Can Democrats Pull Out of Their Death Spiral?

Speaker 1 everybody, today the Charlie Kirk Show. Caroline Levitt takes the podium.
We have incident analysis. We have a professor from Hillsdale College that speaks about freedom of speech.

Speaker 1 And Kane joins the program. Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com and subscribe to our podcast.
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Buckle up, everybody. Here we go.

Speaker 2 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

Speaker 3 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

Speaker 4 I want you to know we we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 2 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here.

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Speaker 1 Let's play some more pieces of tape here

Speaker 1 as we kind of recollect on the State of the Union, one of the announcements that was made at the State of the Union was no men and female sports, something that Democrats should be able to agree on, something that Democrats should be able to do.

Speaker 1 This is Representative Kozlowski, who says the Preservation of Girls Sports Act is genocide, play cut 86.

Speaker 7 And they aren't going to stop being transgender just because you strip them from sports or from housing or from their health care or any other public place that you don't want us to be.

Speaker 7 And so members, make no mistake that this is just another version of state-sanctioned bullying and genocide.

Speaker 7 And I don't say that loudly.

Speaker 1 I'm glad no one's engaging in hyperbole.

Speaker 1 Genocide is the word that they're using. I mean, what a repulsively insulting framing.
Because we've seen real genocides over the last 100 years. Obviously, the Holocaust, terrible.

Speaker 1 What Mao Zedong did to his own people, what Stalin did.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 she's comparing no men in female sports as a genocide. That's the state of the Democrat Party, which is an 80-20 issue.
It's really a 95-5 issue. I think the polling is wrong.

Speaker 1 I think when people are actually presented, should men be in female sports, I think there's a 5% minoritarian lunatic vanguard, and the rest of the country wants nothing to do with this.

Speaker 1 Nothing to do with this.

Speaker 1 And I guess it's fine because we're crushing the Democrats on this issue. We are running circles around them on every core one of these issues.

Speaker 1 I wish the Democrat Party would actually come to the middle on some of this stuff. I mean, it would be harder for us politically, but better for the country.

Speaker 1 I would rather have what's better for the nation than what's just good for the Republican Party. I would rather have the high road of, okay, we can agree we are not going to have

Speaker 1 men and female sports. And all of the trans stuff is destroying the base of the Democrat Party.
They have a partnership with the trans zealots. They are captured

Speaker 1 by this sinister and pernicious ideology.

Speaker 1 And this is a great tape here of Governor Healy talking about how DEI is being rolled back. Play cut seven.

Speaker 8 Talk to any CEO, major, you know, Fortune 500 company. They'll tell you that their bottom line, dollar-wise, does better when there's more diversity in the room.
But many of these.

Speaker 8 That's not a bad thing. It's a good thing.
It's made them stronger.

Speaker 8 Companies are ditching their diversity. And I don't know why.

Speaker 4 I don't know why.

Speaker 1 Apparently we have Kane that's been in the waiting room. I didn't know that.

Speaker 1 Mr. Kane, how are you doing? I'm sorry to keep you waiting, man.
I didn't know that.

Speaker 9 How are you?

Speaker 10 Yeah, no. I figured you didn't know.
It was interesting just to listen because I never have time to listen to your show because I'm always stacking.

Speaker 1 So I enjoyed it. What do you think? Am I doing an okay job?

Speaker 10 Yeah, you're doing pretty good, dude. I think you, I think you're, you know, if you keep working hard for another five years, maybe someone will have heard of you.

Speaker 1 Maybe I can make something of myself, right?

Speaker 1 So, uh, it's unbelievable, Charlie.

Speaker 10 It's unbelievable what you've done, what you've actually made of yourself. I don't know if I can talk about it, but I want to talk for a minute about how I cannot wait for the Gavin Newsom interview.

Speaker 1 So, cannot wait for it. So, yeah, so so talk about that.

Speaker 1 It went well.

Speaker 1 Everyone's laughing because there's now some drama over the release of some of

Speaker 1 what happened there, but we filmed it ourselves. But yes, Kane, tell me about your thoughts on that.

Speaker 9 Well, number one, you made the right choice.

Speaker 10 I didn't, you and I haven't talked for a week or so. I hadn't really been paying attention to your Twitter, but it just popped up yesterday, the photo of you leaving Gavin's office.

Speaker 10 So the first thing I noticed of the the photo is Gavin Newsom is not, is not accustomed to dealing with people taller than him.

