THOUGHTCRIME Ep. 86 — Battle of the Bill(ionaires)
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the age of Big Brother. If they want to get you, they'll get you. DNSA specifically targets the communications of everyone. They're collecting your communications. Okay, everybody, today's an awful day. But anyway, it's okay. We're here anyway. We got Blake, we got Tyler, and we got Jack. So today's not great. Prove me wrong. Yeah, it's...

I don't know if there's anything to prove wrong. What do you mean? It's entertaining. Jack's having fun. Okay, Jack, tell us how great today is. I think it's hilarious. I think it's great on so many levels, right? You know, is it a bump in the road? For sure it's a bump in the road. But this is what happens when you have coalition politics. If you study history, and Blake, I'm sure, could name, rattle off a dozen examples off the top of his head.

of coalition politics that go through this after the coalition achieves victory, that go through some growing pains, that go through some leadership challenges, which there's clearly is, which go through some issues and flare ups. And it's it's always going to happen. It was inevitable. I think this is something where, you know, no company can have two CEOs and, you know, a country has to be run by a chain of command. And it's really as simple as that. And so if if if this was always going to happen, fine.

then might as well happen within the first couple months of the first year rather than, oh, I don't know, like right before an election or a time when it really matters. Charlie, today's a great day we should be celebrating. And here's the reason why. Everyone expected this to blow up way sooner than it actually did. And it actually lasted this long. There's no person that's had a stronger, more...

great relationship with the president than turning point and charlie and everyone else this is the one thing that i want to point out today is the anniversary of 13 years 13 years of turning point happened just like on cosmic you know the stars aligned and on the 13th birthday and the only you know the only relationship that's persisted through all the trump years that's big and organizational and influential has been turning point and so you look at this it happens

These things break up. They change. They change shape. I think a lot of people expected the Elon thing to blow up at some point or another. That's just politics. It's normal. It's just big because he's the richest guy on the planet. And like you mentioned, Charlie, Trump's the most powerful guy on the planet. And so it's just going to be a little bit uglier than normal. But these things happen and they change. And so it was expected. It was going to happen at some point.

But then it didn't have to happen like this. I mean, accusing of the Epstein files, I mean... Yeah, and we should say, like, I think a lot is going to matter in the months to come.

Because this could be literally in a matter of days, they calm down a bit, and the bill moves on, and they either bury the hatchet or stop sniping each other. But right now, the pinned post on X by Elon is, is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle with 82% voting yes on his pinned tweet? And, you know, it has to be said...

I don't think it would be that easy to just create a new political party from scratch. But if you attempt to do it, you can greatly shake up one election cycle at least. And maybe we'd see that. Jack said not to say this, but it actually is really easy to create a new political party. It's easy to create one. It's difficult to get 10, 20, keep it going past one election. I would even make an argument against that because you don't need to have it be super sustainable. It doesn't even have to be in very many states.

But I don't want to give anyone ideas. I don't want to be that guy. But both of the parties are very fragile because creating a new party. Now, there have been parties that have been created. I think they've done it wrong. The question is about how to do it the right way. The scary part with Elon and some of the people that he has around him is that they might figure out how to do it the right way. And if they do that...

That would only damage, I think, I think it would damage most immediately the Republican Party. Wait, so I'm trying, so then Karine Jean-Pierre says she's becoming an independent yesterday, and then today... And then the Biden guy came out and said, just to be clear, Karine Jean-Pierre is extremely stupid. Well, hold on, Karine says she's becoming an independent yesterday, and then today Elon's like, I'm going to create a new independent third party, like, it's...

You think they were colluding? No, I'm just saying. It's just amazing how it's all happening within a couple days. What's interesting to me is usually when you hear these, oh, let's create a party that represents the middle, you hear it from sort of these bland, centrist politicians or businessmen who aren't famously political, but...

With Musk, what's interesting is he's become this utterly reviled figure on the American left because he allied with Trump. You had people burning Teslas, vandalizing Tesla dealerships, all this nasty stuff. And he's suddenly pivoting to, I should make a centrist political party.

And the question is, would the left be remotely willing to forgive him? No, no, they've already sworn him off. Exactly. They're done. Like, Elon, there is no... You want to talk about, like, the arc of non-forgiveness? The left created non-forgiveness, for instance. Yes, and so at that point... He is done. There is no redemption for him on the left. And so I think you create this interesting... I hate using the word game theory, but it does mean that if Elon were to create a new party, it could probably mostly only damage the right, because the left is not going to defect for this.

And then you circle back around to he can sabotage the right, which means he would empower the party that has made it its priority to destroy Tesla, destroy SpaceX, possibly put Musk himself in prison. They wanted to do that if Trump lost. And are they going to have to be able to

I feel like naturally they're going to not want to be enemies because one of the things that Musk and Trump have in common is the left wants to put both of them in prison. And Blake, to your point there too, this isn't just theory on the left. The left did this. So they created the no labels party and the left held together and did not fracture nearly as much as people thought it would on the left because they created the no labels party and

really because there was a lot of resentment at the time for how the left was managing things with Biden. And obviously they equipped and carried out the Liz Cheney theory and did all that and tried it, and it just was an utter failure on the left. They've already done this, and they succeeded in hanging together. This hasn't happened on the right yet in any kind of functional way, and I agree with you, it would mostly hurt the right if it did happen.

Yeah, I just, I mean, here's the thing I have to keep on just reminding myself is that this, I want to count your blessings. I'd much rather have this blow up. I mean, it went to like from nothing to thermonuclear war. You don't accuse somebody of being in the Epstein files. I want to log this, by the way, that Charlie predicted this specific thing when he saw that Elon Musk made the tweet. Let's get the exact tweet up. The ingratitude one. I'm going to bring it up here. I'll scroll for a bit. This is one of my greatest calls ever.

Yeah, this is an amazing call that he made. Let's go down to where it is. This was about three hours ago. It was around like 10, 15. Exactly. Do we have it? We have a lot. There's a lot of tweets that have been made today. I'm just going to search from Elon Musk. It's 4.55. I think we have it up on screen. Okay. All righty. Great. And so he says...

Without me, Trump would have lost the election. Dems would control the House and Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate. Such ingratitude. Charlie sees that and he messages, he goes...

