Day One of Donald Trump's Next Admin ft. Vivek Ramaswamy
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Hey everybody, it's the Charlie Kirk Show. Vivek Ramaswamy joins the program. We talk about what can President Trump really do on day one? What executive orders can he sign? What action, action, action can he take? That and so much more. Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com and subscribe to our podcast. Open up your podcast application and type in charliekirkshow.

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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.

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So you have two kids too? I got two as well. Did you ever have two under two? We had, no, we had two under three. See, I'm in the two under two club. Anybody else? Yeah. Lift it. That is, I guess you get extra points in the afterlife for that one. I think you do. So Vivek, you're awesome. There's so much to discuss and talk about. First, let's talk about

Like post running for president, you kind of took a moment to reflect and kind of breathe a little bit. Is that fair to say? Yeah, about five months. What was that like? You know, I think I have – I needed some space to be able to get clarity from the experience. And it was – you know, I think one of the things that I learned is that, look, it's going to require two things to save this country. It's got to be somebody who's willing to fight but also somebody who remembers what they're fighting for.

And those two things are sometimes in tension with each other. You've got to be strong enough to protect your kindness. That's the saying in our family. It's the way we raise our sons as well. And one of the things I reflect on in the presidential race is you have a lot of people, even some of the competitors who might be very kind people but aren't maybe ready for the fight. I was ready for the fight, but I also think that one of the things that I would –

have done and would have advised myself to do a better job of is at times also slow down and let people know why you're actually in this and what you're fighting for. Do you think you could have done a better job of that? Maybe. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think part of what – this is just words being super open book. You're getting right into it. I think part of what happens in the first debate, one of the things that shocked me was I'm on that stage as a first-time politician, presidential candidate, and I think we're going to talk about a bunch of policy stuff, and then I start getting –

getting mud right out of the gate. They had oppo files on you. It was interesting. It was so fascinating. And so that got me into fighter mode. And I had fun with it. And some of you all in the room may have enjoyed watching some of those debates. And I wouldn't do it differently on the debate stage because that's what that's made for. But I think that part of the way we're going to save this country is also remind everybody what we're fighting for. And I think that that's something that

were I to do this again, I think it would be something that's even more important to me next time around. I've always liked you personally, but when Vivek, you know this, I say this openly, when you first started running for president, I was a skeptic. Yeah, a big skeptic. Yeah. I mean, you could talk about that phone call, right? And I think I was nice about it, though. Oh, Charlie was like, what the hell are you doing? Yeah. I was like, this makes no sense. But you won me over. And obviously, I'm a Trump guy. You know that. But

I think you could be president one day, and I think you have the skill set, and I think you'd be a great president. I really believe that. Thank you, guys. And I don't say that lightly. You know that. And I'll tell you what. I mean, I saw this amazing growth, and I mean that in the best possible way. But when you went on stage and you called out Ronna to her face—

I was like, he's mad. I was like, that's different. That's like Trump 2016 territory, right? When you all of a sudden said it's not the great replacement theory but the great replacement reality, I said, I have not heard a politician with that kind of courage and conviction. And...

not to mention all sorts of other different things. I could see it was genuine from the heart and you text me after you're like, yeah, gloves are off. Like I just don't care. Yeah. And I know that you did not win the primary this time, but I think you really won the hearts and minds of millions of people that, I mean, if we're honest, if Trump wins in November, God willing, we're all working towards that end. There will be almost an immediate question of like what comes next. Right. And I'm sure you're thinking about what to do after that. Uh,

But can you talk about the campaign broadly and general? Did you grow in any of your beliefs? I hate that word evolve because it's such a Clintonian verb. I evolved. But did you grow in any of your beliefs? Did you see things on the trail that might have further radicalized you in certain opinions or changed your views? Because running for president, if you're an honest person, not just like a weird robot like Pete Buttigieg –

Should actually clarify your thinking. Yeah, it does. I think one of the areas – so this was an example of an issue that was not a core issue for me at the time I started my campaign, I will admit, but became a core issue by the end was the fentanyl crisis in this country.

