Russiagate Returns, Eight Years Later

Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here live from the Bitcoin.com studio.

A comprehensive review of what is Russia gate?

What was this?

We go back eight years meticulously of where we were eight years ago during Trump 1.0, and we make the argument that we are not just in a far better place, but the place that we are in was created and manufactured by the intel agencies against the American people.

Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com, and subscribe to our podcast.

That's the Charlie Kirk Show podcast page.

As always, you guys can get involved with Turning Point USA Today at tpusa.com.

That is tpusa.com.

I encourage you guys to become a member today, members.charliekirk.com.

That is 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.

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.

Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals.

Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegoldinvestments.com.

That is noblegoldinvestments.com.

It's where I buy all of my gold.

Go to noblegoldinvestments.com.

Where were we at this point in Trump 1.0?

We are now in the midst of Trump 2.0.

We are getting trade deals.

We have a secure border.

We got a tax cut.

We got incredible funding for mass deportations.

We're doing mass deportations.

We're ending wars between the Congo and Rwanda, between Pakistan and India, between Israel and Iran.

We have incredible trade deals that are coming through with Japan.

But where were we at this moment back

in July of 2017?

I went to the New York Times archive page, which is fun to do.

Kind of see what was on the front page of the newspapers back during Trump 1.0.

It's almost looking through a time capsule.

Front page of the New York Times, exactly eight years ago today.

As Congress aims to punish Russia, Trump faces bind.

You read this article, it's remarkable.

Put up 366.

Congress's number one focus, while we had a Republican House and a Republican Senate during Trump 1.0, was to punish Russia.

Why?

Because they say they interfered with the 2016 election.

Donald Trump's first term was largely taken from him, was largely stolen from him.

In fact, if we want to talk about the stolen presidency, we should be talking about what happened in the first, second, and third year of the Trump administration.

The Republican House and the Republican Senate both had Russia investigations ongoing.

They were investigating their own president.

Remember, Jeff Sessions recused himself in March of 2017, March 2nd, 2017.

So President Donald Trump did not even have his own attorney general.

He never should have recused himself.

It was a terrible mistake.

And then Bob Mueller was appointed as a special counsel in May of 2017 to basically be able to marauder around after all allies around

the Trump administration.

Republicans led this against Donald Trump.

So we go back into this moment in Trump 1.0.

We were not doing trade deals.

We did not have, he was fighting like mad to try to secure the border and do all this.

But every hour on the hour, another Russia lie came to the surface.

President Donald Trump had to push back the salvos that were coming from Capitol Hill.

And you're seeing on your screen, this was the front page of the New York Times at this moment during the first Trump term.

Congress reaches a deal on Russia sanctions, setting up a tough choice for Trump.

This is before Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.

We were sanctioning Russia based on a lie.

Donald Trump was fighting as hard as he's ever ever fought to just keep his head above water, let alone do trade deals or put forward some sort of monumental or significant policy agenda.

This was all BS, and we are learning that now.

Tulsi Gabbard, who is doing a phenomenal job as director of national intelligence, she has come out with some bombshell revelations.

And we're going back into a time warp all the way back into 2016.

Now, we know that Hillary Clinton lost the election to Donald Trump.

It was a big upset.

There was a major election forecaster who said he would eat a bug if he was wrong about Clinton winning, and then he had to go eat a bug.

Hillary's loss was shocking and humiliating.

And when politicians get humiliated, they go hunting for excuses.

They never take ownership for their decisions.

They never assume personal responsibility.

And what was the excuse that they decided to communicate?

What was the consensus excuse?

The consensus excuse was Russia, because that excuse had multiple benefits for the D.C.

ruling class, had multiple benefits for the Uniparty Republicans and Uniparty Democrats.

Not only was Russia very hatable for the octogenarian 88-year-old senator who still thinks the Cold War is going on, but it allowed for a new theater for the neocons to create a new war so the war contractors, the war machine, and the endless military conflict position of DC had a new emphasis to focus on.

Almost overnight, the new inventive narrative was that Donald Trump only won because Russia intervened with fake news and cyber warfare to hack our democracy.

Every night, Rachel Maddow would get massive numbers.

She would get four, five, six million people watching her at night when she would just peddle lie after lie after lie.