Blake, within one hour, this is going after where Trump is going to go nuclear. You do not say, I'm the reason Trump won. Yes. Trump can forgive actually quite a few things, but he will not abide by that. He said by 1130 Pacific time, it's going to happen. 1137. 1137, Trump makes his first truth social post. That's right. And I had no inside information whatsoever, like at all. And just boom. And it's...

It was, and I will make an, you want me to make a provocative take, but Jack, I think you're going to like this. I think Bobby Kennedy was more instrumental in keeping the coalition and bringing a new coalition together the last 90 days than Elon was. Not saying Elon wasn't important. What do you think, Jack? Bobby or Elon? I've said this.

I've said this a ton of times, and I just mean this objectively, that the Maha movement is the most popular political movement in America today. And I've been saying this for months.

I don't think that anyone in media has quite figured this out yet, that somehow Republicans, for once, outflanked Democrats on health, on health care. It was like they did Obamacare and that took them up through 2010 and then they just sort of stopped talking about the issue. But then RFK comes along and finds a new way to talk about health as an issue. Republicans latch onto it. President Trump brings in Bobby Kennedy. Of course, they have the great

and iconic meeting at, yes, a turning point rally, turning point action rally down in Georgia, which has gone down in history and will continue to go down in history as one of the great meetings of the minds and the coalition coming together. And so that doesn't diminish what Elon did, but it's just it represents a completely different political alignment

than we've ever seen in American politics when Bobby Kennedy crossed the line and came over with Donald Trump. And that just is what it is. It stands on its own. And you still see the Maha movement absolutely chugging along on all four cylinders right now, whether it be

whether it be dyes in foods whether it be uh the latest uh thing that they're banning from from cereals and glyphosates and just just all of it and I gotta say for suburban women I've always told the story right um that for suburban women my wife and everybody knows my wife tiny Tay is she she you know follows our stuff but she's not super political but I catch her you know in in

at some point like last fall or whatever it was. And she's listening to a Rogan podcast. And I'm like, "What do you listen to? Joe Rogan. Like you don't usually listen to Joe Rogan. I mean, that's cool. Whatever, cool. You know, have at it." And it was Bobby Kennedy. And I said, "What made you want to listen to this one?" She goes, "All the moms in my mom's chat are talking about this."

all of the suburban women who have, especially those who have children on the vaccine, on the food, on everything else. The Maha Mom movement was born through the work of RFK. And so aligning with Bobby Kennedy, that's why Trump wants suburban women. It's so simple. And that became a key demographic

among other key demographics, but it absolutely became a key demographic margin in the swing states and absolutely in the Rust Belt. And so just basic politics analysis, I've been saying this point forever, that you cannot remove Maha from the coalition. This is absolutely one of the most important pieces politically for Trump and the movement going forward. So, Blake, is this reconcilable?

I actually think it is. I actually, I'm going to make a call that there will be, I think that there is a, there will be like a really like quiet 30 days, 60 days, 90 days.

And I think that by Christmas, there might be like this subtle thing where like reports are Elon, you know, back at White House for lunch or dinner. I actually I think this is going to be reconcilable. The reason being, and I know this is it went so hot so fast that it like the the impulse control was obviously like not there.

that this wasn't as calculated. This just seemed to be just like a very quick escalatory thing. And look, evidence is this. I could name some private examples. Honestly, I think this is pretty public. Let me think about this. No, okay, a good example is this.

like at least someone like elon was very very mad at laura loomer back in december like very mad that's public like he would like that she was like going after him and all that and then like a couple months later like he was retweeting her and like was responding to her like there has been a pattern of both of these guys i mean look jd vance called trump you know compared him to hitler back in like 2017 2018 and now he's the vice president united states

I think that there is going, I actually think in the short term, this is not necessarily reconcilable. I actually am more bullish on like them actually coming together because it sounds like, oh, Trump's only president for three and a half years. That's a long time, Elon. And you have a lot of government contracts. And I actually think that you have very ambitious and I think righteous people.

goals to want to go to Mars. And I actually think what cooler heads are going to prevail here. And don't be surprised if there is like a story and I have no inside information to say this is just instinct. Again, I haven't talked to anybody in the next like nine months.

Where all of a sudden there's like back channel established between team Elon and team Trump and like Bill Ackman or somebody serves as like the intermediary. The stakes are too high. And deep down, I actually think they agree on a lot and have good memories together.

that don't be shocked if all of a sudden Elon's having steak at Mar-a-Lago in November. I mean, I'm telling you right now, don't be shocked. Here's where the Trump team is smart, too, is nothing that Elon has worked towards and wants is going to be supported by the left, as you so poignantly pointed out here, is that they're not going to have any kind of home to go to with the left because the left isn't going to embrace Elon, and they're not going to support anything that Elon's doing with Doge and everything that he's actually upset about.

The only people that will help him are on the right. And so when the political reality comes down the road here of who are we going to take out? The people that are going to take out are the most moderate people anyways.

that are the least likely to be Trump supporters. And so when those people that when Elon accidentally or incidentally pushes those people towards Trump, there's gonna become a real clear reality that those people are not gettable to him. They're not winnable. And, you know, the establishment when it goes towards Trump, that actually makes the party more conservative and then actually ends up doing the things that he wants to have done anyways.

which is going to enable all of the doge. So I think that the outcome of what you're saying is that we've seen numerous times, even people really close and really fond of President Trump, including Steve Bannon, for example. They had a little bit of a tiff once upon a time where the president got kind of upset. They got over that very quickly. They figured it out. The political dice got re-rolled. And

You know, there was a realization that, you know, some of the things that Steve said were correct and they got fixed and it actually made the movement better. And I think that that's probably where we're going to end up. Blake. So the issue with them reconciling. So first of all, we have a lot of people in our comments saying this is kayfabe or fake. No, wrong. No, it's definitely real. Sorry. It's very real. Sorry. Sorry to be the bearers of bad news on that one. But yeah.

I guess my issue with envisioning a reconciliation is that Trump, I think we agree, Trump has a pretty strong need to be the number one guy. He very much thrives and he wants to be dominant. He wants to be number one. And so he can reconcile with people as long as it carries the implication they are acknowledging him as the boss, as the number one. And...