So I met parents, and by the end of it, we made it by the time we visited any state, I would meet multiple parents who had lost their kids to fentanyl overdoses. And they call them overdoses, but they're not really overdoses. It's poisoning because if you put in a Big Mac, they wouldn't call that an overdose. They would call that bioterrorism. They're taking a different substance as a party drug. They're not heroin addicts. No, absolutely. In many cases, these are people who did not sign up to the death sentence that they received.

And so then that happened over the course of the campaign where there was the other set of issues were also at the start of the campaign I wasn't as focused on, which was U.S. foreign policy issues. I opened up with a domestic policy vision for this country. And last year was a year where we really separated who was on which side of the Republican Party and who was on which side of this country. And to me, those two issues converged.

To say that our own citizens are suffering of, what, upwards of 80,000 deaths of an illegal chemical created from parts that are provided by synthetic raw materials to the Mexican drug cartels, and yet we're not doing a damn thing about it. And yet, at the other side of the world, we're forking over $200 billion to protect somebody else's border while ours remains as porous as ever.

Yeah, that did. It wasn't a different belief, but it was an emphasis to say this is a dereliction of duty of the Republican Party. This is an abdication of duty to our own citizens. And coming out of last year, I think I emerged as less of a partisan than when I began.

I think I was more of – I was more inclined to be a partisan – I was never a traditional Republican, but I think of myself as Republican versus Democrat. By the time I came out of it, I became convinced that that's not really the right dividing line in our country, and it gave me a –

Passion for defining. And I have to admit, Charlie, as we, you know, maybe a challenge to say this, I don't think we have yet cleanly defined the future of what America first actually is and is going to be. And so that's something that I consider an important unfilled role. And I'm going to hopefully play some part in helping define what this movement actually stands for, because that's the direction of the future. But we haven't really pinned it down. And I think we need to in order to succeed. So.

You were attacked a lot. Yeah. And most attacks don't bother me.

or when you attack my friends and your friend. The attack that really bothered me is when people called you stupid. No, because you can call Vivek a lot of things, right? Stupid is definitely – you're stupid. He's legitimately very brilliant, started a big company, graduated first-year class of every college he ever went to, right? What college did you go to? I mean, I don't even know where you went to yet. I mean, today I went to Harvard. I'll see you at school in Boston. I was right. I didn't even know that. Not the same place. I went to a school in Boston. Okay.

I hate it when people did that. No, I know. It's so stupid. Just own it. Yeah, exactly. Just wear the Harvard pin. I actually had no idea you went to Harvard. I mean that. Like I wasn't trying to trip you. But no, you're ridiculously smart. But this is – I'm getting somewhere with this. Is that all of a sudden you started to take and articulate heterodox opinions on foreign policy. Yes. And the attacks against you was not that you're wrong, but Vivek is dumb.

And I was, okay, now I'm really upset because where are we as a conservative movement where people that I really respect and some I don't respect, we're launching those salvos at. You remember this? It was like September, October-ish. Am I getting that right? Yeah, it's about right. Where you were public enemy number one, especially post-October 7th, even though you were very morally clear on it. Can you walk us through that? What did you learn during that when you were the recipient of a lot of friendly fire? And instead of going after your positions, they questioned your intelligence. Yeah.

Yeah, so what I learned, first of all, is foreign policy has been the third rail for a lot of the Guardian uniparty establishment, pervading both parties. And I didn't realize that's what I was walking into because I treated that the same way as I was treating any other issue, which is candidly stating what I actually believed. You might think it's the transgender debate. You might think it's the race relations debate, even the climate debate.

And the reality is those can be third rails in certain types of university or left of center environments. But in many ways, what I saw happen in the Republican Party was the use of those issues where you actually quietly everyone basically agrees as a smokescreen to actually avoid touching the real third rail, which is where are you on the use of American resources to either protect our own citizens or to increase risk for our own citizens? And the rubber really hit the road on that last year, particularly with Ukraine.

