Meghan McCain and Charlie have disagreed on plenty of political topics, but the two are fully united on one of today's most important issues: Getting Tulsi Gabbard confirmed as Director of National Intelligence. McCain explains her rich friendship with Tulsi and why she is an excellent choice to be the president's chief intelligence advisor. Plus, Charlie listens in as Trump signs his latest round of executive orders, and chats with the press.Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hey, everybody. Tan, the Charlie Kirk show. Meghan McCain joins the program. That's right. Meghan McCain. We don't agree on everything, but we agree enthusiastically on Tulsi Gabbard and Bobby Kennedy. And then President Trump's press conference. We dive deep into it and give a reaction afterwards. Get involved with Turning Point USA at tpusa.com. That is tpusa.com.
Become a member today at members.charliekirk.com. Members.charliekirk.com. Buckle up, everybody. Here we go.
Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks. I want to thank Charlie. He's an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
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Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegoldinvestments.com. That is noblegoldinvestments.com. It's where I buy all of my gold. Go to noblegoldinvestments.com. We absolutely need Tulsi Gabbard and Bobby Kennedy. It is mission critical. Top priority of this program, top priority of Turning Point Action.
Tulsi is one of the greatest people I've ever had a chance to know. And joining us now is a dear friend of Tulsi Gabbard, Megan McCain. Megan, great to see you. Megan, you and I have been on different sides of certain issues during the Trump era. But we're on 100% agreement on Tulsi Gabbard and Bobby Kennedy. So great to have you here. And I've really enjoyed your commentary in support of both.
Please walk us through your friendship with Tulsi Gabbard and why you believe Tulsi should be confirmed as DNI director.
Well, first of all, thank you for giving me the opportunity to come on and speak with you today, Charlie. It's really a pleasure. I've known Tulsi a really long time. I was even trying to remember how long, I think it's like eight years at this point. And we became friends through Van Jones of all people who said that we were a lot alike and he wanted us to become friends. And
We just had this lunch one day in New York after she came on The View and we like closed the restaurant down and we're like crying over like bonding over different things. And we've just maintained a really close friendship for years now. She's the godmother to my eldest daughter and she is one of the greatest patriots, humans. She's the bravest, most talented woman I've ever met.
It's a privilege to be her friend. I don't talk to her that way that we're like normal friends. I don't. tell her this all the time, but she really loves America and she loves God. And the national security of this country is something she takes to heart with her every single night. It's like a burden she takes with her.
And I just think we are so lucky as Americans to have her put in this position. And quite frankly, I'm horrified that she's having any trouble at all. I'm horrified that there are senators like Young and Lankford that are hesitating in any way. I think it's despicable. She's a combat veteran. She's more accomplished, in my opinion, than anyone who's being put up.
In this segment of cabinet members, I'm a fan of RFKs and I like Kash Patel as well. This is not to denigrate them, but she is highly qualified and it is imperative to this country and to the administration that she gets over the line.
I totally agree with you. And so just the objections that some of these senators are raising. are so weak. And I spent a lot of time over the weekend trying to contact some of their senators or friends of them. So, OK, well, what is it? What is the issue here? And you're not allowed to use Russian agent because that's BS. It's completely nonsensical.
And it's as if they it's just like weaponized semantics. I mean, what is it? Because she has a totally clean FBI background check like Sterling. She currently has a security clearance. She served her country and continues to serve her country. All of these kind of talking points against her are just nonsensical.
What is their contention and your message to those Republican senators that seem to be putting up an unnecessary fight?
Look, I'm not traditionally MAGA, as you know, even though I'm really happy with this moment. I was telling your producer, it's like a time of new hope for, I think, all Republicans. And I'm really, quite frankly, enjoying the cultural shift towards the right. I don't understand because I know that Senator Lankford and Senator Young come from states that are basically 100% MAGA.
I think all counties in Oklahoma went for Trump. I didn't understand their line of questioning other than I think there's been a lot of really disgusting and abhorrent propaganda against, again, a current member of the military has put her life on the line multiple times for our freedom.
I think there's been a lot of slander, sadly, from people like Hillary Clinton and Barry Weiss on Joe Rogan that took on a life of its own and, quite frankly, wasn't squandered enough. I know her so well. And again, I'm someone like my dad couldn't legally travel to Russia because we were sanctioned. Do you think I would be friends with someone who was compromised by Russia? It's absurdity.
And I just find it disgusting left wing propaganda that for some reason there are some Republicans that have bought into. But I would I just want to tell you, Mr. Kirk, today, if anyone votes against her, I promise you I will do anything in my power to make sure there are consequences for this or RFK for that matter, because this is more it's about more than just Tulsi and RFK.
This is about the new coalition in the Republican Party and particularly women and moms voting. who came out in droves, a lot of first-time Trump voters who came out and voted because they wanted this squad of people. They wanted the dream team, which includes RFK and Tulsi Gabbard. And they deserve to have their choices in the cabinet. It is not up to just these people.