The issue I could see is, is Elon Musk going to make that type of submission? I could see him not wanting to attack Trump anymore. I could see him, you know, maybe realizing this was a bad idea. But is Elon going to come out and be like, oh, I was wrong. Trump is the best president ever and is being awesome.

I think that there is such an unpredictable arc to all this, guys. Just like, let's be clear. A year ago, Elon was still on the fence. I mean, he was not yet endorsed Trump until July 13th in Butler, Pennsylvania. We're all over the place here, right? We must understand the... It's like Tesla stock. He was doing spaces with DeSantis people basically 12 months ago, 13 months ago, right? So I just think we all need to do the...

Yeah, 100%. I mean, do I love the escalation? I actually think Trump has been remarkably restrained in his public retorts. No all caps truth social posts yet? Yet, but I think there's a reason for that. I think Trump does... It's kind of like people are expecting the giga atomic bomb in return, and instead he's just like,

I don't need it. So Amy Walter is really she's good on most of the Cook Political Report. She has a very interesting take. She says this is a war that Trump is destined to win against Elon. Doesn't need Elon's money anymore for any more of his campaign. Trump is more popular among Republicans than Musk is by a lot. Congressional Republicans are going to stick with Trump on BBB. And again, I just want to say one other thing, which I think is really important, guys, is like this feels like drama more than anything else. Right. It's drama. Yeah.

We are in June of 2025. OK, by like Christmas, we're going to wait. Were we talking about that stuff back then? A year from today, if the big, beautiful bill does even half of what Stephen Miller says it is, we're going to have a lot more deportations. The border will be secure. Who knows what the economy will look like? Elon thinks we're going to a recession like he just predicted that today in kind of his stream of consciousness tweets.

But it's also just, I think that if you look at these things in terms of year cycles, I would much rather have this blow up in June of 25 than June of 26. Totally. Yeah. Right. That gives us a ton of time. That's what I'm saying. To remedy stuff. And let me just say one last thing. One last, sorry. And Jack, I want to throw it to you. In primary politics, I have heard this so many times. I should have said this on my little YouTube thing earlier, but I'll say this and I'm going to say this on Laura Ingram.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard this. There is no way they can get back together because it's been so nasty the way they've attacked each other. And we always seem to defy the odds where all of a sudden people that were so bitter. He called little Marco that, you know, he's now a secretary of state. OK, I mean, he said that Ben Carson was a mental case, right?

And literally, and Ben Carson ended up being HUD secretary. And he made fun of the fact that Ben Carson was lying about being stabbed in his, you remember this whole thing with his belt? I mean, there is a rhetoric around politics that I think we play into too much. And I think that, again, I am, if it was a stock, it would be at an all-time low, like between Trump and Elon bro-ing it up. I don't think they'll ever be the same way they were.

But I actually think that they're stronger together and they'll both realize that. I mean, definitely go around stronger together. I think one of the biggest tragedies that could happen here is set aside whatever else you have. It's genuinely important that

What's the most successful recently founded American manufacturing company? It's basically Tesla. What's probably the most standout American firm innovating in a difficult field? It's probably SpaceX. And what's the most important free speech platform we have? It's X. And...

All of those things are very valuable things that Musk has been involved in. And one of the biggest tragedies would be if we lost any of those, whether it's because of some fight or if it would be because Elon himself would damage it. Like, I really hope Elon doesn't go on this bender where he starts censoring a ton of people on X because... I might lose my X account. Maybe. Maybe. That would be very unfortunate if it were to happen. And I...

You know, we kind of believe we basically, you know, being a Trump follower means kind of believing in the great man theory of history. And I think Elon Musk is clearly a great man who has contributed a lot. He has done a lot for America and for the world. And you would really hope he does not damage that with any impulsive actions now. But sometimes great men do do that. Jack, I cut you off. What's on your mind?

Yeah, no, this is what is saying that, you know, I do think this is going to happen. I do remember Elon also being associated with the original Trump administration in 2017, and he left sort of in the aftermath of Charlottesville and a couple of other things. So that was also in the first summer of the first admin. And you you have a situation politically where, yeah, it's anything. And I gave a comment to Politico earlier today.

Along similar lines, just saying that, you know, with with Trump and Elon, never count anything out, just never count anything out, especially with the president. He has a way of turning friends into allies and excuse me, and turning enemies into allies and has done so time and time again. And people seem to always discount his ability to do so.

but i do think that we should actually talk a little bit about the bill itself and so you know one of the things that i've been trying to push on on on x and just as on the shows and everything is that it's is this idea that people are saying okay well you know we have to balance the budget we have to balance the budget we have to balance the budget we get the debt

I don't remember campaigning on that. I really don't. I think it's important. I think it's I think a lot of things are important, obviously. But that was not one of the core issues and has never been one of the core issues. It's always been about mass deportations. It's always been about tariffs. It's always been about foreign policy.

And so that's really what this bill was always meant to address. And so, yeah, there's a lots of meta things going on here. But when it comes to these issues, this is the and Stephen Miller's right. This actually is the best deportation bill, the best immigration bill that we've ever seen put forward in this nation's modern history. And if you actually want entitlement reform, if you actually want to cut down on this,

oh by the way well everyone's talking about the supply side oh we cut the programs just cut the programs cut the programs well what if boys and girls you look at the demand side of the equation as well and reduce the number of people who are on these programs by removing them from the country 43 of immigrants legal and illegal are on one welfare program or another so get them out

You get them out, the number is going to go down. That's the way these projections work. They don't factor in something like mass deportations. It's going to dramatically reduce the amount of people that are on the programs. And yet you never see the libertarians or any of these guys, these budget hawks, you're going to look at it that way. So, Blake, I just said I'm thinking of just downside things that could happen, you know,

Elon is making tweets where he says that we should impeach Trump now and replace him with Vance, I suppose. That sounds, one, very dumb because it's that classic, like, okay, it can't happen, so why are they doing this? But do you worry that could cause damage at all? Like, I don't...

It would feel very annoying if Vance, who we're all very supportive of, gets caught in the crossfire having said nothing and done nothing. I got caught in the crossfire. Which, again, it's like I got to... He unfollowed me. I'm like, what is that all about? It's like, fine, I guess. It's...