So at the time the presidential debates – or not even the debates, but the race began, I think I was the only person who was crystal clear that I was dead set against forking over more money to Ukraine, which was outside the Overton window at that particular point in time. He was the only one. Let's be very clear. I mean, Tucker was really at the front end of this, but among candidates. And Trump had his own opinion. And Trump is Trump. So he exempted from that basically. But all the other candidates were more money to Ukraine except DeSantis. We'll get to him in a second because it was so interesting.

Because he had your opinion for an afternoon. And then it changed by the next day. No, by breakfast, he was like Zelensky is Churchill. Hey, everybody. Charlie Kirk here. You'd think our country has a reliable power grid, but we don't. It wasn't built to last. When the next outage strikes, plug in the grid doctor 300 from My Patriot Supply. My Patriot Supply has helped millions of Americans prepare for emergencies. And power loss, that's an emergency.

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And it's going to be a quandary if I was advising somebody to run for president or if I was ever to do it again, how you're going to cross this impasse. It's the impact of money in politics, actually. I mean, the reality is I can't tell you the number of donors I lost over my position on Ukraine, which was deemed irresponsible. Now, the window's shifted on that a little bit. A lot of those same people now are more skeptical of aid on Ukraine. And that's also one of the things I learned is that when you're taking heterodox positions –

Timing is actually everything, right? You could have left-wing comedians. I don't know if it was Jon Stewart or whoever it is now going back and reflecting on the fact that COVID obviously started in China. It's easy to say that now, but...

But there's no impact from actually adopting that position versus actually having adopted that position in the middle of the pandemic. Same thing with respect to Ukraine. We've already forked over $200 billion. The outcome is going to be, it looks like, increasingly the same outcome as it would have been if we hadn't. In fact, we'd be in a worse place geopolitically versus at least negotiating from a position of strength, which is what we should have done in the first April of the war before Boris Johnson flew over to solve his own problems by goading, of course, to goad them more into war. If you had taken that position then, it actually could have changed the outcome.

So one of the things that I've learned, and the same thing with respect to – you mark my words on this, even when the truth comes out years from now about the total set of facts of what really happened on January 6th, it's going to be long afterwards when there's no consequence from that recognition. Saudi Arabia's involvement in 9-11 is one of the things that I talked about in the campaign that breached a total –

a total third rail of American politics. But it's a fact. It's so insane. It's a hard fact, actually. Why can't we talk about all the hijackers being Saudi and the financing? Not even the hijackers. This is one step further than that, Charlie. This is...

declassified documents in 2021 and 2022 that said Omar al-Bayoumi, the 42-year-old graduate student who received the hijackers at LAX airport, wasn't a graduate student that randomly met them and became friends, but was a Saudi intelligence operative. Does that mean that that should change US policy towards Saudi Arabia? No, we've actually grown closer with Saudi Arabia. Yeah, but at least you got to see the facts for what they are. Totally. And so that was one of my lessons in the campaign as well is when you're

Outside of the Overton window, one of the things you do is if you're at the bleeding edge of that, you pave the way for the people who come after you. But at the time you actually do it, that's when it matters most. And timing is everything in a way that you could say COVID started in a lab in China today. And you think of yourself as brave, but you're not really brave at all. But you want to talk today about actually questioning the government's narrative on any of these other questions.

then you're actually outside the acceptable bounds of receiving donor funds. Yeah, so help me understand this. I mean, I raise a lot of money, but I'm not running for president, so they see the mission, and I think we have more agreement. And I think some donors don't have to agree with everything I say, but when a presidential candidate, I think it is much more issue-set fitting, especially in a primary. So help me understand this.

You're trying to say that your opinions on sending money to a foreign country was a deal breaker. It was an absolute deal breaker. Your opinions on very aggressive immigration policy, very clear on trans stuff, of all the strong opinions you could have, the one where donors said we don't want to send you money is because I believe a foreign country should not be given priority over the homeland?

