El Salvador’s President Bukele joined Trump at the White House, so Charlie asks a provocative question: If El Salvador can choose to stop being Third World, why can’t America? Then, he Brian Wesbury investigate where all the money went from the Federal Reserve. Jeffrey Harmon discusses Angel Studios’ new Christian hit film “The King of Kings.” Watch ad-free on members.charliekirk.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: What is the significance of Bukele's visit to the White House?
Hey everybody, today on the Charlie Kirk Show, Bukele visits the White House, we unpack his visit, we talk about the movie King of Kings, and where is all of the money that the Federal Reserve is saying that they borrowed to the Treasury? Very complex but important topic of how the government lies to you financially, and if we audited the Fed, gotta wonder what would happen.
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Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks. I want to thank Charlie. He's an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here.
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So one of the test cases of how we know that if you are crime ridden, gang infested and of the third world, it's a choice in the modern era with artificial intelligence, with cryptocurrency, with Bitcoin technology, access to the Internet. If your country is still living in the third world, it is by choice. Now, to get to the first world, you need some advantages.
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Chapter 2: How has El Salvador transformed under President Bukele?
But living in the third world is a choice. You can enter the second world. By simply making good choices. So much of life is choices. So much of life is decisions. The left wants you to believe that you are captive based on something that you inherit. You're captive based on your circumstances. We believe in free will and agency.
And the turnaround and the story of El Salvador and Bukele is a phenomenal story. El Salvador was the most dangerous place on the planet. MS-13 ran rampant. They held the entire country hostage. Bukele wins, declares a national emergency, has locked up tens of thousands of narco drug criminals in MS-13, and El Salvador is now safer than the United States of America.
A lot of money is flowing into El Salvador. Now, I don't want to make it seem as if it's something that it isn't. El Salvador is not like Ohio. El Salvador is not Georgia. But for decades, El Salvador was treated as unfixable. It's just the problem. Get used to it. They're a bunch of murderers. There's nothing we could do about it. They're poor and they're going to kill each other.
Because what had to be done was outside of what Washington D.C. could tolerate. Round up thousands of people and put them in jail. Not hard. But D.C., they can't possibly tolerate that. Well, what about the feelings of the terrorists? What about the feelings and the emotions of the people that are cutting off babies' heads, of which MS-13 would do in El Salvador?
El Salvador led a populist revolution by Bukele, nationalized the police force, and locked them up in these maximum security prisons. So Bukele visited President Trump today in the White House. In fact, the meeting is largely ongoing. As the meeting is ongoing, they're talking about deportations and partnering. And you have to wonder, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico—
Why are you guys not as safe as El Salvador? Because they're choosing criminals over their citizens. It's very simple. If the West is to fall, it's because we choose to fall. If the West is to collapse, it's because collapse is a series of self-inflicted choices. It is a byproduct of a genetic activity. We use the agency to fall or we use the agency to rise. And what is it that makes us fall?
It's because we are captive. to ideology. The ideology of the MS-13's feelings matters more than the well-being of the kid that's trying to walk to school. Here's a little bit of a taste of Bukele's visit. J.D. Vance is speaking in this tape. Play cut 142.
For 40 years, we have lost manufacturing capacity. Workers have seen their wages stagnate. And some of the most critical things that we need from the pharmaceuticals, the drugs that we give to our children, the antibiotics that we give to our kids, to the weapons that we actually need to fight a war if, God forbid, we had to fight a war. We don't make enough of that stuff.
And so President Trump ran explicitly on changing that. Yes, as the President mentioned, it caused a little bit of disruption in the market, but I actually think over the long term, workers are going to benefit, stocks are going to go up, American businesses are going to benefit as we reinvest and reindustrialize our country.
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Chapter 3: What challenges does America face compared to El Salvador's turnaround?
Tax Network USA can help you too, but you need to move fast. April 15th is almost here. Talk with one of their strategists today. It's free. Stop looking over your shoulder and put this behind you. Call Tax Network USA at 1-800-958-1000. That is 1-800-958-1000. Or visit TNUSA.com slash Charlie. Do you know that we are financing private banks? How much money are we actually giving to private banks?
Well, Brian Westbury is the chief economist of First Trust LP, former chief economist of the Joint Economic Committee for U.S. Congress, and current member board of the Trustees for Hillsdale College. Brian, welcome to the program. Great to see you. Brian, why don't you educate our audience on how the Fed... is receiving hundreds of billions of dollars. I'm not even quite sure how this all works.
All I understand is that the U.S. taxpayer is funding private banks. So, Bill Vidal out for us.
Yeah, Charlie, it's great to be with you. This all started really back in 2008 when Ben Bernanke walked into W's office and and said, hey, if you don't let me print $4 trillion and flood the financial system with that money, the whole global world order is going to collapse. That was when it began. We did it again during COVID.