Again, I just have to remind myself, Elon and I had no contact nine months ago, let alone a year ago. So it was fun while it lasted. I learned a lot from him. He was a friend, and maybe one day we'll be friends again. I literally, I have no bitterness at all whatsoever. It's not a joke, right? It's fine. Actually, I think highly of him. I think he's an incredible entrepreneur. I think what he's done is remarkable. And great, if he wants to ever hang out again, let me know. We've all been big fans over here. Yeah.

everybody's no I mean that like I'm not like still big fans I have a great life I have kids and a family and like you know it's fine okay Charlie Charlie is calling for a cease an immediate ceasefire he's asking for terms

The peace talks will take place at Turning Point headquarters. Trump just announced he's shutting down Diablo servers, and this is a big, big deal. No! Wait, I thought Diablo servers were in China anyway. Yeah, I don't know how he's doing it.

He's got a strike on Diablo servers. Drone striking Diablo servers. Drone strike on Diablo servers. I'm so upset. Simultaneous peace negotiations in Istanbul for, you know, like, Russia, Ukraine, India, Pakistan, Israel, Gaza, and Trump, Elon. And we just have, like, four rooms right next to each other. Jesus.

and Trump can run to each of them and then like one of them is just Elon hanging out playing Path of Exile or whatever he's into. I thought it was Diablo. I think he probably does multiple. The one that he kind of... Oh, Diablo's a big one. Yeah, but I think Path of Exile 2 is the one where he claimed he was a top 10 player in the world and he was just like paying a Chinese guy to fake an account, which not gonna judge. Really? Yeah, yeah. That was... I think it was Path of Exile.

Wait, wait, no, somebody was literally just texting me about that. I think you're right. Yeah, yeah, it was Path of Exile 2. Yes, Path of Exile 2, a Diablo-like hack and slash. So he probably plays Diablo 2. I've never played Diablo. Yeah, no, he plays Diablo, that's for sure. I know it's quite popular, but my understanding is Path of Exile 2, claiming to be the top guy in that would be like if he was going around saying he was like the top, like a top NBA player or something. It just doesn't really work that way. Yeah.

So let's talk about some of the politics here. The Democrats won't want him, and there's no reconciliation there. Let's just say the Republican thing is on ice. We're so far out from the midterm, so his threats of a third party would be very difficult to manifest in a reality. Well, it'd be difficult, but also it's early enough that if he wanted to say, like, let's say he met some of his tech buddies...

and they came up with a platform they wanted people to run on that they could call Centrist. Maybe it would be secure the border but have high-skill immigrants because obviously there's tech guys like that and maybe balanced budget. Something that they come up with. They could do it and still have the time to say, we have the money. We'll spend $3 billion to fund...

any candidates who want to run for House or Senate on this platform. And they have enough time, I think, that they could get this together by then. They could have the platform by July or August. They could start recruiting people, start getting them on the ballot, and you have the whole thing going by next spring. They have enough time to attempt that if they really want to. Now, I think what you'd find is, much as Elon found the federal government frustrating because you can't just be a CEO and go in and blow stuff up,

I think getting a party off the ground, he would see a similar thing. Like, oh, you mean we have to get all these volunteers who go and get signatures and they have to vet the signatures? And it's a pretty big pain in the butt. And you can't just buy, you know, you can't just take a billion dollars and buy someone under the ballot in most places. Wow.

You kind of can. Well, you can pay people to collect signatures. But even then, if you're going to... Again, it's one thing to put one person on the presidential ballot, but if we're running in the midterms, you can't run one person. You have to run 300 people. So to get official party status in most states, there's a full process for it, and it's a

numerous month process. So you're running out of time. You're running out of daylight to basically do it. RFK had trouble doing it. Because the problem... He just tried this with a ton of money last year. And he could barely do it. Yeah, presidential is different because each state has their own policies for how many signatures you need to collect to get on the presidential ballot. But for official party status, in order to nominate somebody for governor...

Lieutenant governor all the way down to local offices, but Congress in particular, you have to have official party status in the state. And so what they would have to do is they would have to go to the states that have the most opportunity to win. So the people that they effectively hate the most, where you can knock off one or two people in that state to make it worth it. The problem is, is that like to get official party status in each of the states, you

There's a certain number of months that it takes to do it and you have to do it before the initial primary election Some primaries are as early as March and April of next year That's when a lot of primaries are in some states And so you legitimately have to be done with that and get official party status and identity like right now And so to your point, even if you paid people to do it It would be almost impossible because you need a ton of signatures to make official status. So

But if you did it and you did it now ahead of 2028, it could be really problematic because once you get official, you get in, you can actually nominate a person and you make the ballot automatically when you have that official status. I'm laughing because someone in the chat just said that Steve Witkoff now has to have a meeting with Elon. Oh, that's very funny.

That's very funny. I used to send this special envelope. I mean, all kidding aside, there will be attempts at back channels established here. It's not even a question. This is too important of a line to...

The scarier part is the attacks that Elon might, if it does continue the way it does, and I agree with Charlie, I don't think it's going to. It's going to get resolved and people are probably going to figure it out because there's nothing for them to get other than if you just have pure animosity and you want to take people out.

But this could have implications where if it continued, it would be more challenging for Republicans to retain the House. And if Republicans don't retain the House and Elon does continue saying things along the lines of impeach Trump, that's probably not helpful because they probably will. And then we'll have to go through all that circus. So we don't want to have that happen. It'd be better for it to get resolved and, you know, find some kind of common ground. And truly, Congress should be considering more things that Elon says.

you know, has his heart into here because he's right on a lot of things. But, you know, we don't want to lose the House. And there's and it's really narrow. Like today, I think the political report came out. It was one. It was 208 to 207 with like I can't remember how many in the teens of how many flippable. I mean, this is going to be a really close election for for House and the way that it's trending.

Honestly, I find it hard to imagine us hanging onto the house if there's any major dissent like this at all. It's razor close. We barely won it in 24.

if 2018 is any pattern to go off of, we will not be as strong in an off year with Trump as president than we are with Trump himself on the ballot. Especially in general, incumbents lose seats in the house in general, incumbents lose seats in the Senate. Like we're in for a tough fight no matter what. And if the second most favorite, second most famous guy in the 2024 Trump election cycle is now, you know, aggressively denouncing Trump, talking about impeaching him.