Yes, I think that that was that was that all about. That was a true third rail of American politics. I think it also got under the skin of a lot of the media that serves as a gatekeeper for what the acceptable opinions are. See, most people are not inherently leaders. They don't form their own. Those aren't actually closely held opinions, but they take their cues from the institutionalists who decide what direction that opinion does or doesn't go. And that, too, was a third rail for much of the media as well. Now, I predict, Charlie, this landscape is changing.

So a few years from now, I am, for better or worse, in some ways it's too bad this will be the case. I think a lot of the views that I adopted will have been vindicated in retrospect. I'll give you two of those. One is Ukraine. I think we're already seeing that happening now in the current landscape. The real challenging third rail here, and I say this as somebody who is actually staunchly, I believe even more strongly pro-Israel than the standard Republican Party leader,

talking point position was my view that I'm against passing the aid package that just whizzed right through without really much of a second question. Which, by the way, doubled overnight. Yeah, it did. It went from $13 billion to inexcusably nearly $30 billion. And no one asked the question as to why. But here's my prediction of what we're actually going to see. We're going to see not only leading voices in the United States questioning that decision, but we're already starting to see this leading voices in Israel questioning

for Israel's own national position, questioning the wisdom of that as well. Because part of what we're doing when we're when we're support supposedly sending over money to a foreign country is we're actually using it as a set of handcuffs to be able to dictate from here what they do or don't do. So to be clear, I am all in favor of Ukraine pursuing a Ukraine first policy. I'm not rooting for Ukraine to lose this war. Far from it. I just question the wisdom of

the U.S., escalating the scope of it by driving Russia further into China's hands and increasing the risk of World War III. Similarly on Israel, Israel has an absolute right to self-determination and national self-defense.

And the job of the U.S. should be to diplomatically stand for that principle. But the irony is that by the U.S. actually giving more money, the U.S. then assumes implicit responsibility for what Israel does, which then puts Biden in the position for backseat quarterbacking what Israel's own government is supposed to do, which is worse for us but also worse for Israel.

And so I think it takes – that's a nuanced position. So that lends itself for other candidates on the debate stage to just falsely – and this is false. Characterize me as, in this case, anti-Israel. That's false. In fact, it's more decidedly false than actually what I view as a more strongly pro-Israel position. But when you're dealing with super PAC-funded airwaves and 30-second clips that are distilled – and here's the other thing I learned. Most people don't actually watch the debates.

Most people watch the distillation or the description or read what actually happened.

And so these are some of the great learnings is it's the gatekeepers of information that determine the public perceptions of not just a general election audience, but even a Republican primary electorate. And those are valuable lessons. Now, what one does with those lessons is another matter. But I think that with six months of reflection, those are some of my bigger, interesting, unexpected learnings from the race. I mean, I'm very pro-Israel, as you guys know. And I have Israel envy. Why do they have a border and we don't?

Well, we should learn from our allies. Why is Israel allowed to deport foreigners that commit crimes? Do you know right before October 7th in late September, there were a bunch of Atreans, the country of – I think it's Atria. I mispronounced it. And they were in Israel on work visas. There was like 50 of them. And –

They committed a bunch of crimes in Tel Aviv, and they made a spectacle of it. And the Israel government's like, yeah, we're deporting every person from that country who knew these people because we're not going to put up with foreigners committing crimes. I think that's excellent. I wish we did that. But then I'm told I'm racist if we do that in America. Why does Israel get to deport foreigners and we don't? Yeah, of course, you've got a lot of crazy people that will also call Israel

call Israel some sort of oppressor for making that own decision. And I reject that. I totally reject that narrative altogether. One of the reasons I love Israel is that they want to survive as a nation. They're scrappy and hardworking. They have an identity, too. They know who they are. And they're proud of it. And they have a history.

And we used to have those things. Again, our identity is different than Israel's identity. There is a religious tribal identity. That's fine. Our identity is one that is rooted in values and one that is passed down in irrefutable divine truths, ethical monotheism, separation of powers. But the point I'm getting is that I'm so pro-Israel that I actually want America to look more like Israel in some ways, not every way. But...