Speaker 10 So that's the first thing that came to my mind is like, Charlie, it's six, five and a quarter. He's towering over Gavin Newsome.
I like this to begin with. Secondly, I'm glad you did it.

Speaker 10 Look, we all made fun of Newsome with this, with the launch of the new podcast, but dialogue is important. And one of the things I liked about

Speaker 10 The most recent event that you guys had was, for example, when you had, when you had Jank up there on stage and you did 20 minutes with Jenkin and sort of bridging the kind of left-wing populism that approaches

Speaker 10 the America First agenda. So I think it's a really good thing that you did it.
And I can't wait to see it.

Speaker 10 I'm assuming, you know, I know how you find, you tend to find common ground with people, but at the same time, you don't back down on the important issues. So I'm expecting there to be both of that.

Speaker 10 I'm expecting there to be some, you know, a couple of segments where there's common ground and you sort of bring Newsom to the middle.

Speaker 10 And then I'm expecting segments where he just, you know, goes into full-blown denial. But I, I can't wait to see it, to be honest.

Speaker 1 Well, worst case scenario, we have our own iPhone video of it. So we'll see what happens.
All that's still being discussed in the moment. So let's talk about the state of the Democrat Party.

Speaker 1 Kane, they're making our job quite easy right now. Why is that?

Speaker 10 I don't know, Charlie. I think it's because the moderate voices get drowned out.

Speaker 10 It was a literal freak show last night. It wasn't just the fact that they've completely turned their back on America.
They couldn't stand once.

Speaker 10 They couldn't celebrate any of the achievements, despite the fact that they know in polling, for example, you know, for example, in that CBS poll that's out this morning.

Speaker 10 The ideas that Trump stands for are 25 points more popular than Trump himself. Like almost all of his platforms are in the 70s in approval rating, and Trump himself is in the 50s.

Speaker 10 So the idea that the Democrat Party can't even find any common ground, can't show that they support. I mean, I remember, you know, more or less, this was a state of the union.

Speaker 10 So I remember state of the unions when Republicans would

Speaker 10 stand up and clap for things that Obama did, that they supported. I mean, there used to be a little bit of a sense, you know, a small sense of bipartisan honesty, let's say.

Speaker 10 To me, it was a freak show. They looked like a freak show.

Speaker 10 Their signs were freakish. Al Green, that was embarrassing what he did.
And it seemed so

Speaker 10 sort of staged.

Speaker 10 And then as I throw it back, the last thing, Mark Mitchell

Speaker 10 was on this morning with Bannon on War Room and just really laying out how,

Speaker 10 you know, the numbers, for example,

Speaker 10 in the 18 to 39 voting group, that Trump has 60% approval with that group.

Speaker 10 So when we look at the overall, Mitchell was pointing out that when we look at the overall approval rating of Trump at sort of 51 to 53 to 55, that it's actually much higher with young people.

Speaker 10 And he said it's actually above 60% with Hispanics. So I don't know why they're

Speaker 10 committing

Speaker 10 party suicide, Charlie, but the but the you know, the most extreme voices, the Jasmine Crocketts, the Sandy from Brooklyn, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, those are still the voices that are being heard, and it is not helping them.

Speaker 10 And I don't think 2026 is going to be good for for them.

Speaker 1 I'm with you, Kane.

Speaker 1 And I mean, I don't want to make any predictions about the midterms, but the direction of the Democrat Party, it's just troubling for how a major political party could believe this and how they could embrace this ideology.

Speaker 1 It's beyond disturbing.

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Speaker 1 Mr. Kane, the speech last night was remarkable.
The southern border is closed. Talk about the demographic realignment.

Speaker 1 Younger voters in particular are moving to the right, even more so than their parents. Speak about that, Mr.
Kane.

Speaker 10 Well, it's happening, Charlie. It's been happening for

Speaker 10 six months, for a year. And to be honest, it's probably,

Speaker 10 I don't know how to designate percentages here, but it's probably at least 50%

Speaker 10 because of TPUSA.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 10 look, how do you get young people, how do you get young people to sort of open their eyes? You go to where they are. You go to college campuses.

Speaker 10 Who's been going to college campuses more than anyone else? TP Action and TP USA. So the strategy that you came up with has worked, but

Speaker 10 that's not really even the interesting part. It isn't interesting that it's worked.
What's really interesting are the actual numbers that, you know, these are big.

Speaker 10 As you said, more than their parents are.

Speaker 10 Can you even imagine saying five years ago that one of the strengths of the America First Movement or the Republican movement would be young people, would be voters under 39?