I don't see a way that that's healthy for us in any way whatsoever. Yeah, this is not good. But, I mean, it could be worse, and I think there's going to be reconciliation. You strongly believe that? Yes, I do. I'm not saying anytime soon, but I think that there's too much time, there's too much investment in this country. I don't think Elon wants to see the woke win. I don't think Elon wants to see our adversaries win. And I think that once... It's also just...

Blake, can you riff on the Byzantium thing? Yes. Yeah. OK. Because it just kind of sometimes when you're in the tunnel, you don't quite realize like what's really going on here. And like when history writes the book, they're like at a time of great peril. Yeah. Yeah. You just when the Mohammedans were taking over and the Chinese were taking over a very nasty Twitter feud ensued. Yeah. Yeah.

you could just read about this with, you know, in history. I love to always, if you want to think of something strange, you like to kind of step in and like zoom out to like 10,000 feet. And you were thinking, if I'm reading a high school textbook about this, what would it say was ridiculous or dumb? And, you know, I kind of like to imagine how would you feel if you opened a textbook and you were reading about like the Roman empire and it said, you know, in the early three hundreds of the Roman empire as barbarians were moving against the gate. So the Romans became consumed with mutilating their own bodies and

and the Roman men would say that they were actually women, and Roman women would say that they were actually men, and they would performatively cut themselves. You would think, oh, these guys are completely deranged, so don't

we should feel a little off-put when we see that today. But a similar thing, you just read in so many declining states and so many declining empires. I was thinking of Byzantium, the Byzantine Empire, because I listened to a history of Byzantium podcast in my free time, as one does. And in the chronology of that empire, they're in the death spiral, you know, circling the drain. And

You can just read it where, okay, the only way they could come back is if everyone, you know, united against all of their external enemies. And what do they do instead? They have dumb civil wars. They squander money on it. They squander attention on it. They, in some cases, you just have people directly betraying their country. They, you know, you said the Mohammedans were at the gates. Do you know how the Turks got into Europe, Charlie?

Uh, no. A Byzantine emperor fighting in a civil war brought them in as mercenaries, and he let them keep one of the towns that they landed in. And they're like, oh, we're in Europe now. And then, you know, they conquered the entire Balkans about 100 years later. Good job. Good job, bro. So that historical digression is just to say, America has serious problems. They're less than they were six months ago. We should...

It's so easy for us to forget because it was so easy actually. We secured the border. We're not having 5,000 people come across every single day. That's such a win. There's so much good stuff going on. That's such a W. It's such a W that we're getting rid of all the DEI trinkets

trash that is infesting so many things. Just today, the Supreme Court ruled, oh, actually that part in the law where it says you can't discriminate based on race, that applies to white people too. You can't discriminate against them either. That's a huge win. There are so many things we can build off of and it would be a huge tragedy if we lose any of those things because we're falling into a civil war.

And I would say this as well, and it's worth saying, is that whatever you think of the big, beautiful bill, I think whatever changes we could make to it, if we pass Trump's version, it's better than what we have now. And if we pass Elon's version, it's better than what we have now. Both, though, are better than just a Biden status quo where you still have the border as bad. And it gets rid of the Biden status quo. It gets rid of his inflation reduction act stuff. It gets rid of a lot of great things. And I think...

It would be a huge tragedy to allow any of that to go under because of some ego fight, because of some sort of just because neither side will give an inch over it. And so I hope Charlie's right that there's reconciliation. I only say on the long game. I don't think this is going to happen in the next week.

But I will also say that the people around Trump are very sophisticated. And I think that there will be multiple attempts to try to, you know, bring folks and bring people together. Tyler, what do you think? Well, I was just going to say, I think he's slightly misreading this, too. And I'm not saying that as hypercriticism, but it's not too far off from the DeSantis argument.

crowd where they they i think they're misreading they're like wow well why isn't trump doing more on this one specific issue or that specific issue and it's just the entire trump movement the maga movement is so complex it's way more complex than i think anyone ever gives it credit for people oversimplify maga there are so many sides to maga and so many different reasons why people at this point have collectively supported the president and trust him

And it's one big blow up, how big or small it is really, but even a big one, people just aren't going to come off the president and they trust the president. And so how they look at this and the messaging that's coming out with the big, beautiful bill is,

is like that we're talking about is it still does a lot and the president really has played middleman between congress who wants to do practically nothing and where elon was and elon has lost the room because now he's kind of pushed trump away with all this stuff and he started it it wasn't trump that started it was elon that that tweeted out about it first and so

I mean, I think you have a misread that's going to self-correct. People like Elon's really smart. People around him are smart that have worked with together. The White House has gone through this a thousand times. They're going to have some reconciliation and they're going to figure out that the only side that's ever going to get what he wants done is going to be on the right. So, Jack, Jack, let's let's talk about the.

the perspective here of where we as a movement go next. Is it best to largely ignore this? I think that's probably best. We kind of have the blow up dust up again. This alternatively could have been like a two week feud and it still might be. But like, again, when you accuse someone of being in the Epstein files, Oh, and they also want to be impeached. Right. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. Um, interestingly though, he might still be pro JD because he was like, I want Trump replaced with JD. So whatever. Uh,

Jack, what is the best way forward? Yeah, look, the best way forward, I think I would agree with you. Like you have to and this has got to be clear. There needs to be an addressing of the debt. I think that is a real grievance. You can't spend yourselves into oblivion. And there are real issues with the global these, you know, these debt markets, the financial capital markets. They've taken out the German government.

