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
Yes. And then, of course, there's the geopolitical freakout because DeepSeek is a Chinese AI company. And there has been this race happening between primarily the U.S. and China for years about AI and AI supremacy. Who was going to be able to build the most powerful AI models before the other one? And that is a very important question for things like assessing the future of military conflict.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
If one country's AI is way better than another country's AI, they might have an advantage. In fact, the U.S. has banned the export of the most powerful AI chips to China for exactly this reason, to try to... sort of hobble the Chinese AI companies to keep them from catching up when it comes to building the bleeding edge models that could become very important.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
So instead, DeepSeq had to kind of make do with these like Kirkland signature chips that are, you know, pretty good, but they're not the best. And so that combined with the amount of money spent really made people say, how do they pull this thing off?
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
Yeah, so there are a lot of people who are skeptical of what DeepSeek has claimed. In particular, the cost of the model, $5.5 million might not be the real figure. It doesn't include all of the research and the engineer salaries and things that went into that, so that the real cost is probably significantly higher than that.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
But there are questions about, you know, did they smuggle in very powerful chips that would have actually allowed them to build a model this good? Hmm. You know, is there something going on? Is the Chinese government funneling money to them and not telling us about it? So there are lots of theories.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
But then as time wears on and people who are experts in this stuff start digging through the details, they're coming to the conclusion that, well, yeah, Maybe the cost is a little higher than DeepSea claims. Maybe they have a few more chips than they're telling us about. But in general, this seems like they actually just did build a really good model using some very clever engineering techniques.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
So because DeepSeq did not have access, we don't think, to the most powerful chips that American companies are using... they had to kind of get clever about becoming more efficient with their model. I won't bore you with the technical details.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
It includes terms like mixture of experts, architecture, but basically they were able to use some clever tricks to squeeze the most power out of the chips that they did have.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
Yeah, I mean, there's this saying in the tech industry that constraints inspire creativity. And that is definitely true here. DeepSeq did not have access to the best American AI chips. They did not have the largest budget or the most sophisticated team, but they were really scrappy and smart. They had a lot of really good young engineers and they were able to pull this off.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
So what the AI companies in America are saying in response to this market panic is, look, we've still got to build these big, expensive supercomputers to stay at the forefront of AI, to have the best models. And if we take the techniques that DeepSeq has now shown are possible, these efficiency gains, We could have them too.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
Think about how powerful our models would be if we put a billion dollars into the same kind of model that DeepSeek was able to make for much less. So that is what the American AI companies are saying. But I think there are real questions among investors about whether the scale of investment that they have been planning is really necessary.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
I think it threw into question this fundamental assumption that only the big dogs could play in AI. You had to be Microsoft or Amazon or Google if you wanted a chance to build the state-of-the-art AI models.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
And I think what the Deep Seek story suggested is that there may be a whole other world of competitors out there trying to stay close to the frontier and that they might not have to have the resources of one of the world's largest corporations to do it.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
So the freakout really started in earnest with a Chinese AI company called DeepSeek. And DeepSeek had released a new AI model. You know, models are released all the time. Generally, they don't make international news. But this model was different in a few ways.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
But there was one other piece of this that I think really suggests that the AI race has entered a new phase, which is that DeepSeek did something that a lot of American companies have been hesitant to do, which is that they released their AI models as open source software, meaning that anyone on the internet can download and use, can make their own versions of, can adapt, can tweak.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
It is software that can be reused and remixed and improved upon. by anyone. And so when DeepSeek released its models this way, they really sent a message to the world that says, we are serious here about competing. And we're so serious that we're going to give away our models for free so that anyone who wants to can make them better.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
And so all of a sudden, it just flipped the entire AI race onto its head and really sent it into a new gear.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
So it's a complicated question to answer because there are ways in which it is probably good and ways in which it is probably bad. The case that this is a good thing is that in general, when you make things cheaper, they can be accessible to more people. I mean, remember, DeepSeek is not just free to use in the app or on the website.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
It was also released as open source software, meaning that anyone with an Internet connection can download it and install it on their own computers or maybe tweak it to serve their own purposes. So if you are a person who wants to use AI, maybe you have a small business or maybe you just want to use this to help you grow. write letters or emails. Maybe you're a student who wants to use this.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
You can now access a very powerful model for free. Maybe you are a developer or a startup who wants to build your own AI tools. Well, now you have this deep seek model that you can kind of take off the shelf as open source software and build your own version of it or run it on your own hardware.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
And so the people that I talk to in the tech industry who are at startups or smaller companies are very excited about this. This is a great development for them. And it also means that if you are a person who worries that all the AI power is going to go to a few huge companies, then the democratization of AI through open source models like DeepSeek probably makes you feel optimistic.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
So that is the positive case for this. But there are also a lot of people who are really worried about what DeepSeek has done. I think the DeepSeek moment has really sparked a lot of new fears about how quickly this whole field of AI is progressing. I mean, just in the last few years,
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
The leading AI models have gone from maybe being as smart as the average high school student to as smart as a college student to now being able to complete a lot of tasks that would have taken a PhD to complete. So these models are just getting much better very quickly. And a lot of folks in the AI community are just nervous about that. They say things like, well, maybe we're going to get...