Speaker 10 It's astonishing that we can even say that. But that's how much things have changed in five years.
And again, how it happened, it's a combination of things.

Speaker 10 It's social media, it's Trump, but it, but really, at

Speaker 10 the grassroots, it's all the work that TP did.

Speaker 10 And, you know, it's why probably 14 years ago, when you came up with this idea, that you were able to find people interested in bankrolling it, because there were other people who thought, well, you know what?

Speaker 10 If this kid can pull it off, that's going to completely change future elections because we're always so used to losing these young votes. So, so I think that's where it's coming from.

Speaker 10 Charles, I don't know if you've already talked about it before, but one thing I wanted to add quickly was, you know, unfortunately, we had a Democrat congressman who'd been in office for 62 days who replaced Sheila Jackson Lee,

Speaker 10 passed away last night. Tough situation.
So, so, yeah, it's, it's obviously when and when anyone passes, it's very tough.

Speaker 10 But Democrats enjoyed when we lost Matt Gates and when we lost Elise Stefanik and how that was going to help their voting. So I think the bottom line of

Speaker 10 what happened is we now have one more vote to play with.

Speaker 10 And something else I'll add that's just been breaking as I've been on the show with you. Howard Luttnick was on Fox News Live.
They tried to get him on to

Speaker 10 explain what's going on with the tariffs. I'm sure your readers.

Speaker 10 are following that we've had you know luttnick came out yesterday and said that trump might be announcing a 30-day pause so he sort of clarified in the last 20 minutes.

Speaker 10 He said the full tariff agenda from Trump will come out April 2nd.

Speaker 10 And he said that it has not been,

Speaker 10 and the reason it hasn't been announced, and I'm guessing this is why Caroline Levitt is delayed. I think she's waiting to get off the stage.

Speaker 1 She actually just took the stage. So, Kane, if that's okay, let's cut to her.
Kane, we'll talk to you soon: citizenfreepress.com. You're the best, Kane.
Let's go to Caroline Levitt,

Speaker 1 who is on stage. Let's listen in.

Speaker 3 Everyday Americans love this president because he tells it like it is, no matter what, and he did that last night.

Speaker 3 President Trump level set with the American people on the economy and exposed how badly Joe Biden screwed it up by causing the worst inflation crisis in four decades.

Speaker 3 President Trump was honest about where we are while making clear that help is on the way. As the president declared last night, he will make America affordable again.

Speaker 3 Last night, you also saw who motivates motivates the president to work so hard. Everyday Americans, who President Trump shined a spotlight on last night in his speech.

Speaker 3 From Mark Fogel, who President Trump was finally able to reunite with his family and his beautiful 95-year-old mother after being detained in Russia.

Speaker 3 To Peyton McNabb, whose heart-wrenching story motivated President Trump to end men in women's sports. And to Allison and Lauren Phillips, the mother

Speaker 3 and sister of Lake and Riley, who President Trump honored by signing the Lake and Riley Act to ensure her name will live on forever.

Speaker 3 In other amazing and surprise moments, President Trump honored the life of Jocelyn Nungere, who was brutally murdered by illegal alien gang members.

Speaker 3 He ensured Jocelyn will never be forgotten by renaming a National Wildlife Refuge in her home state of Texas to honor her life.

Speaker 3 And in one of the greatest surprise moments of the night, DJ Daniel, an incredible 13-year-old boy who is is beating brain cancer, saw his dreams fulfilled by President Trump when he was made an honorary Secret Service agent.

Speaker 3 And finally, after nearly four years, President Trump delivered justice for the families of the 13 American heroes who were killed at Abbey Gate in the Biden-botched Afghanistan withdrawal, which was one of the worst humiliations in the history of our country.

Speaker 3 President Trump announced that we have detained Mohammad Sharif Fula, the monster who was responsible for that horrific attack, and he was delivered to Dulles Airfield earlier this morning.

Speaker 3 On his first day in office, President Trump's national security team across the federal government prioritized intelligence gathering to locate this evil individual.

Speaker 3 President Trump's team shared intelligence with regional partners such as Pakistan, who helped identify this monster in the borderland.

Speaker 3 As President Trump said last night, this killer will now face the swift sword of American justice for these atrocities right here on United States soil.

Speaker 3 Joe Biden was responsible for this botched withdrawal, and he had three years to find this evil terrorist, and he didn't even try to get the job done.

Speaker 3 But President Trump campaigned on behalf of and grew very close to the Gold Star families. He promised them accountability, and last night, he kept his promise.