Adam Schiff, who is now a U.S.

Senator,

went on television and said that there is verifiable proof.

Let's get that clip where he said that Donald Trump colluded with the Kremlin.

The chief driver of the Russia conspiracy theory was a report from the outgoing Obama administration.

The report published in January of 2017 claimed that Russia extensively interfered in the 2016 election with the explicit goal of defeating Hillary Clinton and getting Trump elected.

This report justified almost everything that happened in the following year.

And that's the, let's go back to the front page of the New York Times.

So the report that the Obama administration did, it was a it was a mine.

It was a time bomb that was inserted underneath the Trump presidency.

The report justified almost all of this then.

It justified the FBI to entrap President Trump and Michael Flynn.

It justified the Mueller probe.

It justified the years of media hysteria.

It practically wrecked the first Trump administration right out of the gate.

The fact that Trump got anything done in the first administration while having to deal with all this garbage from our own Intel services is a remarkable accomplishment.

And now we know, thanks to Tulsi Gabbard, it was all a fabrication from the beginning.

Today, Tulsi Gabbard declassified a House Intel Committee report from 2020, which was kept under wraps until now.

The report across 47 pages reveals in shocking detail how shoddy, inept, and half-baked the original claims of the Russia hoax were.

Quote: The director of the CIA ordered the post-election publication of 15 reports containing previously collected but unpublished intelligence.

Three of the reports were substandard, containing information that was unclear of uncertain origin, potentially biased, or implausible.

These three reports became the foundational sources for the intelligence community, saying that their judgments that Trump preferred Putin preferred Trump over Clinton.

The ICA misrepresented these reports as reliable without mentioning their significant underlying flaws.

In fact, the claim that Vladimir Putin wanted Trump to win the election was based entirely on one quote, quote, one scant, unclear, unverifiable, scant, unclear, unverifiable fragment of a sentence from just one of the substandard reports.

Scant, unclear, unverifiable, substandard torpedoed a majority of Trump's first administration.

This is what RussiaGate was based on.

And for those of you that don't remember this, I want to bring you back into that moment.

We had a special counselor, Bob Mueller.

We didn't have an attorney general.

It's all the media cared about.

And there were sanctions of a foreign country that we were preparing to go to war against, a kinetic part of a major war against Russia, all based on a lie from the Intel services.

RussiaGate, that derailed the entire focus of our nation, was a legitimate conspiracy theory.

It was a legitimate lie in front of us.

They bugged Trump's phone calls.

They impeached Donald Trump because of a phone call to Zelensky.

A fragment of a sentence from one low-quality intelligence report of unclear origin.

That's the only evidence the CIA ever had for Vladimir Putin wanting Trump to win in 2016.

But that did not stop the entire Democrat pace from getting behind it.

It did not stop Rachel Maddow from getting record numbers every single night.

It did not stop the Democrat Party from saying that the Republican Party was infiltrated with Russian influence.

It did not stop the New York Times and every major outlet to drumbeat every day.

It was a soft coup against popular sovereignty and against the will of the American people.

You could make an argument that the first Trump administration was largely stolen from the American people.

Yes, President Trump was allowed to remain as president, but he had to fight with every ounce of energy he had just to be able to survive.

And we, the people, got hosed.

I think it's time for people to go to jail for this.

This is far worse than a 75-year-old grandma walking into the U.S.

Capitol on January 6th and saying a prayer with a pocket constitution.

Look, I know there are a lot of choices when it comes to who you choose for your cell phone service.

There are new ones popping up all the time.

But the truth is, there's only one that boldly stands in the gap for every American that believes that freedom is worth fighting for, and that is Patriot Mobile.

For more than 12 years, Patriot Mobile has been on the front lines fighting for our God-given rights and freedoms, while also providing exceptional nationwide cell phone service with access to all three of the main networks.

Don't just take my word for it, as the hundreds of thousands of Americans who've made the switch and are now supporting causes they believe in simply by joining Patriot Mobile.

Switching is easier than ever.

Activate in minutes from the comfort of your own home.

Keep your number, keep your phone, or upgrade.

Patriot Mobile's all-U.S.-based support team is standing by to take care of you.