And so what this means is that we have increased the money supply in the United States. It was $7 trillion in 2007. It is now $21 trillion. So let me put that in perspective. If you have a $100 bill in your wallet, 67 of those dollars were created in just the last 18 years. Like, that's how much money we printed. Now, when all of that money goes into the banking system, it turns into inflation.
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Chapter 4: What insights does J.D. Vance provide on American manufacturing and policy?
And the way the Fed stopped it from turning into inflation is first they raised a ton of regulations on banks. And second, they paid banks to hold that money. So we are now paying banks about $200 billion a year to not lend that money out. That means we're paying private banks. Now, the interesting thing is the Fed bought bonds with that money.
And so they earn interest from those bonds, but they're paying banks more than they're earning. In other words, the Fed is losing. Last year, they lost about $80 billion, and the taxpayers funded that, and we used that money to pay banks. If we stop this, think how much we could lower the deficit. Over a 10-year period, it would be $2 trillion.
So is Congress then financing this loss? And if so, where in the budget is this money?
Yeah, they play sleight of hand with this, Charlie. It's crazy. The Federal Reserve has an account that they call a deferred asset. So normally, before all of this change, the Fed owned bonds, but they didn't pay banks, and they made money every year. And so then they would give that money to the Treasury at the end of the year.
Now, with them losing money, they have what's called a deferred asset. which is the craziest term I've ever heard. It's a negative account. I don't know how they're paying their employees. I don't know how they're keeping their lights on because if you run a private business in a deficit, you either have to raise more equity or or debt or something in order to pay to keep the lights on.
And so my belief, and the Fed won't really tell you this, is that they're borrowing money from the Treasury in order to keep the lights on. In Britain, the UK, they did the same thing. And now they're kind of caught because it's raising their deficit, but at least they're accounting for it the right way. We don't. We hide it.
And so I can only imagine that Elizabeth Warren doesn't understand that we're paying private banks $200 billion a year because I think she'd have a cow if she knew that. She hates banks. And so this is the most amazing, insane policy I've ever seen. And yet we're doing it.
Right. But if it's the Fed paying the banks $200 billion a year, there is not necessarily a through line from the Treasury to the Fed. Can't the Fed just create the money by lowering interest rates? I guess the question is, the money has to be appropriated at some point of origination. So walk us back. So the Fed is paying the private banks. Who is giving the money to the Fed?
The Treasury Department?
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Chapter 5: How does the Federal Reserve's financial practices impact taxpayers?
Yeah, no, the Federal Reserve creates a deferred asset. Like, that's the weirdest phrase I've ever heard. It's a negative number, and they promise that they're going to pay the Treasury
that money back when they start making a profit again in the future so in return for that promise uh the the treasury is now funding the fed all right and and what's interesting about this is congress did not agree to this congress did agree to let the fed pay interest to banks but they did not agree that the the fed the treasury uh could lend the fed this money
And so I actually think there's a lawsuit here around.
How is this any different than Enron? I mean, this this is a massive accounting scandal, isn't it?
Well, to me, it is. And nobody focuses on it. And, you know, what's fascinating is you go in every month or every well, every time the Fed meets, it's like eight times a year. They have a press conference and there's. 30 reporters that are handpicked by the Fed to come in and no one will ask them how they're paying to keep the lights on.
They just won't ask them because if they do ask, they'll not be ever invited back again. I've begged them to let me in and ask those questions. I've begged reporters to ask those questions. But so far, they haven't been asked and they haven't been answered. And the Fed, I give a talk and I call it the Fed. Federal Reserve has gone insane. I mean, I'm going to go back to what I said.
If you have a $100 bill in your wallet, 67 of those dollars were printed in the last 18 years. The other 33 in the previous 220 years or 30 years. And so what I'm getting to here is that the Fed has completely changed the way we manage monetary policy and hardly anybody complains about it. It's why we had inflation.
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Chapter 6: What is quantitative easing and how has the Fed's balance sheet changed since 2008?
It will also save moms from a lifetime of pain and regret. I am a donor to this organization, and you should be too. Start this new year by being a hero for life. Call 833-850-2229 or click on the preborn banner at charliekirk.com. That is charliekirk.com and click on the preborn banner. I'm a donor. You should be too. charliekirk.com preborn banner. Brian Westbury continues with us.
He's a deep thinker about this. He's the chief economist at First Trust LP, former chief economist of U.S. Congress, of the Joint Economic Committee for U.S. Congress. And also his fund has over $250 billion assets under management. So, Brian, help me understand. If it's the Fed doing this sort of gamesmanship, Congress has very limited oversight because the Fed is a private public partnership.
How can Congress or the executive branch then intervene on this reckless behavior?
