Sure, leaked chat messages about bombing Houthis are embarrassing. But how does that compare to 25 years of neocon disaster-mongering in Washington? Charlie reacts to today’s big story with some badly-needed perspective. Sen. Ron Johnson emphasizes the importance of the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, the most important election for all of 2025. Watch ad-free on members.charliekirk.com! Get new merch at charliekirkstore.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: What is the leaked group chat about?
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. Yesterday, there was some breaking news happening while we were on the show. We decided not to cover it because we wanted to get all the facts.
There was a group chat that was formed over the last weekend, and we're going to go through all of the facts related to this story and give you our analysis, the analysis that has the media in an uproar. So here are the facts. As you know, over the weekend, President Donald Trump authorized a series of targeted military strikes against the Houthis. The Houthis were firing upon US vessels.
Now, we must be very clear that it is a quagmire. on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. This is in Yemen. The Houthis are in Yemen, which is on the western part of the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, right near Oman and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia for years has been very invested in this Houthi civil war. It's been disrupting global trade.
Many Americans do not even know that there's a country called Yemen, let alone that we should be involved in the Yemenese civil war. President Donald Trump made a decision to authorize American military strikes. Now, regardless of whether or not you agree or disagree with that, that's actually not the core element at play here.
Chapter 2: Who was involved in the Trump administration Signal chat?
Once this decision was well underway, there was a group chat that was started on a messaging application called Signal. Now, I use Signal quite a lot and I'm sure many of you do as well. It's a secure messaging application where you're able to have messages that automatically delete after an hour, a day, a week or a month. In this group chat was Vice President J.D.
Vance, Pete Hegseth, John Ratcliffe, Susie Wiles, Stephen Miller, and many others. Now, let's just begin by saying there were no non-government officials on these group chats. That's a good first start. There was not people that were not supposed to necessarily be informed of what is going on. Well, until something got leaked.
So I'm going to read this entire group conversation and this group chat conversation, and I'm going to tell you exactly how on earth we have been led to have a window into these private discussions. J.D. Vance writes at first. Pete Hegseth replies, VP, I fully share your loathing of European freeloading. It's all caps. Pathetic. But Mike is correct.
We are the only ones on the planet on our side of the ledger who can do this. Nobody else can come even close. The question is timing. I feel like now is a good time as any given POTUS directive to reopen shipping lanes. And then we should go. But POTUS still retains 24 hours of decision space. Now, SM then replies, I believe this is Stephen Miller. I could be incorrect.
I think it's Stephen Miller. As I heard it, the president was clear. Green light. But we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return. We also need to figure out how to enforce such a requirement. E.g., if Europe doesn't remunerate, then what? If the U.S. successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost, there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return.
Now, it's presumably Stephen Miller, but we don't know for sure. Then, in the next iteration, we saw a couple emojis here from Michael Walsh. saying the team in Mar-a-Lago did a great job as well. Great work, all-powerful start. And the name of the group chat was the Huti PC Small Group. Now, how on earth did we learn about this? On Signal, you are able to add people to your group chat.
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Chapter 3: How was Jeffrey Goldberg accidentally added to the group chat?
On Signal, you're able to allow other people to come in. You can invite them. National Security Advisor Michael Waltz invited... the editor-in-chief of the Trump-hating Atlantic magazine, Mr. Goldberg, into the group chat to go have a window into all of these private national security conversations.
Now, before I go deeper into that element of this, I do want to make sure that we are clear about what we've just read. What you've read is that both privately and publicly, there is symmetry with the national security attitudes that our foreign policy leaders have. That there is not a private loathing for the America First policy perspective that they ran and what J.D.
Vance believes publicly, he also believes in privately. What Pete Hegseth has been saying publicly, he also believes behind closed doors. They aren't plotting how to make Elon Musk money. We saw the Trump administration was telling the truth about what they care about. This is exactly how I'd expect them to speak both publicly and privately.
They aren't plotting about how to get five points of approval without caring about the outcome. It is raw. It's authentic. Now, how Jeffrey Goldberg got added is likely because Mike Waltz wanted to add the U.S. trade representative, Jameson Greer, and had the same initials. Now, allow me to editorialize for a second. I know Mike Waltz. We disagree on a lot of foreign policy stuff.
There's a serious question as to why Mike Waltz has Jeffrey Goldberg as a saved signal contact. It's a very serious question. He's the editor in chief of a Trump hating magazine. You are a national security advisor. You've obviously been dialoguing or talking to him previously. Is Michael Walsh leaking to Jeffrey Goldberg? I certainly hope not.
We know Jeffrey Goldberg has pushed some of the greatest anti-Trump BS in years past. This is not a friendly or a remotely friendly reporter. This is a major screw up. There is no other way to put it. And the screw-up is allowing this guy to be put in and Michael Walsh doing that.
And by the way, when you have presidencies and administrations like this, you're going to have little hiccups and you're going to have speed bumps. The best way is just to take responsibility, confront it head on and say it was a glitch. It shouldn't have happened. It was a near miss in the sense that it could have been way worse what Jeffrey Goldberg got his eyes on.
It could have been way worse what he got right into and was not supposed to be right into. Now, some people are saying, oh, this was intentional that they let Jeffrey Goldberg in. None of that is true. Let's be honest. That is a bunch of BS. This is there are people in and out inside and outside the White House calling for heads to roll over this. This was not some sort of intentional.