Call 972-Patriot today or go to patriotmobile.com/slash patriotmobile.com/slash Charlie.

Use promo code Charlie for a free month of service.

That's patriotmobile.com/slash Charlie or call 972 Patriot and make the switch today.

So much of Trump 1.0 was taken from us.

Here's James Comey, John Brennan, Hillary Clinton peddling what they knew was a lie.

Brennan is easily the number one villain in this declassified report.

He is a sinister human being.

All All roads lead back to John Brennan.

He basically took the intelligence and shaped it into a Trump hit job.

Let's play Cut 365, please.

The Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle.

It is a high confidence judgment of the entire intelligence community.

It was Russia in a very systematic way and tried to interfere in the election and to try to advance the prospects of Donald Trump being elected.

Donald Trump knows that the Russians helped him win in 2016.

There will always be an air of illegitimacy around the 2016 campaign.

Okay, so this is what's really important.

Nobody disputes that Russia did some just opaque political

digital stuff in the 2016 election.

But here's the part that Brennan made up, and Hillary repeated it, to advance the prospects of Trump being elected.

That is the mega lie, where he threw out all the evidence.

Russia wanted to create chaos and distrust.

Mission accomplished.

Good job, Democrats.

So apparently, John Brennan, again, that's not in front of Congress.

He's there on MSNBC in 2019, peddling a grotesque lie.

And the consequences of it was non-stop media obsession.

Nonstop.

And there's another consequence as well.

One that's right in front of us that's still happening to to this day.

Let's first play Cut 368.

So disappointing to look at what we're seeing from right-wing media these days, where there's such an obsession with the deep state and these revelations about the Russia probe.

Latest on the Robert Mueller Russia investigation.

Mueller investigation.

The Russian investigation.

Trump's Russia ties.

And Robert Mueller.

The real Russia story.

Russia probe.

The ongoing Russia probe.

Russia probe.

The Russian investigation.

But Mueller and the Russia probe.

Russia.

Synergies.

They wonder if Russia has compromising information on the president.

What is the source for for the president's claim that they have found no collusion with Russia?

He misspelled collusion.

Every day we're trying to keep track of the drip, drip, drip of the Russia investigation.

Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip.

Drip, drip, drip.

Trump and Russia to see whether Trump was secretly working for Russia.

And that's just a little taste of one anchor on one show on one network.

Multiply that times a thousand for every single day.

And I only do this to bring you back into the time and place.

And now we look at Trump 2.0.

2.0.

And we're getting trade deals, and we're securing border, and we're getting tax cuts.

And of course, we have so much more to do.

And they did that relentlessly for years because they needed to find an excuse.

But understand that sanctioning a country is a big deal.

So Congress went about to sanction Russia for something Russia did not ultimately do.

Yeah, they wanted to sow chaos and distraction, even though it was a very small amount.

And Iran Iran does this, and the Chinese Communist Party does this in their own way.

Is the current hot war between Russia and Ukraine and the West's involvement of it, is it connected to Russia gate?

Almost certainly.

Because Russia was the blame, was the filler-in excuse as to why Donald Trump became president, which then gave the Democrat Party license to be able to finance the Ukrainian effort, war effort.

Russia was also sitting on a ton of information.

This is page 17 of the now declassified House Intelligence Report.

Russia was sitting on a huge amount of potential anti-Clinton dirt that it sat on throughout the final days of the 2016 campaign.

It included internal claims that Hillary was on heavy tranquilizers and suffering from intensified psycho-emotional problems.

We suspected that.

Evidence of severe health ailments like type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Internal DNC comms found that Obama and others said that Hillary's health was extraordinarily alarming.

Evidence of secret meetings with religious leaders where Clinton offered, quote, significant increases in funding from the State Department in return for their support.

Oh, you mean the same stuff that we accused them of?

Internal Democrat admissions that European allies were unenthusiastic about a Clinton presidency and thought she was not up to the job of heads of state.

So if Russia was really all in on supporting Trump and hurting Clinton, it would have leaked information in October 2016 when her lead in the RCP average slipped to just plus 1.3 points.

Instead, Russia did not completely debunk the core assumptions of the Russia hoax.