And you can't give me a real reason you don't like Tulsi other than you've listened to some propaganda on the internet. And I'm heartbroken by it, but I do think we're going to get her over the line. And if for some reason we don't, I promise you, I there will be hell to pay. And I hope that you will join me. Oh, I will.
I will join you in launching primaries against these people. It's so inexcusable. There is there is no argument there. I want you to dive deeper into this, Megan, because I was really taken by something you said on the Mark Halperin show that I totally agree.
that there are millions, we don't know the number, but a significant portion of moms and women that are now Republican and voting Republican because of the Bobby Kennedy, Tulsi Gabbard unity party. When I speak to DC insiders, they think that's overrated, obviously, because they're high on their own supply. I know it's not overrated.
I think it's actually one of the decisive ingredients to this new Republican governing majority. Please speak more about this.
A lot of moms, and this is obviously anecdotal in my life, but every single woman in my life except for like two voted for Trump. And some of them were not traditional Trump supporters. And it was in no small part because of how radicalized they became during COVID with the lockdowns and the vaccines and all the things we already know.
And RFK and Tulsi gave them a new hope for the future in lots of different ways. And also, you know, trans people in sports, like all the culture war things. And I think that they gave a safe space to vote for Trump for people that were maybe on the edge or independent or had been Democrats in the past.
And I think when you look at people like Jessica Krause, who runs the Incredible House and Habit Instagram account, there is a momentous wave of women in this country who are supporting RFK and Tulsi Gabbard and Trump. as a result. And I don't want to lose these people. I don't want to lose the future. We have to start also looking at, you know, elections four years from now, eight years from now.
I love this cultural moment right now. I've never felt more validated. I spent so many years of my life getting my you know what kicked because I was Republican. And to see everything I said come true. I love this moment. I don't want to lose it. And RFK and Tulsi Gabbard are integral in to making sure we don't lose these people.
And again, they don't have a Senate majority because of James Lankford. Let's be honest. Millions of moms did not show up to go vote. It was because of President Trump's understanding and ability. And honestly, he deserves a lot of credit for giving them the highest possible promotions of Tulsi and Bobby Kennedy.
Let's talk about the Bobby Kennedy wrinkle for a second because we have touched on Tulsi Gabbard. He especially has put a health emphasis and a health focus on the Republican Party that moms are very conscientious of that otherwise was not an element.
You remember, Megan, like 10 or 15 years ago, that was a primarily Democrat kind of coalition, eating healthy, having more questions about the health care system. Now it seems it has come to the conservative and Republican Party. It's not just politically advantageous, but it's also the morally right thing to do with our kids being so sick. And so inexcusably drowning in chronic illness.
Bobby Kennedy represents a 10 to 15 percent boost, I think, for the Republican Party. Please speak about that.
Look, I was just watching a video right before I came on here about this organic eggs that I personally buy that apparently is really bad for you. And if you look at the like subtext of the ingredients, it's not, they're not actually that organic.
I think I became much more acutely aware of all of this during COVID like everybody else, because, you know, I have not given my children the COVID vaccine. They are vaccinated with other vaccines, but I'm very fearful of the COVID vaccine. And I started reading the way everybody else did about COVID you know, different things and the long-term consequences.
And it just, I think, started opening up a lot of people's minds about how much the government lies to us. And to me, it was like, there's a group of people who will lie forever, who will lock down our children to make sure that their mental health deteriorates to holy hell. They do not care about moms. They do not care about kids. They do not care about their health.
I mean, why do we have so many foods in this country that are illegal here? Skittles are banned in Europe. Why? Why am I allowed... here and not in Europe. There's a coffee creamer that I use that's banned everywhere else but here. I found that out. Why isn't that here? Why do I have to be doing this much homework?
And I think he's just showing a sign of new hope for those of us like, I'm genuinely worried about my children being poisoned by the food we're eating. And I am far from the minority. And again, one thing that I really took away because I sat with Tulsi at her hearing last week or this week, excuse me, was that The senators really don't understand this movement.
That was my big takeaway, particularly from Senator Young and Senator Lankford. And then obviously the Democrats. It's like they obviously don't know any maha moms. They don't know this coalition of people, which is really, quite frankly, pathetic because it's such a huge swath of the American public. But they need to understand if they blow this somehow, there will be consequences to high health.
I think moms of America never underestimate what they can do when they are angry and pissed off. I mean, my governor here in Virginia got elected because moms were told that they didn't have a right to send their kids to whatever school that they wanted. And they had to have, you know... biological men sharing bathrooms with young women. So I just, they need to understand.
I don't know how to get people like Senator Lankford and Senator Young to understand, but this isn't just about them. It's about a mandate from the American people that President Trump is helping execute.