Chancellor Merz, who was over today at the White House, the entire German government is bankrupt. They're like parabolic the level of Greece in 2008 they're looking at right now. And a lot of this, of course, has to do with the Ukraine war. There are huge, huge issues of debt that obviously have crippled Japan, that have gone through and taken out multiple governments in the past. So it's

absolutely fine to say that this isn't like the H-1B debate, right? If you remember that from Christmas, the last time there was this big dust-up with Elon. That was the precursor. It was, but immigration is a fundamentally different issue than debt, where the MAGA movement, I think, is very sympathetic to this question. I think the MAGA movement and conservatives in general, and as Tyler's saying, the multi-classic conservative movement. We need to cut spending. Everyone I talk to agrees we have to cut spending. Everybody.

that wants to cut wants to cut that's that's absolutely sure but at the same time we as a MAGA movement are not going to uh renege on immigration and we're certainly not going to renege on mass deportations and the fact of the matter remains that the political reality is what it is this was the deportation bill that we were going to get there is no easier way to get a better deportation bill it's just not going to happen this is the real world this is the way politics works

works. Nobody likes it. But guess what? That's the system that we have. And so unless you want to go in and change the entire system overnight, which isn't possible, you've got to deal with the system that we have. And that's this one. There isn't a better option to a better mass deportation bill, period, full stop. So for for the movement,

I think you see it with Trump signaling, you know, he's he's saying, I don't have any comments. I'm moving on. I'm doing the next thing. And I think you're going to see the movement by and large do that as well, that they are going to move on to the next thing. And President Trump's going to continue having these foreign visits. He may go over to China soon.

Obviously, there's still the Ukraine war that's going to go on and the news cycle will find something else. He's got a tweet up right now or a truth up right now saying, I don't mind that this happened and I still support the bill. It does have cuts. He's promoting it, calls it the big, beautiful bill. I call it the big, beautiful deportation bill. And he's really signaling that he just wants to get back to Ukraine.

The issue's at hand, and I think that's what the movement is going to end up doing. Look, Donald Trump is not going to lose his supporters. There's nobody out there who's going to say, oh, I regret voting for Donald Trump because Elon isn't part of the White House anymore. That voter just doesn't exist. I'm sorry. They really don't exist. And so you're going to see that continue, and people want these things done. They just want to see these promises kept, and President Trump is clearly doing that.

So it's interesting. I'm going to test this on X soon. But I will say, though, that the feedback I'm getting online is not actually like, why are they fighting? It's more like, what is Elon doing? At least that's what in my circle. I don't know if you guys agree. Would you agree, Tyler? Every single person that's watching this and in the political that are surrounding us that are hyper political, like hypersensitive. They're like, what? Like, why? Yeah.

Yeah, at least that's what I'm getting. Blake, I don't know if you agree, but that seems to be the current sentiment. I think truthfully, people have seen a lot of Elon behavior over. I mean, frankly, they've debated it.

a long time ago, like liberals were doing this when they were just turning against him and we still liked him where they said, oh, like Elon is losing it. Elon's getting like more and more aggressive and like sort of out there behavior. You know, we've seen the funny stuff where like he has the women he has kids with and you sort of roll your eyes at it. But at least it's not public. But there's a lot of people who have that sense of is like, is Elon losing it a bit? And some of that is he does, like this doesn't feel strategic. It feels like

grandiose, like he's thinking, oh, I can just blow up Trump and go start my own political party and I'm going to just gloat about it on Twitter. Now, in his defense, a different person a decade ago did basically just brag on Twitter that he could go and get himself made president. And he did, in fact, go do that. So you sometimes can have grandiose claims on social media pan out. But I wouldn't say it's super likely. Yeah. And so

I have a lot of thoughts I'm not going to say right now, but yeah. So I have other things I'll say privately. Yeah. I think, again, I think Elon just kind of over-esquies with the political movement. Because again, part of politics is this, and don't forget, Elon's built a political apparatus around himself. So America PAC, he invested heavily into. You would assume that any threats that are made are going to be utilizing that. That

that entity that he's created is very conservative. It's not anything else. It's not made up of Democrats. It's not made up of independents. It's made up of conservatives.

And the conservatives that we know are all good people that are over there and they're not going to be. And I wouldn't I wouldn't accuse them of being ultra Trump supporters. I don't know, you know, every single person's proclivity to certain people. But like it's they're probably more likely to support people who maybe didn't support Elon in his quest for Doge cuts.

So he has a really unique situation that's in front of him. And that's kind of insider information. It's like where you look at all this and go, OK, well, there's going to be some, you know, he might make some changes. He might make some shifts. He might try to do some things right that are damaging. But I think that the more people try to do those things and play those games within politics and presidential politics in particular, it's usually self-destructive.

self-harming and we saw that again with some of the things we like Ron DeSantis he's a good guy he's very friendly with Charlie Charlie went and sat with him and and all that but some of the people that are around him yeah kind of hurt it's never been a personal thing with Ron I have a different take than most people I'm very much I just saw very mad man is sending out like fundraising emails based on this though what what is okay Jack tell us who is Jack

Jack has more of a pulse. Governor Ron DeSantis. If Ron DeSantis is like the flu, Jack knows within like an hour. No, it's viral on Twitter. It's like unbelievable. It's like DeSantis has COVID.

So shortly after Elon started going off, Ron DeSantis' PAC sends out an email promoting Elon and Doge and basically countersignaling this entire thing. And yes, I do pay attention to countersignalers because this is what led to Ron DeSantis' campaign in the first place and his completely failed primary where he humiliated and embarrassed himself in front of the entire country.

And and yeah, so he's he's Elon isn't backing down. He leads the fight. And Ron DeSantis isn't going to back down either chip in as well. And it came out right after this. Elon Musk took the hits and led the charge. And that came out right at 121 p.m. I think that's Eastern. So he's clearly, clearly playing politics here. And you see, by the way, a lot of the.

DeSantis people are all over X right now, spreading just ridiculous nonsense about Trump and Epstein, just absolute lies, libel in many cases. And and you're seeing them have an absolute free for all here. So I think there's a lot of people who are just

kind of looking at Elon in terms of his wallet and certainly he was involved with that X spaces when DeSantis first announced was with Elon and they're thinking oh perhaps this is a way to get back in or something like that do you think that can we do we talk we didn't talk much about the Epstein thing right I just I feel like it's barely worth talking about like it almost feels like just like

Like, slop fodder. He just is like, oh, Trump is in the Epstein thing. Didn't we? I think we already knew that. No, but the February documents show that he was in there, but there was no criminality whatsoever. Yeah, it's just like they literally litigated a million times. It's just, I mean, I think Jack said it on Twitter, like, why would you need Russiagate if Trump was involved with Epstein? And by the way, some people... Why would they try to kill him? Why would they try to bankrupt him? Why would they try to arrest him? Why would they do all of this? Yeah, and then also, just so we're clear, this is the most... Yeah, exactly, Jack. And some people say, well...

you must understand if, uh, you know, there's Democrats in there, so they don't want to release the files. And they wanted to defeat Trump more than anything else ever in the last year, like ever with like, imagine this, imagine Kamala Harris wins in, you know, she's the nominee in August and they do the Kamala switch and an Epstein op within a couple of weeks. That would have been pretty big, right? Which I've seen is already dead at this point. He's already dead. The network's already out there. Um,

Um, they've no, obviously I would. And by the way, like I, I want everything released. I've said it a million times. I want everything released. I've gone as far as I can to literally go to the white house to ask them personally, uh, in, in many cases and spoke to the attorney general of the United States and the head of the FBI and personally lobbied them directly one-on-one in the white house about this.