Let's allow the head of the Trump hating Atlantic magazine to have a window into our signal group chat. So situations like this happen throughout presidencies where things are going a certain way and you have a little bit of a mix-up. You have a little bit of a leak. How you handle it is everything. But there are some serious questions, though. But you know who does not have to answer questions?
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of the group chat leak?
Yeah, we have to kind of save face with our base, but the Europeans are actually awesome. But let's pretend that we're tough on Europe. Could you imagine? That would be an actual scandal. A real scandal would be our leaders saying one thing to voters and doing a completely different thing behind closed doors.
In reality, we just happen to see that behind closed doors, they're doing everything they said they were going to do. We never should have had that window into closed doors because you don't add the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic magazine to your group chats. But thankfully, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here.
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So I have one more thought that I want to go into a thought exercise regarding this situation. I was not overly surprised by the elements of this story because we have a hyper online administration. Pete Hegseth, J.D. Vance, they are on the younger of the continuum and the spectrum. My generation, I'm 31. J.D. Vance is about 40. Pete Hegseth, I think, is late 40s.
We do a lot of our communication on Signal, on Telegram, on WhatsApp, and on group messages. The team is moving very, very fast. Now, in the future, these situations should be happening in skips. And it is the National Security Advisor's job to even rein in cabinet officials and say, nope, we can't be having this conversation here. Can't be doing this. Let's go to a skiff.
Let's go to a secure conference line. However... Understand that a lot of government and a lot of corporate America and a lot of high stakes decision making is occurring in secured group chats. The reason being, it's far more efficient to have a group chat with 20 people and they can chime in at their the likelihood of their own timing, the own choosing.
at their own convenience than having a conference call where everyone has to be there at the same time and then almost nothing gets done. Not defending the elements here, but conference calls are literally hell on earth. It is where bureaucrats go to waste time. A group chat is far more efficient.
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Chapter 5: How does this leak compare to past US foreign policy missteps?
that we're in very capable hands as to how these decisions are being made, who is making them, and then weighing the potential costs of U.S. involvement. In a backwards way, it's actually awfully reassuring. Hey, Charlie Kirk here. Ever see your dog slowing down or having health issues and wonder, what can I do to make them better?
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That is ruffgreens.com, promo code Charlie, and just cover shipping. You don't have to change your dog's food. To improve your dog's health, just add a scoop of Ruff Greens. That is ruffgreens.com. Joining us now is Senator Ron Johnson from the great state of Wisconsin. Senator, welcome to the program. Senator, we are pushing very hard.
We have deployed our entire field staff at Turning Point Action. They are living in the state of Wisconsin right now. We are going all in and doing everything we can. Please remind our audience about the importance of this Supreme Court race.
Well, Charlie, and thank you for all those efforts. You understand, as your organization understands, the way you win elections in Wisconsin is is ground game, ground game, ground game. You combine that with the volunteers at RPW, Elon Musk's efforts, some other big supporters. That's how we're going to have to get it done.
But what's so crucial about this is we have another election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Last time we lost, our candidate only got 800,000 votes. Now, to put that in perspective, President Trump is now the record vote getter in Wisconsin, just shy of 1.7. There's no reason whatsoever that we're running 900,000 votes below his record total.
So we need to get out to vote because this is a race between a judge, a judge. I've got a senior moment here.
Schimel.
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Chapter 6: What is the significance of the Wisconsin Supreme Court race?
You know, why in a presidential year, you can turn out 1.7 and win by 30,000 votes. In a non-presidential year, you turn out about, you know, 1.2 million and win by 30,000 votes or lose by 30,000 votes. It's Wisconsin. It's going to be close.
It's just amazing the way both sides seem to, you know, ratchet up the turnout by about the same level, no matter what the race is, whether it's presidential or non-presidential.
So I'm thrilled to hear that. And I know the grassroots are working really hard. Senator, shifting gears for a second now to more broad macro elements. What is your take on this story with Jeffrey Goldberg? The Atlantic, obviously not a great look with, you know, adding the editor in chief, the Atlantic, into a private group chat story. And the strike then subsequent strike on the Houthis.
What is your analysis? Your Senate colleagues are acting as if this was the leaking of the invasion of Normandy and an outrageous over the top hyperbolic response. Senator, how are you processing all of this?
Well, it does sound, now that I started reading the reports, that this has been embellished. It's obviously not a great look. My guess, this was obviously a mistake, a mistake that I'm sure is being corrected and has been corrected immediately. I mean, it'll be up to the president to decide exactly what action to take.
But from my standpoint, I don't doubt that this is all being blown way out of proportion by the Atlantic and by the mainstream media. And I also have no doubt that this is going to be corrected very, very quickly. I certainly contact her. My, my, discussion with nominees is follow the Federal Records Act, make sure that all communications are preserved, follow the law.
And I think by and large, that's exactly what the people inside the conservative administrations do. We certainly see how Vice President Biden, President Biden violates that by, you know, using all these private email addresses, that type of thing. So again, I caution Republican nominees, don't do that, follow the law.
Also, I want to now touch on the reconciliation process. How are we proceeding on the one big, beautiful bill? What are you pushing for specifically to try and bring this to be a victory for the border and hopefully spending cuts? We cannot forget spending cuts. Senator, where are we at?
To me, it's all about spending. There's no way you can justify it from going from $4.4 trillion in 2019 up to $7.3 trillion this year. And particularly when you take a look at the options I've laid out there to return to a pre-pandemic level, whether it's Clinton in 98, Obama in 2014, or Trump in 2019, leave Social Security and Medicare...
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