Well said. Megan, thank you for your time. I want everyone to check out the Citizen McCain podcast. I believe that is the name. And I could not be in more agreement that we need Tulsi and Bobby Kennedy for this big party governing coalition. Megan, thank you so much.
Thank you for your time.
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To get your free Jumpstart Trial Bag, go to roughgreens.com, use promo code CHARLIE. So good, your pet will ask for it by name, roughgreens.com. What is USAID? USAID is not a government agency that you'd be talking about very much. It stands for the United States Agency for International Development.
You see, part of the whole idea of America First is examining the finances of our government and asking very simple fundamental questions. Why are we spending money on this? Is this a good idea? Why are we doing this? USAID is a grift. It is a grift. The amount of money that we spend on USAID is shocking. Shocking to most people.
We are talking about tens of billions of dollars, at least $50 billion that we know of. And when you dive into some of the examination of the money, we're talking about funding hit pieces on our own citizens. Today, there is some major and massive breaking news of President Trump fulfilling the mandate. President Trump going all in with the help of Elon Musk and Marco Rubio. Boom.
15,000 people being put on administrative leave. Sorry, you can go work from home. Now, that is the precursor to potentially being able to terminate them. This is a deep state slush fund. There was an entire division of USAID funding LGBTQIA plus programs in Asia. Being gay in Asia is what your taxpayer dollars were funding. And I got a brag by someone in the administration right now.
Someone who's been a 10. Someone who's been a 10 is Marco Rubio. Marco Rubio has been a 10 out of 10. I've known Marco for a while. We really got to know each other the last six months. He's come on the show, spent time with him, went to Greenland with his chief of staff, Mike Needham. And Marco has been, boom, every day, new country. Today, El Salvador. Other day, Panama.
He's now the acting director of USAID. Now, you might think, oh, USAID, it helps all these countries. It's a bunch of malarkey, BS, balderdash, rubbish. You want to go help a country? Go donate to Samaritan's Purse. Go donate to private charities.
This is a deep state slush fund to make foreign tin pot dictators rich, to make Zelensky and his oligarch friends be able to buy $100,000 of Hermes and Chanel purses. This is nothing more than wire transfers to the worst, ugliest people on the planet or to get us involved in foreign wars. We do humanitarian aid to undermine foreign governments.
This is going at the heart of the matter of the globalist international empire. And now 15,000 people are now put on administrative leave. This is the new acting director of USAID, who's also your secretary of state. He's been a 10, Marco Rubio. Play cut 45.
Well, look, I mean, my frustration with USAID goes back to my time in Congress. It's a completely unresponsive agency. It's supposed to respond to policy directives of the State Department, and it refuses to do so.
So the functions of USAID, there are a lot of functions of USAID that are going to continue, that are going to be part of American foreign policy, but it has to be aligned with American foreign policy. I said very clearly when we, during my confirmation hearing, that every dollar we spend and every program we fund That will be aligned with the national interest of the United States.
Did you know that we created a fake Twitter knockoff to promote subversion in Cuba? Should we overthrow the Cuba communists? Maybe. We shouldn't do it through a fake humanitarian aid organization that isn't accountable. President Donald Trump is not just running on the idea of America first. Why are we sending money all across the world on these little silly projects? Cut it all off.
Re-examine it. Does it help the country? Does it help the homeland? And USAID, oh, all the worst people in D.C. go and they'll have little meetings. Can we do $30 million for gender mutilation in Senegal? And then a lot of it gets rerouted back to friendly contractors and organizations that are part of the racket. You have to wonder, has USAID been subsidizing color revolutions internationally?
Was USAID involved in the Maidan revolution, which led to Zelensky and then the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Is USAID involved in all of the money in Afghanistan? Yes. Hundreds of billions of your taxpayer dollars sent in every little corner of the planet unnecessarily. We have big hearts, and so no one ever wants to go after – USAID, the United States Agency for International Development.
Here's an interesting question. How many other countries send aid to America? Because East Palestine could use some aid. And Beverly Hills and the Palisades could use some aid. And North Carolina could use some aid. Oh, so we're the piggy bank of the world. It ends. We're no longer the dumping ground. We're no longer the ATM. We are no longer going to finance all these abstractions.
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exciting news today. We have numerous fronts are being covered. Before we do that, Will will give you certain proclamations. We'll sign them and you'll hear a little bit about them. Will, please. Yes, sir.
First, we have for your signature five official designations of special envoys. The first is Mr. Steve Witkoff, who's actually in the room to be your Middle East envoy.
Where is Steve? Steve Witkoff, everybody. He's done a great job in the Middle East. Really great. But we'll see how it all turns out. It's complex.
But I think he's going to do very well. Next, we have Mauricio Claver Caron to be your special envoy to Latin America, sir.
Good man.
Okay. Thank you, sir. Next, we have retired General Keith Kellogg to be your special envoy on Russian-Ukraine issues.