Yeah, well, first of all, they do have oversight. They can bring the Fed chairman in, ask him questions, embarrass them. But they also write the laws. The Congress started the Fed in 1913, changed the law again in 1973, and then we changed it again about – 10 years ago. And then Congress also gave the Fed this ability to pay banks interest on reserves. So Congress has a big role in this.
And they the problem is, is that Congress, most Congress people ever since Rand Paul's father left, don't really understand monetary policy. And therefore they get flummoxed in these hearings. And and they they They don't know enough about it to ask the right questions or to do the right thing.
So therefore, if Congress is not even willing to engage, I suppose we're going to keep on participating in this funny math. And is there anything preventing the Federal Reserve from another capital influx of created trillions of dollars? And how much money do we actually get an audited look at the Federal Reserve ever?
No, we haven't. And, you know, and here's the thing. The only thing that keeps the Fed in check really is, I mean, Congress has oversight, but it's really the public. And inflation, when it came, it was all because of this policy. And yet, like so many people have ignored that. When you explode the money supply like they did during COVID especially, That's where inflation comes from.
You print so many dollars that the value of the dollar goes down. You know, people say pizza costs more. And I'm a geeky economist. And I say to them, your pizza doesn't cost any more. Your dollar buys less because we printed too many of them. And now what's happening is the Powell, every member of the Fed, especially the chairman, they're politicians. And now he's blaming Trump on everything.
tariffs and inflation, and he's trying to get away from the fact that he is the one that caused it in the first place. And the public doesn't know enough about this to really be able to make a decision about who's really at fault.
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Chapter 7: Why is the Federal Reserve losing money and what does that mean for the budget?
Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com. Amazing new film this Holy Week. Phenomenal. In fact, one of our team members, Tyler, took his family to see it and was raving about it. It is called King of Kings. Everyone should check it out. You guys can do that at angel.com slash kirk. Joining us now is Jeffrey Harmon, co-founder and CCO of Angel Studios.
Jeffrey, congratulations on this new amazing film. We have the trailer, but first I want you to introduce it. Give us a little bit of the windup.
The movie is based on Charles Dickens' book that he wrote for his kids, and it wasn't published until 65 years after Charles Dickens had passed away. And what it is, is it's a look at Jesus's life from the perspective of a young child. where Charles Dickens is explaining to his child the story of Jesus Christ. This movie has blown up in the box office.
It was number two this last weekend, did $19.3 million over the weekend, which is just $400,000 less than Sound of Freedom did in the first three days. It is a getting Forbes just posted that it's the what lands one of the best audience scores in history. Ninety seven percent with audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, about 64 percent with critics.
And it has a A-plus cinema score with audiences, which is a cinema score of A-plus has only been done 128 times in movie history and only five times for animated films outside of Disney and Pixar.
Well, congratulations for that. Let's watch the trailer. And to get into it, let's play Cut 1-16.
I'm going to tell him a great story about forgiveness. Our story begins 2,000 years ago when baby Jesus came into the world.
Wait, wait, stop. If it's not about a king, then I'm not interested.
This story is about the king of kings.
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Chapter 8: What oversight does Congress have on the Federal Reserve, and can it intervene?
It's very difficult to pass, um, getting voted on by the angel guild.
And congratulations, I just want to say on behalf of the entire audience, for bringing the gospel message to a mainstream audience during Holy Week. Was there any resistance here, or do you feel a little bit of a cultural shift? Because typically this kind of a lift would be met with protests and with walk-offs, but was this one a little bit, dare I say, easier?
And if so, what does that tell us about the state of the American culture?
I would say there is definitely a cultural shift because a couple of years ago we released a movie called His Only Son, which is watchable in the Angel Guild right now. But His Only Son is the story of Abraham. We released it at an Easter time. Years ago when we started, Angel Studios released the first three seasons of The Chosen.
And I remember before anybody had really seen it, I would invite people over to my house and ask them if they could watch the show. And I'd give out the movie, the series, The Chosen. This is season one, episodes one through four. And nobody wanted to watch it. And I'd give links to them and they wouldn't watch it. Nobody would watch it. And then I finally just said, you know what?
I'm going to invite people over to Sunday dinner. And then I'm going to... get up after Sunday dinner and say, now we're going to go watch the series that I've been working on with Dallas. And when I would sit people down and say, you have to watch this series and they would resist and say, no, I've spent the last two years of my life working on this, sit down and watch the chosen.
And every time without fail, they would love the show, but it was like pulling teeth to get people to watch it. Now that's a very big hit. This is very different. The King of Kings is getting watched in mass and, It just beat Prince of Egypt's record for the biggest biblical animated box office opening of all time. And so that was over two decades ago.
And that's how long it's been since we've had a serious animated biblical film. So the culture is definitely changing and there's a huge shift.
Final call to action. Remind people, Jeffrey, it's angel.com slash Kirk. What do they get? The importance and the cultural powerhouse that it is. Please, one minute. Riff on it.
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