Rather, than admit they were wrong, Brennan's CIA buried the info and manufactured a completely alternative reality to undermine the legitimacy of President Trump.

I say this for many reasons, but one that I want to repeat.

Let's be grateful to God and how much better of a place we are on July 23rd, 2025 than we were in 2017.

Gentlemen, let's get real for a second.

Are you frustrated with today's woke dating apps?

The apps, the games, the endless swiping, it's a waste of time.

Finding a woman who shares your values, faith, family, and patriotism feels nearly impossible, but it doesn't have to be.

Selective Search, America's leading matchmaking firm, is changing the game.

They connect strong, successful men like you, men who love God, love America, and want a family with incredible women who share your values.

These are intelligent, faith-driven women who put family first and still believe in traditional values.

Imagine that.

If you're a single, conservative man in the late 30s to early 50s in Southern California, listen up.

Selective Search has an exclusive network of women ready for the real thing.

Here's the best part: their candidate program is 100% free and confidential.

Some of my closest friends have used Selective Search, and let me tell you, they're meeting incredible women.

This is your chance.

This is not an app, it's your answer.

The perfect conservative woman is out there waiting for you.

Visit selectivesearch.com/slash California today.

Let the professionals introduce you to women already looking for someone like you in Southern California.

Don't wait for the perfect moment.

Take action now.

Go to selectivesearch.com/slash California and start building the future you deserve.

Let me just kind of take a step back, though, and reiterate the significance of not having a first six months derailed.

You can have reasonable disagreements with the Trump administration.

Nobody agrees on everything.

But look at the successes and the victories.

And I want to push back on just how some people are overly dooming.

Oh, you know, I wish one, two, three, four had was happening.

We have a secure border.

We have an amazing tax cut package.

We need to get more spending cuts.

Totally agree.

Let's not take our progress for granted.

Let's not

forget that we were just in a non-stop.

We were bunkered down at this point in the summer of 17.

In the summer of 17, we were bunkered down, relentlessly attacked, basically at the abyss of times.

Remember, Donald Trump was impeached twice in his first term.

It wrecked the two-year window where we had Congress.

All they needed.

After 2018, no House.

And And then COVID came.

And you look at the first Trump term.

What he was able to get done

with Russia, Mueller,

all of the internal investigations, plus COVID, plus two impeachments.

It's remarkable, and we're in a much better footing.

Joining us now is Mark Halperin, editor-in-chief of Two Way and host of Next Up on the Megan Kelly Network.

Mark, great to see you.

Thank you for taking the time.

Mark, can we just go back in time for a little bit?

I went back and I looked at the front page of the New York Times back on this date in 2017, July 23rd, 2017, and it was all Russia.

And in fact, it was so much so that it was that Congress was passing sanctions to try to punish Russia for their interference in the 2017, in the 2016 election.

Can you just remind some of our younger people in the audience, Mark, of how overwhelming the Russian interference narrative was, especially in the first year of the Trump presidency?

It's hard to explain to someone who didn't live through it because

the

degree to which it's all the press wanted to cover and talk about

and the degree to which the president's

attention was to Biden, his ability to get his message out.

Now,

there's some caveats.

There was a Russian attempt to interfere with the election, and that's a serious thing to have our biggest adversary use America's freedom, America's openness.

to take advantage of the capacity to use social media, et cetera, acting.

They did stuff.

And the Obama administration had to deal with that, number one.

Number two, there were contacts

between some people in the Trump war and Russians that, you know, aroused suspicion.

But those are the caveats.

The reality is, and the Mueller investigation wore this out, this was a hoax.

This was an attempt to

partly because of Trump derangement syndrome,

explain to the tens of millions of Americans who to this day can't understand how their fellow countrymen and women would vote for Donald Trump.

They needed an explanation.

And they channeled their belief that Russia won the election for Donald Trump into a massive media and congressional and legal investigation into not just Donald Trump, but everyone around him.

And the reason I think this is so resonant on the right is because imagine that happening to a Democratic president and how outraged the media would be if a Democratic president was simply swallowed up for something that turned out to be a hoax.

What is the counter to this?

What are the naysayers saying?

Like, what are the people that were the defenders of the Russian narrative?

I always want our audience to hear both sides in a fair way.