We've made a lot of progress on Russia, Ukraine. We'll see what happens, but a lot of progress has been made. We've got to stop that ridiculous war.
Thank you, sir. Next, we have designation of Richard Grinnell, Rick Grinnell, to be your envoy for special missions.
I sent him to California to turn on the water. We turned it on. It was not easy because we had to go through a lot of environmentalists that are causing a lot of problems. And we have billions of gallons of water. It was on three days ago. You probably saw it should have gotten a lot of press, but it didn't get much.
All we're doing is giving Los Angeles and the entire state of California virtually unlimited water, which they could have done five years ago, which I told them they should do. But the environmentalists stopped them. And we opened it and we did it regardless of the state. And now the state seems to be very happy. I spoke with Gavin Newsom and he he's very happy.
I almost called him by the other name, my little nickname for him. But I think they're all happy to have a lot of water in California. Too bad we didn't have it about two months ago. Right. By the way, that was a big move. I don't know if you saw the pictures that were released of the water pouring down from the Pacific Northwest and Canada and lots of other places.
And it's a pretty amazing sight.
Mr. President, Rick Brunel had a big Friday trip as well.
He had a very big Friday trip. You're right. We'll talk about that. He's a good man, Rick.
Lastly, sir, we have a designation of Mark Burnett as your special envoy to the United Kingdom.
You know who Mark Burnett is? I figure he should be good. He certainly had done a great job. Friend of mine and very talented guy. We have very talented people working for us. I'll hold that one up because Mark gets so much television. We'll hold it up, right? He'll be thrilled to see it. He's going to do a good job.
Thank you, sir. Next, your administration has smashed records for appointing large numbers of highly qualified, capable people at all levels of the federal government. These are 28 subcabinet-level officials being appointed to a number of different departments and agencies.
Some of them are quite important positions like departmental general counsels, but these are people who have been pre-vetted and have received your approval previously. Very good.
Okay.
Thank you, sir. Next, this is an executive order. This charges your Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Besson, and your Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, to begin a process that will hopefully result in the creation of an American sovereign wealth fund.
It's a very exciting... We're going to have a sovereign wealth fund, which we've never had. We have a lot of things that create wealth, and you've seen that over the last two weeks. I think we've created more wealth. Other people have created de-wealth, the people, my predecessors. We're creating a lot of wealth.
Scott, maybe you'd like to say something about it, and I'd ask also Howard to say something about it.
Yes, sir. This is very exciting. We're going to stand this thing up within the next 12 months. We're going to monetize the asset side of the U.S. balance sheet for the American people. We're going to put the assets to work. And I think it's going to be very exciting. We're going to study best practices that's done around the world.
It'll be a combination of liquid assets, assets that we have in this country as we work to bring them out for the American people.
The extraordinary size and scale of the U.S. government and the business it does with companies should create value for American citizens. If we are going to buy 2 billion COVID vaccines, maybe we should have some warrants and some equity in these companies and have that grow for the help of the American people.
So bringing all these things together, I think we'll create, Scott and I will create an amazing sovereign wealth fund for you, sir.
So other countries have sovereign wealth funds, and they're much smaller countries, and they're not the United States. We have tremendous potential in this country, tremendous. You're seeing that, what's happened just in a short period of time. And as an example, TikTok, we're going to be doing something perhaps with TikTok, and perhaps not. If we make the right deal, we'll do it.
Otherwise, we won't. But I have the right to do that, and we might put that in the sovereign wealth fund, whatever we make, or if we do a partnership with... very wealthy people, a lot of options. But we could put that as an example in the fund. And we have a lot of other things that we could put in the fund. And I think in a short period of time, we'd have one of the biggest funds.
And, you know, some of some of them are pretty large. I must tell you some of the like the Saudi Arabia fund is is on the large side. But eventually we'll catch it. But we're going to create a lot of wealth for the fund. And I think it's about time that this country had a sovereign wealth fund. And these two gentlemen and some others are going to work with them very closely.
And they'll be heading it up. And they're going to do a great job. Two highly respected people that have done unbelievably well in the world, in the real world. So that's a big deal, huh?
Yes, sir. I think it's going to create value and be of great strategic importance. Mr. President, why is it important for Elon Musk to have access to the payment systems at Treasury?
Well, he's got access only to letting people go that he thinks are no good, if we agree with him. And it's only if we agree with him. He's a very talented guy from the standpoint of management and costs. And we put him in charge of seeing what he can do with certain groups and certain numbers. The numbers, some of the numbers are horrible, what he's found.
A hundred, think of it, $100 million on condoms. to Hamas, condoms to Hamas, and many other things that are, frankly, even more ridiculous. And they're finding tremendous waste, really waste more than anything else, I think you could say. Probably fraud and abuse could be added to it, the more standard waste, fraud and abuse.