What I can understand, though, is why in American dialogue or discourse the only agreed-upon position is it's okay to send money to those countries, but if we start acting like those countries, we're terrible. Yeah, it's completely hypocritical and nonsensical, which would explain, frankly, the establishment in both major political parties for much of the last 35 years, which is at least the magnitude of my adult lifetime, which is part of what compelled me to enter politics. I mean, I talked about one of the things that allowed me to adopt the positions that I have

is the fact that I was able to self-finance. And, you know, I didn't enjoy spending $33 million. You spent $33 million. Maybe it's $31 or whatever the exact number was. But it was over $30. It was over $30 million of my hard-earned money. Can I interrupt you? I think that's amazingly patriotic. I think it deserved to be. Thank you. I appreciate that.

I mean, let me just – I mean, I think it's disgusting when people will just spend more money on their self-pleasure. What you did for $31 million is you legitimately opened up millions of people's eyes to an issue set they otherwise wouldn't have. Young men in particular now have a new role model and icon in the conservative movement. Like that's $31 million well spent, a lot more than, I don't know, a new boat in the Aegean or something stupid. And I give a lot of credit to my wife for this actually because she doesn't – she really doesn't care for things anymore.

By the end of the campaign, I had never seen – she's very invested in what she does daily. She's a throat surgeon. She saves lives. By the end of the campaign and even by midway through it, she's not a – didn't historically think of herself as a terribly political person but believed we were on a holy mission for this country and was all in on it for me that the inheritance we wanted – we had this conversation, right? Because this is – money's not going to us. We can't spend it. Is it going to go to our kids? Yes.

Okay, what's the inheritance we actually want to leave for our kids? And the thing we decided is it's not a bunch of green pieces of paper. Actually, you could argue that that's going to encumber them in a lot of ways. I've seen a lot of people I've gone to school with in places like Harvard, as we talk about, who have in some ways been – have had that cross tied to their back.

That albatross that they've borne. It's green handcuffs. It's green handcuffs in some ways, but debate that as it will. The actual inheritance we do want to give our kids is the same country that allowed us to live the American dream that we did. And so that's the way we view it. So let's talk about this election. It should not be close. I mean, all fact patterns. I mean, the fact pattern is so unbelievable when you think about it.

The thing that disturbs me is the insistence of this current ruling class to hang on to power.

And you're kind of a class traitor. You're very similar to Trump. And I hope you guys understand Vivek is a class traitor. J.D. Vance is a class traitor, meaning that they made a choice to no longer be in the Aspen, Sun Valley, Kennebunkport, Cape Cod circles. And they have money. J.D. Vance has money. Vivek has money. Trump has money. And if they would have adopted a certain issue set, albeit even from center right circles, they would have still been allowed in polite society.

And so you've been around the ruling class and you decided, I don't want to be part of that anymore. I want to be with the people. I want to save the country, which I think is amazing. So can you help me understand why the current people that are in charge of the society are so hell-bent on ruining the country that they're tasked to steward? Yeah, there's different kinds of them. I think that's actually the first distinction to draw. Different kinds of people in this ruling class, if we're to use that term, is different.

I actually think one of the things I try to do during the campaign is bring many of them with us.

This is going to have to be both bottom up and top down. And a lot of these people, what they needed was really liberation. I can't tell you on how many different signal or similar chat groups I am on with like anonymized initial only names but with some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley. I know the names. I mean there's countless. There's different overlapping groups, many of whom are unable to say in public what they will put into these private chats.