Speaker 3 He spoke to those Gold Star families yesterday, ahead of his speech, in an incredibly heartwarming call to share this incredible news.

Speaker 3 And as President Trump asked in his speech last night, how could anyone possibly be opposed to any of this action that he is taking? Well, apparently, the modern-day Democrat Party could.

Speaker 3 The behavior of Democrats last night was completely disgraceful and demonstrated how severely out of touch they are with the American public.

Speaker 3 It was the most shameful moment in the history of presidential addresses in that beautiful chamber.

Speaker 3 In what was supposed to be a unifying moment for our country, Democrat members of Congress instead screamed at the President of the United States, who was just overwhelmingly re-elected by their constituents, walked out of the chamber, and worst of all, they disrespected the American people.

Speaker 3 Democrats didn't stand to keep men out of women's sports. They couldn't even clap for a girl who got her head smashed in by a man on a volleyball court.

Speaker 3 Democrats didn't stand for an innocent and beautiful child who is surviving brain brain cancer. They opposed eliminating taxes on tips and Social Security.

Speaker 3 They didn't stand in favor of cutting taxes for hardworking Americans. They couldn't even clap for two mothers whose daughters were killed by illegal aliens.

Speaker 3 One of the only things that could get Democrats off their feet last night was cheering for Ukraine, not for America. Last night was a very clarifying moment for our country.

Speaker 3 The Democrats exposed themselves as the party of insanity and hate, the party that wants to put America last.

Speaker 3 They've allowed their Trump derangement syndrome to stop them from celebrating America and our people, and we will not allow them to forget that. And it's not just the Democrat Party.

Speaker 3 The mainstream media still doesn't get it. Last night, MSNBC's Nicole Wallace disgustingly looped in a 13-year-old boy with brain cancer into an attack on the president over January 6th.

Speaker 3 And CNN's first Chiron out of the speech called it divisive. President Trump wasn't divisive.
The Democrats were.

Speaker 3 And CNN was proven wrong by their own viewers, 69% of whom, in a post-speech poll, said they had a positive reaction to the President's speech.

Speaker 3 It's sad and frankly pathetic that Democrats and liberals in the legacy media continue to allow their hatred for the president to override their love for our country.

Speaker 3 But nevertheless, the president will continue to unify this nation through policies that are grounded in common sense and and that uplift all Americans.

Speaker 3 We have an individual in our new media seat today,

Speaker 3 Mary Margaret Olihan, who is the Daily Wire's first ever White House correspondent. Congratulations, Mary Margaret.
The Daily Wire was founded 10 years ago by Ben Shapiro.

Speaker 3 The Daily Wire now has over 1 million paid subscribers, a monthly network reach of 138 million, and has evolved into a leading conservative multimedia giant.

Speaker 3 They are now the fifth largest podcast network in the world and home to some of the top-ranked shows. With that, I will take your questions.
And Mary, Margaret, why don't you kick us off?

Speaker 3 Thank you so much, Caroline. It's great to be here.
Thanks. So I had two questions, if that's okay.
The first on last night and the second on Maine.

Speaker 3 You talked about behavior from Democrat lawmakers, a lot of disruptions, and I just wanted to kind of go back to that.

Speaker 3 We saw Democrat lawmakers not stand for Lake and Riley, for being McNabb, for the son of a slain police officer and 13-year-old cancer survivor.

Speaker 3 What are the optics of that nationally, just in terms of not just the people who were in the room last night, but across the nation?

Speaker 3 And also, was President Trump expecting this type of behavior when he was crafting his speech?

Speaker 3 So, I gave a quote to one of the media outlets in this room yesterday that Democrats behaving like children would be the least surprising thing of the night.

Speaker 3 And unfortunately, that quote did turn out to be true.

Speaker 3 I think the president and everyone, frankly, was surprised by the Democrats refusing to stand for not the president's policies, because frankly we expected that, but for the everyday Americans who President Trump was shining a light on their stories.

Speaker 3 Mark Fogel, for instance, an American school teacher who was detained by the Russians. President Trump freed him.

Speaker 3 If Joe Biden had done that, they all would have been on their feet, but because of what came from President Trump, they weren't. So we think it's very sad, but we're very proud of the president today.

Speaker 3 And the American people are the people that this president cares about most, and the reviews are in, and everybody loved his speech. Thank you.

Speaker 3 And then on Maine, we know that the governor of Maine has really pushed back against the president's executive order saying the boys should not be in girls' sports.