So please, like if there's anything else I can do, let me know because I'm trying here, folks. I'm trying. But.

The idea that they wouldn't have released this when Merrick Garland was in charge of the DOJ and have people be able to put this together, of course they would have. Of course they would have. Ghislaine Maxwell, who's still around, of course they would have put this out for Kamala Harris because who knows? Who knows what that would have done in a close election? I don't think that

I don't know. I mean, it's just so ridiculous to even think about where

It's so obviously not true. Donald Trump kicked, and we have to say this like a million times, Donald Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club in 1999 and immediately turned around before the first arrest, the one where he got the sweetheart deal, even before all that, offered to help do anything he can because he heard that Epstein was coming on to like daughters of guests and members and things like this. This story has been told a million times, and believe me,

If they could have pinned this on Trump, they would have done so a long, long time ago. Yes, it's just I feel as if we've been through this narrative before.

45 times. They would have manipulated the whole narrative to blame it all on Trump. Of course. By the way, they would have thrown Bill Clinton under the bus to get rid of Trump. They do that all the time. They'll throw away their old relics. Are you kidding me? Yeah, it's like Al Franken became the freaking pedo for 10 minutes. They would easily have thrown Bill Clinton into the dustbin of history. And Hillary. They would have destroyed the whole Clinton thing if it meant getting Kamala Harris as president. That's right.

They would have manufactured 90,000 things around the one thing. So let's think of all the Palm Beach, like, intelligentsia. They would have thrown out every, like, Palm Beach billionaire. Palm Beach intelligentsia. No, it's true. Like, that's Palm Beach ruling class. I mean, well, it's just funny because Palm Beach is not, you know, it's not like an intellectual capital. Let's just, fine, Palm Beach ruling class. The Palm Beach billionaire elite. Like, if you're the Democrats and you are...

you're Joe Biden and you have access to the Epstein files and you are, you're trying every up. Okay. Let's just be clear. They try to put Donald Trump in prison for 700 years for document stuff. And for all this, if they would have had him on Epstein stuff, uh,

they probably would have moved on that. Yeah. And at the very least, if the statute of limitations was like beyond, they would have definitely like, like Jack Smith's investigation would have had a little more oomph if he was like, Oh, and Donald Trump is a pedophile. Yeah.

Yeah, or Jack Smith was like, we raided Mar-a-Lago to get information pertaining to the Epstein investigation. Now that would have been like a PR narrative that would have been cooking, right? This idea that after 10 years, all of a sudden, like we're supposed to believe it. And like, look, I just, it's just so ridiculous in more ways than one. Just because you're listed in a file does not also mean you're like a client or you're incriminated.

Like, you know how many people, like, a lot of people are listed in the 9-11 commission. Not everyone, Rudy Giuliani's in the 9-11 commission, you know that? He was also the mayor of New York. And you know who Rudy Giuliani later worked for? Donald Trump. That's right. Oh, he must have done 9-11. Yeah. You know that Donald Trump is a real estate developer. He would have been interested if the towers had gone down. Exactly. And so it's kind of like a little bit, it's just such lazy intellectual crap that it's

It just kind of goes to such a level that at first it was kind of like your jaws on the ground. And then you think about it and you're like, oh, OK, hold on. Like after all of this, we're really now doing the Epstein thing. Like, OK, they scoured the planet, Charlie, for the Access Hollywood tape in 2016. Trust me, if they had anything that was out there, they would have released that years ago. It would have been out so fast.

Yes, and it's just, again, I just, by the way, we should clip up this little thing we're doing. I'm getting lots of texts from people. People are liking it. So imagine you're like the grand maestro of the Democrat war room, right? You're trying to like, let's defeat Donald Trump. And you have access to the entire federal bureaucracy. So you've got Merrick Garland. You have Lisa Monaco, who's the deputy AG. You've got Jack Smith. You control the House. You control the Senate. And here's this like bubbling up Trump movement, right? Yeah.

And you decide to go dispatch Alvin Bragg and Big Fanny Willis while you're sitting on an Epstein indictment.

You're trying to tell me like I've got it. We're going to have Fannie Willis indict Trump for making a tweet that people should watch OAN because the Georgia House is in session. We're going to get him on that one. And like this, just be so just understand that we are clear here. You go have like one of the dumbest people ever in the history of criminal justice. Fannie Willis, coupled with Jack Smith, while you're sitting on an Epstein desk.

potential indictment that would have actually potentially jeopardized donald trump's political campaign yeah no i'm sorry it's just beyond rubbish beyond it's like so stupid you have to be very very very low iq to fall into the traps of and these are the circles that are on twitter unfortunately too is that i've seen so many people who consider themselves conservatives

they get lots of likes and retweets and things like that on this stuff. This is what created that whole DeSantis crew that Jack was just talking about is that's what destroyed DeSantis' entire campaign was that kind of stuff. - An overly X-driven campaign. And look, I've actually been saying this for a while privately, and I'm gonna say it now. We get huge numbers on X. We had a tweet that just got 60 million things. I no longer look to X as the finger on the pulse as I used to.

It's kind of like a little bit of a doom loop of a brain rot in the algorithm feed. I actually look more on YouTube at times for kind of a good pulse. Unfortunately, the big thing with X is a lot of the left did leave X. And I think one of the biggest values of Twitter and why it was so atrocious that the left killed it the original Twitter the way they did is it was open public free speech platform. And

Elon Musk brought back the free speech, but the left hates free speech now, so they all went to blue skies so that they could become unhinged on it together. And it...