And that needle is moving. So I think that's a good thing in our direction. So every time we see some sort of – part of your first – it happens to me too – part of your first reaction when you see some next billionaire saying something that you were saying two years ago, now thinking that they're anti-woke and suddenly discovered that DEI was poison for the country, your first reaction should not be as I am tempted for it to be to roll my eyes and be like, come on, dude. What were you thinking? Where were you, right? And it should instead be thank you for having the –

open-mindedness to revise your prior opinions and now belatedly even still having still what may not seem like us to courage but in their circle still has courage to actually say it. That's a trend that I see in this country I think is going to be a requirement if we're realistically talking about actually fixing the system within the boundaries that actually exist where that is part of the donor class that was part of the problem over the last year as I experienced it. So I think the changes in that community that became one of the things that I felt that I was able to do and may be able to continue to do that's actually important

Now, I think that there's a separate strand to this of people who – there's, of course, people who are cynical and care to trample on other people for the sake of the exercise of power and their own self-enrichment. But I think the more interesting strand, and I think this is the more popular one in what I will call the managerial class. I don't use the word elites. I think that it's too broad because Elon Musk is an elite. In some ways, I am an elite, right? I don't think that that word includes elites.

creators and founders as much as it does people who are bureaucrats sitting in corporate boards or three-letter government agencies. I use the word the managerial class. And the thing about the managerial class is the reason the deep state behaves the way it does isn't because...

Just they want to trample on your rights and view you as somebody to be trampled over. It's because they think of themselves as benevolent towards you that you can't decide for yourself how to address or whether to address climate change or racial inequity or whatever.

This is the stuff of the American Revolution, right? This is why we fought a revolution in this country, because that was King George's view, too. We are his subjects. We are his children. The reason he governs and does not guarantee liberty to the Americans in the colonies is because they couldn't be trusted to possibly self-govern. And that brings us back to the moment we're in, Charlie. Once you see it that way, that's actually far more dangerous, far more sinister than

It's a 1776 moment right now between the citizen and the managerial class. And if the citizens can team up with the creators to overthrow the managerial class, that's what success in this country looks like.

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There's a phenomenal book by James Burnham. You probably read it called The Managerial Revolution. Yeah, it's a game changer. You guys should all read it. The PMC, the Professional Managerial Class. And he diagnosed it. I think it was like 90s he wrote it, if I'm not mistaken. And he saw this coming. He said the death of America will be the growth of mid-level management, MLM.

And you can see this in corporate America, by the way, where everyone's a manager and no one really knows who does anything. And it's a really bad way to run an organization, really bad way to run a company and run a country. The problem with the managerial class is that they're huge in number. They're seemingly permanent in position.

So Vivek is president day one. And anything you say Trump can also do as president day one. I hope he does. Yeah, so lay it out either way. What can be, from a policy standpoint, immediately done without Congress? Let's say Congress is deadlocked and a waste of time. What can be done to— I love that proviso because a lot of people are spinning their wheels on draft legislation right now. Waste of time. It is not the place to spend—but people need to understand this because this is the traditional stuff of preparing for a transition is draft bills.

My view, and I say this coming out of government, this is the wrong place to focus. What can you get done as president of the United States, period? A lot. There's a lot. I'll sum it down to two important things. It's a tale of two mass deportations, okay? One is actually sealing our own border and making sure that anybody who's in this country illegally is treated appropriately as an illegal in this country. But –

That's the first of two. The second mass deportation that I really care about is the mass deportation of federal bureaucrats out of Washington, D.C., right?

That is the mass deportation that we ought to begin on day one. 75% mass firing across the board, indiscriminate, send them home. That would still arguably be too big. What's left is probably still too big. And you know, I made progress when I sort of said this, the pushback...

I got for most people is what you'd expect. But Elon Musk calls me and says, no, no, that's not enough. It's got to go further. I was a great. That's the kind of pushback I want. But let's let's go with 75 percent across the board and then actually shift.

shut down the agencies that should not exist in the first place. Can the president do that without Congress? Yes. So the answer to this question, great questions. Yes. First of all, you can't individually fire people. So I can't say I'm going to individually fire you or see my friend Sandy Pensler here running for Senate in Michigan. I can't fire you, okay, as an individual because there's these civil service protections.