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
an AI that is as smart as the smartest humans in just a few years. And we don't really have a playbook for dealing with technology that is more intelligent than us. And so there are people who worry about these sort of runaway AI scenarios where you get super intelligent AIs that can sort of take control or maybe even harm humans.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
But even if you're not a believer in that kind of superhuman intelligence risk, There are just a lot of questions about whether we as a society are ready for advanced AI. Are we ready for the possibility that it could eliminate jobs? Are we ready for the possibility that it could really lead to a proliferation of misinformation or propaganda or even automated cyber attacks and things like that?
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
One of them was that it just appeared to be a really good model, like better than the leading Chinese models at the time and on par or close to on par with the leading American models.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
So all of that is swirling around the conversation about DeepSeek because we have just accelerated the AI race again. And now it is not just American companies competing with each other over who is in the lead of that race. China has also stepped in. And there's a lot of fear and anxiety about what happens if we fall behind.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Favorite Word: Tariffs
Well, it may well be, because if you're a person who believes that TikTok is a national security threat, there's nothing about DeepSeek that is less of a threat, right? It is a Chinese company. It is subject to all the same laws and censorship guidelines as other Chinese software companies are.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
Yeah, hey, thank you guys for taking my call. My question is... I pull a large sum of money out of my retirement investments to build a home. I'll give you a little back story. My wife and I are both over 59 1⁄2. She's retired, draws a pension of about $42,000 a year. I make about $142,000 of my salary. And we have got... About $1.85 million in investments.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
Some pre-tax, Roth, and then some non-retirement investment accounts. And in that $1.85, there's roughly $200,000 in cash. What I'm hoping to do is try to pull some money out of my retirement investments to fund the house, but not cripple myself in retirement.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
I need about $750,000 for the purchase for the construction of the home. So part of that would be funded by the $200,000 in cash, still leaving us with a fully funded emergency fund. And then the balance we would pull out of them, most of it as we could out of the Roth, and then the balance would have to come out of the pre-tax accounts.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
We own our current home. We have no debt. We want to tear the house down to the property that we're on because it's the values in the land, not in the dwelling, and sort of build our dream home.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
That's correct. Yeah, so we're going to just tear down what we currently reside in, move out, and then build a home here.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
Yeah, it'll be $750,000 is what the contract price will be, and we'll figure probably 10% for contingency money. So, you know, somewhere $825,000 to $850,000 we're thinking. Okay.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
Yeah, we feel pretty good about that. We figure we'll have somewhere between 850 to 900K left in retirement investments. And then, you know, given the rate of return, you know, banking at 10%, hopefully for averaging the We feel like we'd be very comfortable.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
We hadn't anticipated pulling any kind of money towards, pulling Social Security money until we get full retirement age or even 70 if it permits. We don't feel pretty comfortable. Actually, we don't have any debt.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
It makes me nervous tapping into retirement funds.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
Thank you for taking my call.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
So... I'm in $650,000 in debt, and that includes mortgage, personal loans, auto loans.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
The mortgage, I owe about $477,000. Okay.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
Cars is about $62,000. For two cars? For two cars.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
Keep going. Credit cards. Just me. I haven't done... My wife hasn't taken hers or broke hers down yet. But my cards are about... Oh, geez. I would say $25,000. Okay. Personal loans?
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
Personal loans, small business, I would say $25,000.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
And then the rest in small loans like a firm and stuff like that.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
I haven't broken that down yet, but it's pretty much the rest of my debt.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
I'm guessing about $25,000. Mostly credit cards? Credit cards and personal.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
We had a little girl seven months ago. Oh, wow. That'll do it.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
She's stressed to the moon and back.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
Where are you at emotionally?
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
I have a hard time connecting emotions to it. That's probably why I'm in this mess.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
Well, me and my wife work for my family business, and we work 40 hours a week. Well, I do. She stays at home with our little girl most of the time. But I want to work more, but I feel like I'm— a little selfish for wanting to work a lot more than 40 hours and not being home.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
We collect salaries. She works from home on her computer.
The Ramsey Show
If You Want to Build Wealth, Stop Acting Like Everyone Else
There's about $30,000 in the house, which I feel like is all fees for putting it on the market anyways.