That plus the monetization of it, it threw off the balance of it a bit. Plus AI bots. There's a lot of AI bots. There's a ton. Again, I don't want to smash X too much. We still love it. I am immensely glad Elon bought it. Again, Elon can unfollow me. He could shadow ban me. I don't care. I will die at the stake on the intellectual purity that our civilization is like...

is infinitely better. It is standards of deviation better because Elon decided to park what 40, what is it? 420 billion, $42 billion, whatever it was, 420. We are a better country because of it. And we should thank him for that. It's very important. We're glad you did that, Elon. Thank you for buying X. We remain committed to that.

You can simultaneously also say, be like, this is not a good 24 hours, okay? You are hoping Donald Trump gets impeached, and you're also being like, oh, he's on the Epstein file list, okay? Then why are you hanging around with him so much? I mean, there's a lot of just contradictions here. It's not the own that you think it is. I think they're just kind of going to be a little bit like, boo.

Backpedal. And I also just say, like, we're all on Team America. We can all reconcile here. It's all good. The enemy is the left. The enemy is the Marxist. We know what they are. And we still control the White House, everybody. We're still in control. Yeah. And honestly, I think that's one of the most disastrous things and the lessons that we need to learn from stuff like this is...

to have conservative activists, in particular the activist class. So you have an activist base that's on X in particular that has to learn how to rally around our people and not always engage in just like the he said, she said, and then ultimately the destructive is. I think that we have a lot of members of Congress. There's a few. Some of them are very interesting. One's from South Carolina that sometimes gets into some of this stuff.

where it just absorbs so much shock instead of people going out and doing things that are going to be impactful for the movement. And I say this because running an activist organization with Turning Point Action, you have to have people focused on end goals that are positive. Yes. And when they're doing that, then you have less of this stuff. All you're doing is spending your time just like...

falling into what is Trump saying and what is Elon saying. You're not doing stuff to actually save the conservative movement in the country. This is not TMZ. We've got to DTMZ politics. This is like the Drake and Kendrick Lamar thing. I knew nothing about that. I only knew about it because kids would ask about it on campus. It's not constructive. The war of words means there's nothing fruitful here.

And at the same time, we just have to just kind of take a deep breath,

and keep the main thing the main thing, and I harbor no resentment whatsoever because I actually want to save the country. You could call me all these different names. Do you know how many people that have attacked me over the last couple... I don't care. That have attacked me repeatedly and aggressively throughout the years? And by the way, we're at the 13-year anniversary of Turning Point USA today. 13 years.

And people have been attacking... It's very good. Thank you. Thank you, Blake. It's very fitting that this all happens on the 13th. Today of all days. The lucky 13th birthday. But it's just... In politics, you have to have very, very short memories. You have to be very magnanimous. You have to be very willing to forgive and to move on. And I think that there is a moment where we need...

to allow this to kind of just pass and eventually de-escalate. It's so funny to think. Imagine if this was 50 years ago and they had a fight. This would just be an article in Time magazine like a month after it happened.

and then maybe someone would write about it in their memoirs later. But now it happens instantaneously. And 50 years ago, no one would have noticed or paid attention. It would just be some drama, the president, one of his businessman advisors. But in the modern age, they have a falling out, and someone immediately goes on X, says something. You can't unsay it. Giant blow up. Everyone's riveted. It distracts everyone. It just drives home the difference between now and the past. Final thoughts, Jack?

Yeah, people supported Donald Trump because they like Donald Trump and they like his policies. That's what this comes down to. If Donald Trump delivers on the policies, the tax relief, the immigration reform, the mass deportations, foreign policy, the rest of it, maha, of

course than the coalition stands. And it's as simple as that. That's what shifted the needle in 2024. That's what shifted the votes. And and Charlie, you and I've talked about this. If he's able to deliver even more tax relief from middle class or working class, not only will the Republicans

win the House in 2026, they will expand their majority. It's really as simple as that. And I think people need to take a step back, stay frosty. I'm staying frosty. I am sub-zero. I am maintaining maximum levels of frigidity right now.

Politics is still politics. Okay, Donald Trump's in a feud. Men fight. Big news, big deal. Get over it. Focus on the policies, focus on the victories, and they will continue.

It's all going to be okay. Again, I will say right here, you can mark it down. By Christmas, maybe before that, there will be like a surprise Elon Musk comes for dinner, comes for dessert at Mar-a-Lago. You know, leaked New York Times, Elon Musk spotted at Mar-a-Lago. I'm just saying. If you nail that one, I guess I'll just be really impressed. I could be wrong. I'm just saying, by Christmas...

Don't be shocked if all of a sudden you're going to see like a Elon Musk cameo just coming by for a little bit of like a little sundae, you know, a little bit of a nice, you know, with extra chocolate sauce and M&Ms, right? He can't have extra Trumps, though, when he gets two scoops. That's right. Two scoops, two terms, two assassination attempts. Two Musk reconciliations. There we go.

There we go. And again, I want to just say one other thing. Elon had a blow up with President Trump back in 2017. It wasn't of this magnitude, but he was on some sort of advisory thing and he left it and he blew up and he left Trump. There's a waxing, there's a waning, there's an up and there's a down and then there's valleys and there's troughs. I'm going to be a little contrarian here because I think I know I am in a unique position because I actually know both to both of these guys, both of these guys.

I don't know Elon nearly as well as the president, but I've spent a lot of time with Elon the last six months, and he's really good to me. That's great. And I harbor no resentment that he unfollowed me and whatever he feels, he feels. And tomorrow will be a new day.

Subscribe to the Charlie Kirk Show podcast, everybody. Take out your phone and type in Charlie Kirk Show podcast. Check out Jack Posobiec's show, Human Events Daily. Jack does an amazing job. You guys can subscribe there as well. This was a flash episode of Thought Crime. We have a lot more to do. This was really great. Email me now, freedom at charliekirk.com, how you guys are thinking about this. What side are you on? What team are you on? I think it's actually going to all be okay. I think cooler heads are going to prevail.

I am long on America, and I think that we're going to figure this one out. Talk to you guys soon. God bless. Keep committing thought crimes.