But what I can do is mass indiscriminate firings because the civil service protections don't apply to mass firings. Isn't there something as a section or something? What is that called? Yes. Idol or something. They talk about this. They talk about the schedule F. That's what I mean. Right. So the schedule F expansion, that's the part the President Trump took in the late days. And that's what they're talking about. Starting to like that or not so much. I like it, but it's a step. It's a small step in the right direction. You'd be even more firm.

Yeah. And just so people understand this, I'm glad we're talking about this. Schedule F basically says right now there's a tiny number of employees who are making policy. The president can fire them, but that's a tiny fraction, a few thousand to four million. So they took the smart step of saying, let's reclassify more of the federal employees from like a few thousand to tens of thousands or maybe even 100,000 employees that are Schedule F that could be fireable.

I look at it the other way. Use the provision of the law that says those are for individual firings. Bring the chainsaw. Don't bring the chisel in the first place. Mass indiscriminate firings, they can't sue you because they can't say it's because of political discrimination or racial discrimination or disparate outcomes based on race or gender or sexual orientation. That's what slows you up in the courts. If it's literally – and people got mad when I said this, and I'm not saying I would do it this way. But if you literally said if your social security number ends in an odd number, you're out. In an even number, you're in.

Nobody could sue you, right? And actually most of those agencies would work better. So that's the way you get it as a large indiscriminate fire. So can the president say the Department of Education is closed? Yes.

And the reason why. So hold on. I'll tell you why. But let me tell me why. And then I tell you why I think that might get overturned. I mean, you're making you're getting getting the nerd out in me, but that's all right. We can we can we can we can school in Boston. We can bring that out. You know? Yeah. So there's there's certain unexpired provisions of of a law called the Presidential Reorganization Act in 1977.

And that is a law – some provisions have expired, so people have missed it. It was a Carter-era law. It was a Carter-era law, but the portions that have expired were actually the ones that required congressional approval. The unexpired portions say there are certain conditions under which the U.S. president –

Can unilaterally carry out already permission that Congress has given to shut down agencies if it promotes economy and what they mean by economy is economy within the administration of government efficiency of operations and government or eliminates redundant agencies.

then the president already has the power to do it. So I believe the Department of Education checks that box to the fullest. You want to move the parts that actually administer workforce training? Move it to the Department of Labor. That's redundant. The remainder, does that promote the economy to send $83 billion back to the states and to the people? Absolutely it does. Check that box. So block grant it. So what you're saying is that

That Congress, you can still appropriate all this money, but like Department of Education, you're done. That's right. And therefore – so – but didn't Congress charter the Department of Education though? So a lot of these agencies – So you have a separation of powers issue, right? So there's a couple of things to say. Actually, a lot of these agencies – it will surprise you, Charlie. It surprised me too –

We're actually never originally chartered by Congress in the first place. So just because they give you a financial appropriation. But the big ones are. Energy, education. I'll give you one that's actually easier to achieve on reorganizational grounds, but certainly hits a third rail for a lot of people. FBI. Oh, I love that. So the FBI. Is never by an act of Congress, right? Yeah, never by an act of Congress.

35, 36,000 employees at the FBI. More than half of them are back office bureaucrats sitting in the, believe me, it's still called the J. Edgar Hoover building. Believe it or not, they're still honoring the man's legacy.

The remainder can be moved. Say what you will about the agencies I'm about to name, whatever you may think of them. Here's a plan for shutting down the FBI. You can move them to the DEA or to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network at the U.S. Treasury or to a range to the Secret Service, to a range of other agencies, the U.S. Marshals, which have actually been far more effective at fighting child sex trafficking rings and the fentanyl epidemic than has been the agents at the FBI.

