Charlie Kirk on Crime, the Horrific Charlotte Stabbing, and the Wrong Lesson About Trump Scandals

Next Up with Mark Halperin

MK Media

News, Daily News, Politics

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 September 2025

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In today’s episode, Mark Halperin delivers a patented reported monologue on the political resilience and rare political athleticism that allowed Bill Clinton and Donald Trump to survive scandals that would have ended most careers. From Gennifer Flowers to “Access Hollywood,” Mark explains why their Houdini-like abilities was not evidence that controversy no longer matters, but proof that only a handful of figures can endure the relentless gauntlet of modern presidential politics. For 2028 hopefuls, the real test isn’t just ideas or charisma, but durability under fire—and those who assume they can weather a scandal simply because Clinton and Trump did so are making a critical mistake. Then, Charlie Kirk joins for an important discussion about the American crime crisis and why the issue is sharply dividing the country, including the horrific stabbing of a woman in Charlotte, North Carolina. Kirk also fires back at Van Jones’ comments that he should be “ashamed of himself.” He and Mark unpack sharp generational and gender divides over the economy, young voters’ skepticism about wealth and politics, and the clash between men and women over marriage and family. Plus, Kirk shares the surprising reason he wants to attend a Mamdani rally in New York. Chapter: For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial 262-454-0503 or go to https://askchapter.org/mark Disclaimer: Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don't directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. Delta Rescue: Visit https://DeltaRescue.org to learn more

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Next Up, Nexters. I'm Mark Halpern. Glad for you to have joined us yet again by land by sea and by air. It's Tuesday. You know what that means. It's time for another episode of the program Next Up. Glad to have you here. I am Mark Halpern. Editor-in-Chief, the live interactive video platform two-way host of this program where I bring me all of my exclusive reporting,
0:21.8	my analysis of all the top stories, great guests, and as always, a focus on what is coming.
0:28.2	Next up, in a moment, we're going to talk to Charlie Kirk, founder and CEO of Turning Point USA.
0:33.5	It's been a guest here before I sometimes appear on his program, the Charlie Kirk show.
0:44.3	We're going to run the gamut, cross the waterfront from A to B to C to Z with Charlie looking forward to that. But first, my reported monologue on what's caught my eye this week, which is this question about running for president.
0:52.3	There's so much news right now. I've got to tell you, I was thinking about what to talk to you about.
0:56.2	There's so much, there's this latest report about Israel hitting in Qatar,
1:01.5	some alleged Hamas leadership.
1:05.0	There's the North Carolina murder.
1:07.6	There's the Epstein story.
1:08.8	There's all sorts of things.
1:10.6	And we'll talk about a lot of that with Charlie.
1:12.2	But what I wanted to talk to you about was this question of running for president, because I get
1:18.0	asked about it all the time. Who's going to run? Who's going to win? Particularly on the Democratic side,
1:24.0	because as you know, I think on the Republican side, unless something changes, it's going to be J.D. Vance. And I'm a specialist in covering presidential campaigns. It's with my focus in my career. And when people say it's too early, you know, we don't even know who's going to run. Well, we don't know who's going to run, but it's not too early. Because I believe that while there's a chance that someone who's not currently talked
1:46.0	about at all or very much will be the Democratic nominee for president, there's a lot of people
1:50.3	talked about now who I think will be significant players in what should be a pretty wide
1:54.6	open contest. We've never had a race quite like this. And what strikes me a lot about
1:59.4	what's going on now is an ignorance about
2:03.1	what is arguably about the most important thing to determine who's going to win, which is
2:08.2	who can run the gamut. Running for presidents unlike anything else. It's not like running for
2:14.1	senator or governor or being a business leader or being in the military,
	...

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