I don't want, obviously, want them to watch the propagandist networks, but what are the naysayers saying to this story, Mark?

Well, before I do that, let me say one other thing that I think the left doesn't understand.

The people involved in this, both directly by the narrative of the Attorney General and indirectly, people like Brennan, people like Adam Schiff,

they have a documented history of using their expertise in and access to intelligence information to tell public untruths to try to destroy Donald Trump.

So I tell my friends on the left, you know, you have to understand that these are people who have dirty hands.

Now, maybe their hands got dirty doing other things,

but they've got dirty hands.

And so you have to understand why there'd be some level of suspicion.

What are the caveats on the other side?

First of all, the attorney general has not only been unclear, but she's been, I'm sorry, not the attorney general, the director of national intelligence.

She's not only been unclear, she's been sloppy, unspecific.

And, you know, Sean Spicer on Tuway this morning compared this to the binders.

for the Epsom matter.

If you're going to do something that you purport to be extremely serious, and the charges she's making are obviously extremely serious, and the president's picked them up and said this could lead to the indictment of a former president.

If you're going to do that, this can't be done in this vague, shadowy, you know, send a few tweets, go on a few cable hits away.

So, one thing is it's not specific and it's sloppy.

The other thing is, you know, I'm a stickler for this.

If somebody says laws were broken, I always go right to the first question.

What were the laws?

What laws were broken?

There's lots of behavior by people in government and out of government that's immoral,

hurtful,

deceitful, but it doesn't necessarily violate a law.

So before people start talking about indictments and incarceration, let's hear some specific names, specific actions, specific laws that would have been violated.

Because I'll say again, I know lots of things Adam Schiff did that shouldn't have done, but I don't know that they violated any law.

So

what would then

the

counter to that would be, and I'm looking at the Washington Post's fact check, they say the seditious conspiracy claim is based on thin, grueling something.

This declassified report today talks a lot about unprofessional behavior.

And I suppose why I am so fired up about this and animated about it, and you're right, we have to be very methodical and precise as we proceed.

And I love Tulsi, I think she's doing a phenomenal job.

I will say, though, the reason why I get so worked up about this and the audiences is because of

how this got so wildly out of control to derail the first term of the Trump presidency.

It was used as a baseline media narrative tool.

And so in some ways, the crime,

the consequences was even greater than the initial Intel report crime, which became an overwhelming, not just a distraction, but impediment for Trump's ability to govern for many months.

Your thoughts, Mark Helper.

Something was stolen from him

and from his supporters and from the country that shouldn't have been stolen.

The most precious thing a president has is time.

The most precious thing.

And

again, as you say, it subsumed his presidency.

It didn't just distract him.

And it also painted him as a tool of Russia.

It painted him as a collaborator with putin now you want another uh you want another mitigating factor to this day no one's explained why your friend the president has talked so favorably about putin for the last 10 years there are times when it seems tactical but there are times when it's inexplicable and and so uh uh

I think that as much as I've thought about all the costs that this this he incurred and the administration incurred, and as much as he's thought about it, it's incalculable.

You literally can't go back and do the counterfactual to say, had he not spent all this time dealing with the investigations and the press questions and the legal and the bandwidth, what might he have done in the first term?

Now, Bill Clinton faced a lot of investigations.

His adversaries would say he brought them on himself, but some of the investigations, like Whitewater.

Whitewater itself, not the things that grew out of it, same thing.

This is not the first president who has been over-investigated.

But in this case,

I mean, it's hard to justify what happened on any level, even being prudent, even taking into account what he said about Putin, even taking into account some of the other contacts there were with Russia.

And there were some contacts.

But

I say again,

those mistakes weren't necessarily a crime.

They were political,

politically.

harmful, but I don't know, I just don't know the crimes were committed.

But I also, I don't want to to be misunderstood.

There might have been.

And I know you're a supporter and friend of Tulsi Gabbard, but

this is not the way

you present to the country allegations that a former president and his top aides broke the law.

It's just, it's not a partisan statement, and it's not even being,

it's not speaking to the underlying charges because I just don't know.