This isn't a radical plan. This is just a reorganizational plan that guts the bureaucratic rot at its core. And we'll say, fire whoever the current FBI director is. I don't care. Christopher Wray. Well, you get James Comey 2.0. What do you think exactly happens? You cut off one head of an eight-headed hydra. It grows right back. You want to solve the problem. You gut it at its core. And I think this is the question when we think about the future of America first, Charlie, is

I'm not going to hold President Trump to the standard of believing and having to do everything that I've laid out because he's got his agenda and he's unapologetic about it. And I'm going to do whatever I can to not only make sure he's successfully elected but implements a lot of the things that he needs to do that are good for this country that are at the top of his list. But these are the things that would be at the top of my list. And I think we got the next four years where we got to make sure that we reclaim the direction of this country.

And then we've got the next 250 years of America first after that. And I think that the next four years are a requirement to lay that foundation and

But you know what? People call this vision extreme. I call it a vision to returning to what our founding fathers set into motion. And you know what? That's not extreme to me. That's a reversion to what set this country into motion in the first place. Amen. And that really is what is on the ballot is what form of government do we want? Yes. Which is an oligarchy or a constitutional republic. Are you a citizen or are you a subject?

That's what's on the ballot this year. If you're a subject, you know who you vote for. Subject of the regime that views you as somebody they need to benevolently take care of. If you are a citizen that deserves to hold your elected leaders accountable, if you believe the people we elect to run the government should be the ones who run the government and that they owe their sole moral duty to you, the citizens of this country and not another one.

Then there is one answer for how you vote this November, and that's to put Donald Trump back in the White House so we at least change the direction of this country and lay the foundation for an America First movement that will outlive Donald Trump, that will outlive me, that will outlive you, that didn't start in 2016. It started in 1776, but put back the man who revived it in the 21st century back into the White House. Very quickly, then I got to get you on stage. They're going to give a yank here. Do you think Biden's going to make it? No. No.

You know, you think they're going to pull them? I think I mean, I said this on the Republican debate stage last year, and I think that it's less becomes less likely by the day. You got to admit, but I still think that there's a very good chance they pull them. Yeah. And I'll tell you when. So the June 27th debate is the earliest ever debate in recorded televised U.S. presidential history.

And the reason why is that this is the final audition before the DNC. It's the first ever known debate before the nominating convention of either political party. So they've set themselves up for a win-win, which is if Biden does really well, he exceeds expectations. Even if he passes as a coherent human being, he will have exceeded expectations, and that could reset the race.

But if, as I expect, he doesn't, then that gives them ample time to swap in somebody, which is actually the best scenario of all. Because think about this. When you're in the honeymoon phase, then you don't have the time for scrutiny. So if they're swapping somebody in July or August, maybe a Michelle Obama, who knows who it is. Gretchen Whitmer. Well –

Here in Michigan. I'm telling you, it will be Gretchen Whitmer. You initially get the honeymoon phase, but without actually the time for the scrutiny. And I believe that's part of what the backup plan might actually look like. Think about Gretchen Whitmer, though. She won the state. I know it's all fraudulent, but she's got a blue wall cachet, fresh face. Not for you guys. But, yeah, she's a darling of the Democrat Party. Yeah, and I think that here's what I would say in closing is –

I worry. I don't mean to be I don't mean to close on a dark note, but I believe in truth. And so I'm going to speak what I believe is a hard truth right now. I think there's a lot of optimism, including in our own party, including in the ranks of President Trump and the campaign team for good reason about the poll numbers and everything else. I think we are at risk of the same thing that happened in 2022, which is a red wave that never comes.

And I think complacency right now is not an option. And the way we're going to do this isn't just by pinning it against Biden or warning it's Wittner or Obama, Wittner or Obama, whoever else. It's by actually stepping up. This is what I'll talk about on stage.

Stepping up and actually defining who we are and what we actually stand for. And that's something that no matter who they put up or what tricks they pull, they're not going to be able to take that away from us. Use that as our starting point. Fight to the end. Play not with kid gloves but with gloves off. Compete, as they say, either win or leave blood on the court. We're not leaving blood on the court. We're winning this time. That's what it's going to take without complacency. We've got to get Vivek on stage. Give it up for him, everybody. Thanks, man. Thank you, man.

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.