Speaker 3 I spoke with a lawmaker from Maine this morning who told me she'd been censured by state lawmakers for calling a man a man and speaking up on this. What is the next move for the White House?

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Speaker 1 Okay, we have a lot to get to. Caroline Levitt continues, but I want to get to our guest here from the greatest college in America, Hillsdale College, Dr.

Speaker 1 Miles Smith, who's an assistant professor of history at Hillsdale College. Dr.
Smith, welcome to the program. We love Hillsdale, and there's lots to discuss.

Speaker 1 I want to talk about freedom of speech because when I go on college campuses, they say that, well, Donald Trump is against freedom of speech, but let's get back to our roots.

Speaker 1 How did the founders view the press and freedom of speech?

Speaker 9 Freedom of speech is kind of a tricky thing. We sort of forget that the whole

Speaker 9 question of freedom of speech developed.

Speaker 9 George Washington, for example, had a pretty capacious view. He thought that even

Speaker 9 that if you're criticizing the president, you're allowed to do that. His successor, John Adams, in the Alien Susan Act, actually passed laws against that.

Speaker 9 So it's never been quite as clean as we want to think. There's been quite a few sort of, you might even call it interpretations of freedom of speech throughout the years.

Speaker 9 Abraham Lincoln, of course, used the power of the government to suppress newspaper publication during the Civil War. Franklin Roosevelt did too during World War II.
So

Speaker 9 our definition of freedom of speech sort of has ebbed and flowed throughout the years. There's not one clean definition that we might want to appeal to.

Speaker 1 Okay, so let me ask just kind of a separate question then. What are the implications of the fight for freedom of speech today? And what are the dangers of limiting wrong information?

Speaker 9 Well, so I think that the

Speaker 9 problem is that the First Amendment doesn't make the government the referee of freedom of speech.

Speaker 9 And so, for example, during COVID, the government sort of setting itself up as the referee of what could be published about, for example, health and medicine and whatnot.

Speaker 9 That's not what the First Amendment did historically. The government isn't the referee.
The government is a participant in a free speech regime.

Speaker 9 And it means that the government is a player, just like all the other players when it comes to speech.

Speaker 9 The difference is the government carries the power of the sword, it carries this coercive power that comes with states, but it's not the referee.

Speaker 9 And I think that's the mistake that a lot of people made during COVID. They perceive the government to be the referee.
It's not the referee.

Speaker 9 The government doesn't get to tell us what's right speech and what isn't when it comes to, say, medicine or what you saw during COVID tide.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 we've largely strayed away from the founders' intent for America.

Speaker 1 Speak about the growth of the administrative state and how in current the last couple of weeks we are seeing this new administration at least attempting to

Speaker 1 reorient us back to first principles.

Speaker 9 Yeah, so I think that, for example, what the president's doing on college campuses, you know, withholding federal money from schools where he perceives, and I think a lot of the American public perceives, to be inappropriate and even illegal protests.

Speaker 9 He's not actually trying to tell them they can't

Speaker 9 speak what they want. He's just saying the government's not going to fund you if you do that.

Speaker 9 And so I think what that is, is the president attempting to do what I think is in his heart and turn all the educational universities and colleges in the United States towards what their actual mission is.

Speaker 9 Of course, the mission of education is education. It's not protest.

Speaker 9 And so maybe there's some protests that add to the mission of a college, but the mission of colleges is not protest.

Speaker 9 And so my best guess is that the president kind of perceives that and wants to push back against the idea that colleges are sort of places where protests is the preeminent value or even the preeminent action that they do.

Speaker 1 All federal funding being prohibited from these universities, what then is case law kind of leading up to the idea of what is acceptable and unacceptable speech on these campuses?

Speaker 1 Where is the line? Educate our audience on that, please.

Speaker 9 But I think that the answer is we're going to find out where the line is.

Speaker 9 Sort of just how Abraham Lincoln had to find out where the line was on war powers was for the president. I think we're going to find out.

Speaker 9 And that'll be

Speaker 9 probably a political engagement between the president, the Congress, and the courts.

Speaker 9 And so the president is

Speaker 9 sort of figuring it out.

Speaker 9 He's probably trying to see what works. He's going to see what he can get stick and what can't.
And so, you know, case law always develops, you know, for this idea of settled law.

Speaker 9 For example, Roe versus Wade was called settled settled law for a long time, and turns out it's not settled.

Speaker 9 And so I think that things are going to change.