But they're finding tremendous amounts of really bad things, bad spending. You've been reading about it. You've been writing about some of it, frankly. And some of the things that they've been doing is just terrible. Elon can't do and won't do anything without our approval. And we'll give him the approval where appropriate. Where not appropriate, we won't. But he reports in and he...
It's something that he feels very strongly about, and I'm impressed because he's running, obviously, a big company. It has nothing to do if there's a conflict that we won't let him get near it. But he does have a good natural instinct. He's got a team of very talented people. We're trying to shrink government, and he can probably shrink it as well as anybody else.
Else, if not better, where we think there's a conflict or there's a problem, we won't let him go near it. But he has some very good ideas. And we have a lot of other talented people also. We'll bring in the most talented people in the world. By the way, we just unrelated, but we have two of the most talented people in the world. the legendary Rupert Murdoch and Larry Ellison.
So they are two legends in business, publishing, and probably every other. Rupert is Larry pretty much in a class by himself, right? I mean, although you may have a couple of bucks more. I don't know. But Rupert is in a class by himself. He's an amazing guy. And Larry is Larry. Larry is one of the most serious players anywhere in the world. So it's an honor to have you.
This has nothing to do with you people, but they're here, and I thought it would be appropriate. I'm sure you didn't recognize them. They're all going crazy. They say, what are they doing here? Thank you, sir.
Mr. President, on the tariffs, is there any chance that Canada or China could also get out of the tariffs after you struck a deal with Mexico?
Well, nobody's out with Mexico. We had a great talk with Mexico, and we had President Scheinbaum is a woman I like her very much. We've had good relationships, but we have to stop fentanyl from coming in, whether I like somebody or not, and we have to stop the illegal aliens from coming in. I think we've lost 200,000 people on average a year for many years, much higher than the 100,000.
It could be even closer to 300,000. And they've agreed to put in 10,000 soldiers permanently, like forever, 10,000 soldiers at their side of the border and stop fentanyl and illegal aliens from coming into our country. They have a big incentive to do. Other than that, we've agreed to talk and consider various other things. We haven't agreed on tariffs yet, and maybe we will, maybe we won't.
But we have a very good relationship. I also spoke with Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada. And we had a good talk in the morning. But I did ask him a couple of questions like, you know, banks aren't allowed to do business in Canada. Canada is very tough. Canada is very, you know, we're not treated well by Canada. And we have to be treated well. Banks are not, as an example, allowed.
Did you know that? That banks, American banks, are not allowed to do business in Canada. Can you believe that? And that's one of many things that we talked about, and I think we'll win most of the subjects. But for some reason, a lot of things have been very unfair with Canada. I noticed that in the first term.
You deal with people, and after a while, you begin to realize, like you learned that Larry Ellison is very tough to do business with, okay? He's a very tough guy. I mean, I'm sure you're shocked to hear that. But Canada is very tough. They're very, very tough to do business with. And we can't let them take advantage of the U.S. They don't take our agricultural product, for the most part.
They don't take our cars. They make cars, but they basically don't take our cars. And, you know, we don't need... And, look, I think we're going to have another good conversation today. We're actually speaking at 3 o'clock again. But... We don't need them to make our cars. We don't need them to give us lumber.
We don't need them for agricultural products, because we have all the agriculture we need. They don't take our agricultural product for the most part, our milk and dairy, et cetera. A little bit they do, but not much. We take theirs. And as far as cars are concerned, they took in a big percentage, almost 19% of the market. And, you know, I wouldn't mind making our cars in the United States.
So we have a problem there. I'd like to make our cars in the U.S. We don't need Canada to make our cars. With that being said, we're going to have another call at 3 o'clock. We had a call this morning. It was a pretty good call, I'd say. So the call with Mexico went very well in the sense that they're very strong now on the border. They're going to put soldiers there.
Actually, they're the best military soldiers and they're going to be at the border. Ten thousand. That's a lot of soldiers. And they want to protect it also. You know, they want they don't want people running through Mexico, coming through Mexico to come into our country. So they're going to do that.
And then we're going to talk about other things over the next and we're going to have over the next 30 days. We're going to have Scott Howard and Marco Marco Rubio, secretary of state, lead the delegation. And we're going to have a big negotiation with Mexico. I'll be involved, too, and President Scheinbaum will be involved to see whether or not we can work something out on the tariffs.
China will be speaking to China probably over the next 24 hours. We don't want fentanyl coming into our country. Now, we had another big thing. Speaking of China, China's involved with the Panama Canal. They won't be for long. And that's the way it has to be. Marco just got back, as you know. He's in the process of coming back. I guess he's almost back by now.
And he had a very long conversation with the leader of Panama, the respected man, and some others, the entire leadership group. And we're trying to work a deal of the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal was given foolishly years ago to it shouldn't have been happened years ago to Panama by Jimmy Carter and the group.