But I can tell you without fear of contradiction that

no textbook would tell you to do it this way and and and and and what you might gain in a few days headlines and and excitable activity on eds you lose in terms of i think credibility to some extent but also in terms of doing it right this is just not the way you hold people accountable i i believe in a society that's meant to hold people accountable but but but to say hold people accountable but also treat them fairly How would

then you would, what is the textbook way?

And that's not even a, it's not a sarcastic question because yeah i've been enjoying all this as you would imagine as a podcaster and maga guy and i i appreciate the kind of counterfactual i mean it's it's not it's not a you know breaking news to you but no seriously kind of tell the audience in one minute how would then you think this should be presented and handled i don't need it i don't need a minute send a quiet private referral to the department of justice to the applicable prosecutors of the Department of Justice and say, based on the facts that we've unearthed, there needs to be a criminal investigation here.

And if they decide there's no criminal charges, but it's still something that should be exposed, write a comprehensive report, invite all the media, even the biased liberal media, into a room and slowly, methodically, carefully, and clearly say, we found the Justice Department found no laws broken.

Here's the story of what happened and why it's a danger and why history must never let this happen again.

That's not what she did.

I'm not a dumb guy.

I'm reading everything she says.

I can't summarize for you what she's saying.

I will say, though, and I want to pick, I don't want to spend too much time on this, guys.

I do want to get your thoughts on some of this polling.

I will say, I think the declassified report today is great, and I think it's important that people get a chance to read it.

And it turns out five years ago, it was obvious that Russia Gate was BS and fake.

And so, why wasn't it public then?

But,

Mark, the reason I love having you on the show is that I think it's really important for the audience to hear a broader perspective on this.

Because,

hey, I'll be honest, I get very excited about this stuff as a MAGA media guy.

Private student loan debt in America totals about $300 billion.

WhyReFi refinances private student loan debt, and they do not care what your credit score is.

Many clients aren't even able to make the minimum monthly payment on their private student loans when they first contact YRefi.

Go to YRefi.com.

That is YREFY.com.

You don't have to ignore that mountain of student loan statements on your kitchen table anymore.

So go to YReFi.com.

Do you have a co-borrower?

Well, YReFi can get them released from the loan and you can give mom or dad a break.

Go to yrefi.com.

Can you imagine being debt-free and not living under this burden anymore?

So go to yrefi.com.

That is yrefy.com.

Let's face it, if you have distress or defaulted private student loans, there's no better place to go than why refi.

They provide you with a custom loan payment based on your ability to pay.

They're not a debt settlement company, so check it out right now at yrefi.com.

May not be available in all 50 states.

Go to yrefi.com.

That is yrefy.com.

So, Mark, I want to play this piece of tape, and it is Harry Enton from CNN who has a series of very negative polls about the president.

That I'm not sure how accurate or inaccurate they are.

In fact, that's going to be part of my question after I play the tape: is how accurate actually are the

mid the interim polling during a presidency?

So, I want to play this here.

Let's play cut 376, and then I want to get your reaction, Mark Halperin, to say, is there some shreds of truth to this?

Can we trust this play cut 376?

I do have one piece of good news for Donald Trump and that there is one other presidency that has a lower net approval rating at this point than this one.

The bad news is that it was Donald Trump's other presidency, his first presidency, net approval rating six months in.

The worst was in 2017.

Donald Trump was 16 points underwater.

The second worst, however, is this Donald Trump presidency, 11 points underwater.

The average president at this point since 1953 has a plus 27 net approval rating.

John, do some quick myth with me.

It seems to me that Donald Trump is about 40 points lower than the average president at this particular point.

He has the second worst net approval rating at this point.

He is underwater on all the major issues of the day.

The bottom line is six months into this administration.

I think that most Americans would apply the word or words

disaster, terrible, awful,

horrible.

Okay, so I think that's,

I think the end of it is a little bit

wrong.

Disaster,

horrible, terrible.

I don't think that's right by any means.

But I only play that as a nice provocative conversation start.

I don't think that's true.

Mark, how accurate is this polling?

And is there any data that you think our audience should be aware of?

Mark Halperin.

Well, it's a complicated time for polling.

First of all, Harry Anton's a friend of mine, and I'm a pretty decent mimic, but I never try to imitate Harry because that thing is just a beast of its own.