Speaker 9 The president is going to maybe push what people might think of as the settled boundaries of settled law, but it's never quite as settled as we want to think. And so I think the president's sort of

Speaker 9 finding what's going to work, finding what the courts, the Congress, and he can make stick.

Speaker 1 I want everyone in the audience to know, in the same way we struggle with truly free speech, we need to uncover the true American founding. Everyone can do that at charlieforhillsdale.com.

Speaker 1 the real American Founding, a conversation.

Speaker 1 In closing here, Doctor, please tell us about the work that you are doing, the scholarship you're most interested in, what you appreciate about Hillsdale College. Tell the audience.

Speaker 9 Yeah, thanks.

Speaker 9 I do a lot of in the intersection of Christians and how Christians in the United States' history have sort of understood the relationship of their faith

Speaker 9 and religion and government.

Speaker 9 I wrote a book called Religion and Republic, and it sort of shows that people think there's a lot more interaction between religion and government than people might have perceived historically.

Speaker 9 We're not a theocracy, but we are a very religious republic, and our republic has religious commitments throughout its institutional history. So that's a lot of what I do.
I'm a Christian.

Speaker 9 I hope Christians will take their history and their government more seriously and take the American Republic more seriously.

Speaker 1 You guys should check out his book. What is the name of your book?

Speaker 9 It's called Religion and Republic.

Speaker 1 Excellent. Just for about, you know, about a minute, elaborate a little more.
You say we are a religious republic. What do you mean by that? That will make a left-wing person go a little nuts.

Speaker 9 Yeah, well, I think that we sort of always have these discussions on church and state, church and state.

Speaker 9 And my point is, I'm not really saying that we have a state church or that we should have state churches, but religion is part and parcel of our institutional life here in the United States.

Speaker 9 You can't really go very far. You can't throw a rock without hitting an institution with religious commitments.
And the United States'

Speaker 9 Republican government guarantees the protection of those religious institutions. The government's not indifferent to it.
The Constitution's not indifferent to the protection of religion.

Speaker 9 The government is

Speaker 9 our protector as religious people, and it protects religious institutions.

Speaker 9 And so the Republic, the President, the Congress, and the courts, their job is not to tell us what our religion should be or shouldn't be, not to tell us what our beliefs should or shouldn't be.

Speaker 9 It's to protect us we, Christians, declare what we think of as

Speaker 9 the truth of the gospel. And the gospel has both sort of very spiritual and political ramifications too, in various ways.

Speaker 9 So it's the government's actually job to protect the church's right to say those things in public.

Speaker 1 Doctor, I would love to have you on at a different time. We have a lot of breaking news here with press conferences and et cetera.
People should check out CharlieForhillsdale.com.

Speaker 1 And I see the Ash and to all of our Catholic friends, Ash Wednesday.

Speaker 1 People should know that the idea of using ashes as a sign of mourning goes all the way back to the Old Testament in the book of Daniel, in the book of Jonah.

Speaker 1 It is a very ancestral idea in the scripture. So thank you, Doctor.
Talk to you soon. Thank you.

Speaker 9 Thank you, Charlie.

Speaker 1 Let's cut back to Caroline Levitt. Let's see what's going on.

Speaker 3 Is that they have a president in the Oval Office who is committed to doing what's right for them, especially women and girls across the country. And I think it's very ironic.

Speaker 3 Thank you for bringing up the point about women, that Democrat women were wearing wearing pink to support our fellow females, yet they couldn't stand, again, for a young woman who was almost killed and severely injured by a man on the volleyball court.

Speaker 3 They couldn't stand for the mothers of two beautiful young women whose lives were taken tragically at the hands of illegal people.

Speaker 3 So you can't say you're the party of women and then support men and women's sports. and not stand up for basic law and order and immigration reform that will protect protect women in this country.

Speaker 3 That's what President Trump is doing. He's the president for women.

Speaker 3 Lindsay, good to see you. Thank you, Caroline.
Good to see you. So speaking of tariffs, China said yesterday that they're ready for any kind of war with the U.S.

Speaker 3 because of these tariffs that have been placed on them. And a Chinese spokesperson also said that the tariff would not lead to a resolution of U.S.
concerns about fentanyl originating in China.

Speaker 3 Can you speak to how the administration is planning on responding to that?

Speaker 3 Well, I think Secretary Hagseth has responded responded to that this morning.

Speaker 3 He said that America will always be prepared to defend itself, especially under the leadership of this president in the Oval Office. And that certainly remains true.