We lost 38,000 people building the Panama Canal, like one of the great wonders of the world. It's the biggest job we've ever built, the biggest project we've ever built in this country, dollar-wise and every other way. 38,000 people died, Americans, all men, just about, laborers and construction people. They went to Panama. The mosquito got them. Between mosquito and snakes,
We lost 38,000 people. It was the most expensive project ever built by the United States. The biggest, most expensive project we ever built 110 years ago. If you bring it up to now, it would have been the equivalent of $2 trillion. The most expensive we ever built. And we gave it away for $1, okay? We gave it away essentially for nothing. And we either want it back or...
We're going to get something very strong. We're going to take it back. And China will be dealt with. And we didn't give that to China. We gave it to Panama. We shouldn't have given it to Panama. But Panama, as you know, has violated the agreement, totally violated the agreement. So that's in the process right now. But they did have a very good meeting with the head of Panama.
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Do you say your current thinking about whether China should be forced to pay reparations for fentanyl deaths and the million COVID deaths?
No, I haven't talked about that, but they do have tariffs. Honestly, nobody, the amount of money that was lost and most importantly, the lives lost because of COVID is not something that anybody could ever even imagine. It's probably $60 trillion that all the countries in the world don't have $60 trillion.
The amount of death and the amount of destruction and the amount of money lost is probably $60 trillion. I had it figured by people about three months ago. I was just... It's just a figure that nobody knows what the real number is, but it's an almost an infinite number that damaged. But I have not discussed that. What I have discussed is we'll have some good meetings with China.
We have meetings planned. And we'll see what happens. But that was just an opening salvo. If we can't make a deal with China, then the tariffs will be very, very substantial. Okay, I'm going to sign this one.
Sir, you've obviously made making America healthy again a key priority of this administration. A key component of that is obviously heart health. This is a ceremonial proclamation declaring the month of February to be National Heart Month.
Okay. Okay. I hear we're doing very well with nominations. We'll see, but it looks like we're doing very well with nominations.
Mr. President, have you been involved with calling senators who had some concerns about Tulsi Gabbard? Yes.
I've gotten great response. They want to do what's right, and we've had a good response. I think we'll do well. We have great people, people like this. We have great, great people coming in. I think I'd like to say the best ever recruited for government. I think we have the finest people ever recruited for government.
Will we take an active Congress?
And you know what? You're starting to see that because we've done more in two weeks than Biden's done in five years, six years. They could be here between him and Obama. You add it up, okay? We've done more in two weeks than they've done in 12 years.
I don't know.
I don't think so. Not when it comes to fraud. If there's fraud, these people are lunatics. And if it comes to fraud, you wouldn't have an act of Congress. And I'm not sure that you would anyway. But we just want to do the right thing. It's something that should have been done a long time ago. It went crazy during the Biden administration. They went totally crazy what they were doing.
And the money they were giving to people that shouldn't be getting it and to agencies and others that shouldn't be getting it was a shame. So they're tremendous fraud. But we'll be doing a report. We'll be giving you that report at the appropriate time.
I love the concept.
Yeah, sure. I love the concept, but they turn out to be radical left lunatics. And the concept of it is good, but it's all about the people. Well, we have massive deficits with the European Union, massive, like $350 billion, if you can believe it. They don't take our farm product. They don't take our cars. They don't take almost anything, but we take their cars.
We have millions of cars coming in, BMW and Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen and just so many different... CARS, AND WE DON'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT THAT. We don't charge them tariffs. They make it impossible to sell cars in the European Union. They make it very difficult, agricultural product. They actually don't take it. And they have a lot of excuses.
Some of them are the pesticides and the different chemicals used. And Bobby Kennedy actually is looking at that very, very seriously, because maybe it's not necessary to use all of that. You know, we want to be the healthiest country, and we're not. We spend more money on food than anybody else in terms of its creation, but we're not the healthiest country.
So maybe there is something to the fact that we shouldn't be using so much chemical, and maybe that'll stop. But Bobby Kennedy is the one, because he is not a believer in all of the things we have done, and neither are the Europeans. So we'll see what happens. But they use it as an excuse not to buy our product.
uh and they were you tried i asked a couple of the leaders i don't want to use names but how many chevrolets or fords do you see in the middle of munich and the answer is none because they don't take any cars they don't take anything so the european is abused the United States for years, and they can't do that. And they want to make a deal.
Let me tell you, in all cases, they all want to make deals. There's nobody that doesn't want to make deals. They've been abusers, and they want to make deals. So we'll see about that. We'll have, I think, some very fair. All we want is a fair deal. And, you know, there's a word reciprocal. I'd go right now.
Reciprocal tariffs on everybody, because many of the countries that you feel so horrible about the way they're being treated by Trump, you say, oh, President Trump is so terrible to them. Well, they charge us tariffs. European Union has a VAT tax, which is through the roof, okay? It's a similar thing, similar to a tariff. It's a VAT. And they have it, and it's numbers like you wouldn't believe.