I don't understand that voice.

Um,

so let's just talk to that sort of 101 here on polling.

Um,

first of all, a lot of the issues that are being polled now-you know, it's a truism in polling, it depends on how you ask it, right?

How do you phrase the question?

A lot of the issues at stake now, um, I think it's very difficult to poll and get people.

So, you say, is the president being forthcoming enough about Epstein?

Who would say yes, even even if unless you're following it really closely and you make some sort of solomon-like judgment like are americans attitude towards their presidents and the government be more open so is he being is he being forthcoming transparent enough like i think just a lot of people reflexively say no without really understanding you know the baseline of comparison same same with immigration if you say should people who you know have never broken the you know broken an additional law and they're here and they're contributing to the economy, should they be deported?

I think a lot of people, it's a complicated question.

It's like, sort of depends.

You know, what are the other options?

So, I think a lot of the issues that are front and center are difficult to pull.

That's number one.

Number two,

the president's got a lot of bad news coverage.

Now, he always gets bad news coverage from the liberal press, right?

Almost always.

Now, he's getting bad coverage from, you know, if you're pardoned the shorthand, people like you, right?

So, so just the general

show.

Yeah, I don't mean you.

I mean people like you, not you.

So now all the cover, you know, a lot of more of the coverage is bad.

And it's this sort of mirror image of why is the Democratic Party have a 19% approval rating?

It's not because Republicans are hating them more.

It's because Independents and Democrats are hating them more.

Same thing's happening with the president on

Ukraine, on Iran for some maybe, on immigration for some maybe, where he's talked about a path to legal status for some people who came here illegally.

And on Epstein,

there are going to be people who are currently unhappy.

And again, it doesn't mean if they were voting in the election, they wouldn't vote for the president.

But if they answer a poll, it gives them an opportunity to be negative about the president.

Okay.

Now, lastly, I'd say the president has done big things.

And he's frustrated.

You and I both know it, that he's not, that the conversation is about Epstein and other things that he doesn't want to be about, and that the polls are not great.

I'm sure he thinks he should be at his highest approval rating ever.

But the reality is, even on the big things that he's accomplished, take the reconciliation law.

There's things in there that are not popular and voters know about some of them or they hear about them, maybe in a misleading way, maybe not.

But

the tariffs, I think the tariff plan is working extremely well, certainly better than all our rich friends thought it would.

But

some prices are up.

Bombing Iran.

seems very successful, very bold at a minimum, and yet some people think don't get entangled with the Middle East.

Immigration, the borders closed, but some people don't like the way

the way the

current

deportation operations are going.

So, even

if his greatest successes,

yes, sir.

I know you got a dash in a second.

Just finish your thought, two minutes.

And also, in your experience,

what can bring those numbers down or up that we should keep our eyes on?

Final thoughts, Mark Halperan.

Even on his greatest achievements so far, there's negatives that even some people in his base don't like.

And the Democrats are united against him.

And some of the things he's doing are turning off independents.

So he's going to have to sell it better.

But again, he's selling it in an environment where the press, including a lot of the conservative press, is focused on things that people aren't delighted with.

And then finally, I'd say this president has a pretty rock-solid floor in polling support and a pretty rock-solid ceiling.

The people who like him are going to like him no matter what, and there's a limit on the people who will ever like him.

So while we're seeing now, there's no doubt the polling for him is negative, including a lot of issues where he would say it should be much more positive.

But I don't think that's fundamentally going to shift things.

And I'll say finally, he's not running for re-election.

Now, the midterms could be and historically would be dependent to some extent, the outcome on his polling, but that's more than a year away.

So I don't pay much attention to the polls right now because what does it mean?

It's something to talk about.

It's something that maybe his team will say, well, we need a misforce correction because your policy is not as popular as we thought it would be.

But in terms of having any actual sort of meaning for impacting the world, I think it's pretty limited right now.

Mark Halperin, I know you got a dash.

We're going to have you back on soon.

Thank you so much.

Everyone, email us, freedom at charliekirk.com.

MarkTerrific28 TV.

Come back anytime.

Thanks so much.

Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

Email us as always: freedom at charliekirk.com.

Thanks so much for listening, and God bless.

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