Speaker 3 Again, when it comes to tariffs, the president has been very tough on China, not just now with 20%

Speaker 3 and more with the reciprocal tariffs that will hit on April 2nd. But look at what he did in his first term.
There were billions of dollars worth of tariffs that he implemented.

Speaker 3 on China and it's quite telling that the previous administration did not rescind those tariffs because they realized the value that they had in not only deterring China, but also raising revenue here in the United States.

Speaker 3 Rachel. Thanks, Caroline.
Just a quick follow-up, two quick follow-ups on tariffs. The President mentioned a little disturbance during his remarks yesterday.

Speaker 3 The CEO of Target says that consumers will likely see prices go up on everything from strawberries to bananas to avocados. How long should Americans expect to pay higher prices?

Speaker 3 Are we talking a week, a couple of days, a few months?

Speaker 3 Again, I don't have a crystal ball, but what I can assure the American people is that this president and this administration is doing everything they can.

Speaker 3 And I would remind you and everybody else in this room that it's because of the previous administration's economic policies that Americans were left with record-high inflation.

Speaker 3 Inflation throughout Joe Biden's entire 48 months in office was at or above 3%.

Speaker 3 It hit record highs, as you know.

Speaker 3 And there's a whole list of what the Biden economic disaster this president was left to clean up. It's been a month, but he's working hard every single day to do just that.
Follow up on the carve-out.

Speaker 3 Sorry to cut you off there.

Speaker 3 The U.S. imported $43 million worth of eggs from Canada.
I know you mentioned some of the exemptions when it comes to automakers. Will there be any other carve-outs, including for eggs?

Speaker 3 We know prices are soaring for Americans. The president is open to hearing about additional exemptions.

Speaker 3 He always has open dialogue, and he'll always do what's right, what he believes is right for the American people.

Speaker 3 But again, as for the egg crisis in this country, the president is wholeheartedly committed to ensuring we're increasing our egg supply and we're also bringing down costs.

Speaker 3 And Secretary Rollins has been all over this issue. She comes from an agricultural background and family.
That's why she's leading that very important department.

Speaker 3 She wrote an amazing op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. She's been all over the media talking about her plan.
She has a real plan. The president endorses it.

Speaker 3 And he even gave her an off-the-prompter shout out last night to say, Brooke, I'm counting on you. It's an important issue.

Speaker 3 And this White House is working with Secretary of Agriculture every single day to address this issue.

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Hey, so might your mirror.

Speaker 3 Frustrated with President Zelensky when he was handing out blank checks and President Zelensky kept asking for more. Joe Biden was quite frustrated with that.
So again,

Speaker 3 as I've said repeatedly, Friday revealed the frustrations that this administration has had in closed-door negotiations with the Ukrainians.

Speaker 3 However, President Zelensky did put out a statement yesterday, which we believe is a positive step forward. And

Speaker 3 National Security Advisor Mike Waltz has been talking to his Ukrainian counterparts. And so we're in the midst of this, and we'll see what happens next.
Caitlin. Thanks, Caroline.

Speaker 3 I have two questions. One on the reprieve that is being granted to these three automakers for one month on the tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
How did the President settle on one month?

Speaker 3 The reciprocal tariffs will go into effect on April 2nd, and he feels strongly about that no matter what. No exemption.
So that's where the one month comes from.

Speaker 3 Does he expect them to be able to shift production within a month?

Speaker 3 He told them that they should get on it, start investing, start moving, shift production here to the United States of America where they will pay no tariff. That's the ultimate goal.

Speaker 3 And on the conversations between the White House and the Ukrainians and the letter that President Trump revealed last night that he got from President Zelensky, Director Ratcliffe said today that the President has paused also intelligence sharing with Ukraine.

Speaker 3 Is that temporary or is that permanent?

Speaker 3 I believe what the National Security Council told me in regards to that was that they paused or they are reconsidering

Speaker 3 the funding for Ukraine, as you saw, the pause on the funding. As for intelligence matters, I would refer you to either the National Security Council or the CIA.

Speaker 3 People are considering lifting the or reinstating the military aid going to Ukraine, which they paused. Again, it's a pause for a review.

Speaker 11 Follow up on that.

Speaker 4 Sure.

Speaker 11 The President read parts of the letter that he received last night from President Zelensky.

Speaker 11 Can you give us a sense of when President Trump now plans to sign that minerals deal after receiving that letter?

Speaker 3 Those talks are happening as we speak. I just saw the National Security Advisor.
He's working very hard on it.

Speaker 3 I believe he was going into the Oval Office to give the President an update on where this stands. But again, the President is committed to a peace deal.
He wants to see this war end.

Speaker 3 And I think that President Zelensky's message, which he also shared on X as well, is a positive sign in the right direction.

Speaker 11 The President also said that the United States was reclaiming the Panama Canal. The President of Panama this morning, or at some point today, said that President Trump was lying.

Speaker 11 Wanted to get your response to that.

Speaker 11 And also, curious if the President had a reason for not specifically mentioning BlackRock last night when he was praising the company that is buying canals or ports around the Panama Canal.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'm not sure if Panama has seen what's going on with their own canal, but as you just mentioned, BlackRock is now interested in investing and taking over the two ends of the port, which is very important because the President was very vocal several weeks ago about the need to ensure that China is not controlling the Panama Canal.

Speaker 3 This is a very

Speaker 3 important

Speaker 3 place for the United States of America. We also saw that the Panama Canal lifted fees on our U.S.
naval ships that are going in and out of the canal. That's a win for the United States of America.

Speaker 3 This same question, just given to me in different verbiage, of three different times, and I will answer it again in an effort of transparency to the American people because this is an important issue, and the American people, this president, understands that it is.

Speaker 3 And again, that's why in his joint address to Congress last night, he addressed this issue with a realistic and honest approach.

Speaker 3 He talked about what this administration is doing to unleash American energy and to make America affordable again. And this administration is wholeheartedly committed to doing it.

Speaker 3 And I would remind the American public that the first term record of this president speaks volumes. That's why they re-elected him, because they know that he can fix our broken economy.

Speaker 3 And it's very, very broken from the previous administration.

Speaker 3 Stephen. Thank you, Caroline.

Speaker 12 I've got two questions, one on press access, the other on fentanyl and tariffs. Sure.

Speaker 12 On press access, your predecessor, Corine Jean-Pierre, who presided over many novel press access restrictions, criticized criticized the recent changes to the press pool made by your office.

Speaker 12 She said in an interview, quote, what we're looking at is what North Korea is doing.

Speaker 12 What's your response to that? And can you say anything to allay concerns that unfavorable coverage will be punished in this new press system?

Speaker 3 I think that's the same individual who said from this podium numerous times that the commander-in-chief was mentally and physically up for the job, which we knew was a lie.

Speaker 3 Many people in this room knew it was a lie. Many of you were admonished for asking questions about that truth.

Speaker 3 And so when it comes to truth and transparency, this administration, this White House, is setting the example.

Speaker 3 This president is taking far more questions than his predecessor, Joe Biden, did on a daily basis, and that will continue.

Speaker 12 And on bentanyl and tariffs,

Speaker 12 bentanyl produced largely in China has killed 334,000 Americans over five years. According to CDC data, that's about one in every thousand Americans.

Speaker 12 President Trump has cited this for applying new tariffs to Canada, Mexico, and China.

Speaker 12 But in addition to China's talk about being ready for any kind of war, they said yesterday, the foreign ministry said that, quote, the fentanyl issue is a flimsy excuse to raise U.S.

Speaker 12 tariffs, and, quote, the U.S., not anyone else, is responsible for the fentanyl crisis. So what's the response to China that

Speaker 12 the talk of fentanyl is just an excuse for tariffs? And what does that say about the resolution?

Speaker 3 Well, of course, the country that is getting very rich off of distributing this deadly poison to American citizens is going to say that.

Speaker 3 Again, the president knows where the American people stand on this issue, fentanyl overdoses. Dasha brought up all of us campaigning all across the country.
They talked about inflation.

Speaker 3 They also talked about the border, the illegal immigrants that were pouring through, but also these deadly drugs.

Speaker 3 And again, the president keeps in mind those families every single day when he is making these tough decisions, but it's a necessary decision, and he's no longer going to allow the United States of America to be a dumping ground for illegal immigrants and for illegal drugs that are killing our nation's people.

Speaker 3 This is the number one leading cause of death in our country and there needs to be action taken to ensure that that cannot continue. Thank you very much guys.
We'll see you later.

Speaker 12 Thanks, Caroline.

Speaker 1 Okay, everybody, email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com, and subscribe to our podcast. Caroline Levitt just finished her press conference there.

Speaker 1 Make sure you subscribe to our podcast for instant analysis on the Gavin Newsom conversation. Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

Speaker 1 Thanks so much for listening, and God bless.

Speaker 4 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.