And Canada, I told you about the banks, and I told you they charge us. And people don't say that. They don't like to say it. Just like they don't like to say that I opened up the water for California. It's a great thing. It's too bad they didn't do it themselves. I had to do it. And it was not easy. We did it a very rough way. And I didn't like to do it a rough way.
We shouldn't have to do it a rough way. But a lot of these countries that we're talking about, you know, there are so-called allies, but they don't treat us well. And just like I got $420 billion and now it's actually over $600 billion. The secretary general of NATO came in two weeks ago and he said. It was a miracle.
When Trump came in, when President Trump came into NATO, he said it was $636 billion by saying to them, no, you have to pay, and if you don't pay, We're not going to be there for you. You know, somebody has to say it, and they paid. And it was a large amount of money.
And one of the problems we have with the Russia-Ukraine situation is that we want to see some equalization, because we're in for close to $300 billion, and they're in for $200 billion less. Why are they in for less? Because Biden never asked them for money. He never said, you got to pay. He never did. All he did is hand out money.
So we're talking with them right now, and we're actually working some deals right now so we have some guarantees and some other things to keep that whole situation to go. Really going. I mean, going. We're telling Ukraine they have very valuable rare earth. We want what we put up to... go in terms of a guarantee. We want a guarantee. We're handing them money hand over fist.
We're giving them equipment. European is not keeping up with us. They should equalize. Look, we have an ocean in between. They don't. It's more important for them than it is for us. But they're way below us in terms of money. And they should be paying at least equal, they should really be paying much more than us, but let's say equal to us, and they're billions and billions of dollars below.
So we're looking to do a deal with Ukraine where they're going to secure what we're giving them with their rare earth and other things.
Mr. President, the deal with Mexico this morning, was that partially related to the market reaction and the criticism from Mr. Murdoch's own newspaper? He called it the dumbest trade war on the editorial page on Saturday.
I'm going to have to talk to him. I've been right over the Wall Street Journal many times, I will tell you. I don't agree with him on some things. No, not only is it not done, you're going to see. You're going to see. Every single one of those countries is dying to make a deal. You know why? Because they're ripping us off really badly. And the United States is tired of just being ripped off.
And that's why we have $36 trillion in debt. We have it for a reason, because we make bad deals with everybody. And we don't allow that anymore. So the Wall Street Journal is wrong because very simply, every single country that you're writing about right now is dying to make a deal because the deals they have right now are so good and so good for them and so profitable for them.
You didn't know that Canada didn't allow our banks. You didn't know all of these different things. And I think in the end, you're going to see that Either very, very substantial tariffs are going to be paid by them, or they're going to make some kind of a deal.
Did what? There was no blanking.
She's a wonderful woman, but she did agree to 10,000 soldiers on the border. I would say that's a lot. Would you say that's pretty good? 10,000 soldiers on the border? And the 10,000 soldiers are going to keep illegal aliens out. And they're going to keep them out, seriously out. And otherwise, they're going to have a big penalty. Mexico is going to be penalized.
They're not going to come through Mexico anymore. And they're not going to let the fentanyl come in from China. And China, hopefully, is going to stop sending us fentanyl. And if they're not, the tariffs are going to go substantially higher.
Sir, just to clarify, when you said about Ukraine earlier, the rare earths, is that something you want them to give the rare earths to the United States? Yeah.
I want to have security of rare earth. We're putting in hundreds of billions of dollars. They have great rare earth, and I want security of the rare earth. And they're willing to do it.
Mr. President, on Canada, when you talk to Justin Trudeau again, is there anything he can give you at 3 p.m. when you talk again to also... I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
We have big deficits with Canada, like we do with all countries. I mean, I look at some of the deals made. I say, who the hell made these deals that are so bad? But with Canada, I have a talk with him, and you maybe know or maybe not. We're going to meet again or talk again at 3 o'clock right after my next meeting. And we'll see what happens.
I can't tell you what's going to happen. Anything on the banks you mentioned that he could agree to, to change your mind on the tariffs?
Well, we can always. But look, what I'd like to see, Canada become our 51st state. We give them protection, military protection. We don't need them to build our cars. I'd rather see Detroit or South Carolina or any one of our Tennessee, any one of our states build the cars. They could do it very easily. We don't need them for the cars. We don't need them for lumber.
We don't need them for anything. We don't need them for energy. We have more energy than they do. We don't need them for energy. So I say, why are we doing this? Why are we willing to lose between $100 billion and $200 billion a year? We don't need them. As a state, it's different. As a state, it's much different. And there are no tariffs.
So I'd love to see that, but some people say that would be a long shot. If people wanted to play the game right, it would be 100% certain that they'd become a state. But a lot of people don't like to play the game because they don't have a threshold of pain. And there would be some pain, but not a lot. The pain would be really there. So we're going to meet...
Again, by phone at 3 o'clock, and we'll let you know.
On Israel, President Trump, you're prepared to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu. Coming in tomorrow. Yes, you mentioned in the past your concern about Israel being too small geographically. Would you support annexation of parts of the West Bank by Israel?
Well, I'm not going to talk about that. It certainly is a small... It's a small country in terms of land. See this pen, this wonderful pen? My desk is the Middle East, and this pen, the top of the pen, that's Israel. That's not good, right? You know? That's a pretty big difference. I use that as an analogy. It's pretty accurate, actually. It's a pretty small piece of land.
And it's amazing that they've been able to do what they've been able to do. When you think about it, there's a lot of good, smart brainpower. But it is a very small piece of land, no question about it.
Mr. President, you said earlier that Elon Musk is doing everything with Mercedes. Is there anything that he has done thus far with all the agencies? shutting off access, getting access to federal payments, that all has your okay for all of that?
For the most part, yeah. If we, I mean, if there was something that didn't have my okay, I'd let you know about it really fast.
And you said there's some areas where you wouldn't let him work because he has conflicts of interest.
If there was a conflict, no, no, I haven't seen that. And he would know not to do it. So we haven't had that yet. But if there was a conflict, we would let him work it out.
We're going to meet with Panama on Friday at...
about 3.30 in the afternoon by phone. And maybe there'll be some representatives here or there. But we're going to be talking to Panama on Friday, essentially. And they've agreed to certain things, but I'm not happy with it.
On the Middle East, Mr. President, if I may, do you still have doubts that the ceasefire will hold?
On what?
On the Middle East. Do you think the ceasefire will hold?
I have no assurances that it'll hold. I mean, I've seen people brutalized. I've never, nobody's ever seen anything like it. No, I have no guarantees that the peace is going to hold. Steve, you might want to say something about that. Steve Whitaker.
It's holding so far. So, and we're certainly hopeful, and that's the President's direction. Get the hostages out and save lives and come to hopefully a peaceful settlement of it all. So, so far it's holding.
Mr. President, on a different topic, questionnaires have been going out to FBI agents across the country who were involved potentially in the investigation. Do you believe anyone involved at any level should be fired, sir?
Well, I think the FBI was a very corrupt institution, and I'm a victim of it in a true sense. I was able to beat it, but other people have been treated horribly. I think the FBI had a great reputation. I think its reputation was really damaged badly, as is DOJ. Look at what they've done in terms of weaponization. Look at what they've done to a political opponent.
Probably got me elected by what they did. I think I was doing well anyway, but they might have got me elected. But you know what? We have to have pristine, beautiful, perfect law enforcement. And what we want to do, and Cash is the one to do it. He's the one guy that is going to do it. We have to bring the reputation of the FBI. We have to bring the fact of the FBI back to what it could be.
Not even to what it was, even better than it ever was. Because who would have thought that the FBI could have been corrupted like they were corrupted? Who would have thought that would have happened? Who would have thought they would have been used to go after political opponents, essentially, but me being the number one? And so many other things beyond that.
And they've been hurt very badly, and we'll see what happens. But Cash is the one to do it, and I hear he's doing very well. Cash will straighten it out. We have great confidence that we can make the FBI great again. Okay, one or two more and we'll be done. Say it? Yeah, I think Tulsi's going to be doing okay.
I can't guarantee anything, but she's liked by so many people, especially people in the military and law enforcement.
She has a little bit of trouble with some senators over her thoughts on Edward Snowden. I know, Snowden, you've mentioned in the past you're thinking about pardoning him. Are you still? And what do you think about that?
No, I don't talk to him about it right now. I just people feel very differently. Some people think he should be pardoned and some people think it would be a terrible thing to do. But I don't get involved in that.
Mr. President, what are you discussing with Mr. Morales today?
Just respect. I have great respect for Rupert Murdoch. I disagree with him a lot of times with the Wall Street Journal, but that's all right. We've disagreed before. And I'm sure they didn't have any idea what they were talking about because already you see what's happening. Look at Columbia. Look at what happened with that. Everybody said that with Columbia it was going to be a disaster.
In one hour, everything was settled. you know why tariffs tariffs without tariffs they wouldn't have been the same way they wanted would not have treated me the way they treated me which was extremely nicely and i don't want to use countries i don't want to use names but Tariffs are very powerful, both economically and in getting everything else you want.
Tariffs for us, nobody can compete with us because we're the pot of gold. But if we don't keep winning and keep doing well, we won't be the pot of gold, and then tariffs won't be so good for us. But when you're the pot of gold, the tariffs are very good. They're very powerful, and they're going to make our country very rich again. Thank you very much, everybody.
Wow, that was a pretty amazing press conference, President Trump. Just to recap, creation of a sovereign wealth fund, explaining of the tariffs, understanding that these other countries are mobilizing forces to the southern border. Remarkable to see President Donald Trump dealing in real time. That is a masterclass of diplomacy right there. Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com. Thanks so much for listening. God bless. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust,