Charlie Kirk Defends Trump at Oxford Union Debate: Has the President Gone Too Far?

[00:00] Trump is not just corrupt, not just a moral vacuum, but he is an ego out of

[00:05] control. Trump is going where he said he would, loudly, brazenly, and for the second

[00:11] time. He's not overreaching, he's delivering.

[00:36] I put the motion before the house. This house believes that Trump has gone too far. And opening the case for the

[00:42] proposition is Anna Trafamovia, the librarian in St. John's College. [Applause]

[00:52] I yield the chair to Mina Malalam chief of staff. This house believes that Trump has gone too far. Trump has tanked the

[01:00] American economy with a $2.4 trillion deficit. But side opposition will tell

[01:07] you that Trump has not gone too far. Trump is gutting the global economy, but

[01:13] their side will tell you that Trump has not gone too far. Trump has ruined NATO.

[01:18] Trump has slashed global aid. Trump has all but abolished the rule of law. But

[01:23] the opposition will still tell you that he has not gone too far. Trump has deported American citizens to camps

[01:30] without fair trial. But the opposition will still tell you he has not gone too far. Trump's budget will deny 14 million

[01:39] American citizens healthcare. Would 15 million be too far? Would 30? This is

[01:46] just year one. But no, still the opposition will tell you Trump has not gone too far.

[01:53] Trump is intent on relegating women to secondclass citizens. Trump wants to end

[01:59] free speech as we know it. He is bankrolling Israel's Gaza genocide. And he's cozied up to Putin while throwing

[02:06] Ukraine under the bus. And Trump single-handedly has set the history

[02:11] profession back god knows how many years by proving the great man theory of history right as the single most

[02:17] destructive individual of the 21st century. But no, Trump hasn't gone too

[02:23] far. The noble Charlie Kirk will tell you Trump is not ambitious. If it was so, it is a grievous fault and

[02:30] grievously has Trump answered it. I speak not to disprove what K will say, but I am here to speak what I do know.

[02:37] Many Americans voted for Trump and not without cause. America is in crisis. It

[02:44] is a democracy dictated by corporate interests, by disillusionment and disarray. But Trump is not the solution.

[02:51] In only 100 days, he has not only gone too far, he has taken steps to fundamentally unravel the constitution

[02:58] of the founding fathers, paralyze the courts, and send the world lurching towards financial ruin. He has slashed

[03:06] US aid by 62%, leaving key humanitarian operations in Somalia, Haiti, and

[03:12] Myanmar a drift. At 3.8%, 8% Trump has about as much hope of controlling

[03:18] inflation levels as he does trying to rein in his own inflated ego.

[03:24] In only a 100 days, the Trump's family's net worth has increased three billion.

[03:29] That's about 1 billion a month since he t since the time he took office. In that same amount of time, Trump has only

[03:36] signed five bills into law, marking the single worst performance to a start of a presence term in more than a century.

[03:44] The only thing that Trump has not gone quite far far enough in is fashion. If you're going to use the fascist

[03:50] playbook, you might at least get Hugo Boss to design your MAGA hats.

[03:56] Madame President, thank you for the incredible honor of speaking in this debate tonight. I'm glad to see you

[04:02] hosting a debate on a president that has gone too far. Although you yourself haven't tried to force through rules

[04:09] reforms in the House, appoint over 50 of your friends to committee as NAPO

[04:14] babies, or strike half of the union's electoral officials, which in my opinion shows that you clearly haven't gone far

[04:20] enough. That being said, you still have over four weeks left in office. Um, and I'm incredibly excited to see where you will

[04:27] go from here. On a more serious note, I'm excited and happy to see the members

[04:33] of the union, unlike our counterparts in America, are more comfortable with electing a highly qualified woman to the

[04:40] most senior office in this society. I hope that any American friends in the audience tonight are taking notes.

[04:48] On the subject of guests, those with an observant eye will have seen in the term card that Naib Bukelli, president of El

[04:54] Salvador, will be paying us a visit later in the term. I hope that the president will ask him about his recent

[05:01] illegal incarceration of American citizens at the instruction of his American sugar daddy who's currently

[05:07] pigging it out in his $400 million palace in the sky. Sorry, I meant gift of a jet from Qatar.

[05:14] Just yesterday, the USA was downgraded from its last AAA credit rating with

[05:20] Moody citing insurmountable concerns about fiscal debt and tax cut legislation. Getting an A, I should

[05:26] explain, Charlie, is something that you do in school. And I'd like at this point um to apologize to my dear tutor, Dr.

[05:32] Laura Smith, who is speaking also on side proposition. I promise that you will have the essay next week. I've been

[05:38] a little too caught up in writing this speech. Actually, if there is any chance of changing the topic to Trump's

[05:44] America, I might have the essay halfwritten. In a 100 days and by fiat alone, Trump

[05:51] has signed 70 executive orders and pardoned over 70 individuals convicted

[05:57] for the January 6th insurrection. He has rolled out and then rolled back in tariffs on over 90 countries. They say

[06:05] that the past repeats itself, but it seems that backsliding into the authoritarianism of the 1930s has come a

[06:11] decade early. To say he has not gone too far, as the opposition must, is to say

[06:17] that any one of the individually unacceptable acts, of which there are too many to list, are actually

[06:23] acceptable and more than this, good. A vote for the opposition is a vote that

[06:28] it is good to storm Congress, to to bribe escorts. It's a vote for a president who won't rule out the

[06:34] possibility of running for a third term because it is quote too early to think about. All the while making the lives of

[06:40] ordinary people immeasurably worse. Actually, it is measurably worse. Under

[06:46] Trump, you can be thousands of dollars poorer. Trump appointed Elon Musk to run Doch.

[06:54] Musk, a man that thinks that grass is something you smoke and who thinks that a meme is when you cut 30 million

[06:59] people's pensions. After the neo-Nazi Charlottesville riot, Trump famously

[07:04] said that there are some very fine people on both sides. A sentiment that he clearly took to heart in appointing

[07:10] Elon, a man whose love of throwing Roman salutes is second only to his

[07:15] self-proclaimed love of ketamine. But then perhaps Trump and Elon is just

[07:21] the ultimate story of male friendship. After buying Twitter because he didn't have any real life friends, Musk with

[07:28] Twitter can join Trump with Truth Social in the enviable company of probably not a lizard, Mark Zuckerberg, and in the I

[07:35] own my own social media club. Now, Charlie, I'm sorry you got left out here, but I don't think that having kids

[07:42] pretend to be MAGA youth for Instagram reels quite cuts it. Trump is not just corrupt, not just a

[07:49] moral vacuum, but he is an ego out of control. He's a danger to himself and to

[07:55] others. He's authoritarian and impulsive. Now, it's a bit rich for the

[08:00] union with its recent leadership to talk of presidents being authoritarian and

[08:05] impulsive. That being said, perhaps America could take a leaf out of the union's playbook

[08:11] and try removing their president, even the ones that have been democratically elected.

[08:17] If you don't think that Trump has gone too far, at what point would you say that he has crossed the Rubicon? If your

[08:24] neighbor is deported in the middle of the night, probably killed. If books are

[08:29] burned, if there is martial law on the streets, if your sister isn't allowed to

[08:34] go to high school, go on Trump, go for the Gilead. Trump's whirlwind and blitz creek of abuse in only a 100 days spells

[08:42] a dark future for us all. I fear not only for America but for the rest of the

[08:48] world. So vote and vote for the proposition and as you vote enjoy doing

[08:54] it because in America in a few years time at this current trajectory you

[08:59] probably won't have such a luxury. Thank you so much.

[09:10] I now look to Serene Singh Christ Church College to continue the case for the proposition.

[09:15] [Music] [Applause]

[09:25] As an American, I grew up on Disney. Classic family entertainment. However,

[09:30] one character always fascinated me. It wasn't Mickey or Goofy. No, it was

[09:36] Donald Duck. Yeah, that Donald Duck. that cartoon duck with the temper so bad that even my uncle at Thanksgiving

[09:43] looked like a saint. But every time Donald tries now, in one episode, let me

[09:48] tell you about what Donald Duck did. I remember this very vividly. You see,

[09:53] Donald Duck was trying to fix up his old beatup car, but every time Donald tries

[09:58] to start that car, the engine backfires. The horn blasts, doors are flying open,

[10:04] the steering wheels wobbling, smoke's billowing out. But what does Donald do?

[10:09] Does he stop and fix the thing? No way. He slams the gas pedal harder and

[10:14] harder. No brakes, no pit stop, no mechanic in sight. Just pedal to the

[10:19] metal, baby. As a kid, I watched an angry duck stomp around shouting

[10:25] nonsense and driving his little cartoon car into walls. I thought I'd left

[10:30] Donald behind when I grew up. But little did I know, we'd have another Donald

[10:35] doing the exact same thing. Every time he breaks something, a law, an

[10:40] election's integrity, a democratic norm, he slams the gas harder. So when

[10:46] Americans and all of us today ask the question, has Trump gone too far? I say

[10:52] he's not just gone too far, he's still going too far. Only problem is this time

[10:58] the car is America. So tonight, I'll show you how President Trump has gone too far through three powerful

[11:05] realities. First, division. Second, distraction. And third, deflection. If

[11:12] even one of those holds true for you, Trump has gone too far. You must affirm tonight's motion. So, first, as a seek

[11:19] American woman, the central tenant of my faith is that we are all one. Many of us

[11:25] in this room believe this. Trump has sought to divide us from one one

[11:30] another, two, from our allies, and three, even from the truth. In dividing

[11:36] Americans from one another, President Trump has fueled fear and resentment between neighbors. He calls political

[11:42] opponents vermin, brands immigrants as murderers, and attacks queer and transame.

[11:49] According to the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, hate crimes across race, religion, gender, class,

[11:56] and disability have either increased or are projected to increase by more than

[12:01] 80% in Trump's America. His rhetoric has deepened hostility among family,

[12:07] friends, and everyday people, making Americans who once saw family and

[12:12] community see enemies. In dividing America from our allies, President Trump

[12:17] has praised autocrats while undermining democratic allies. He supported policies enabling the mass force displacement of

[12:25] Palestinians. Displacement they continue to resist and endure. He's threatened to acquire Canada and Greenland, floated

[12:32] military action in Panama, and publicly insulted NATO and leader NATO and

[12:37] leaders of the Ukraine while defending dictators like Putin, Kim Jong-un, and

[12:43] Xiinping. This isolationist approach also divides Americans from number three, the truth. President Trump has

[12:50] made it harder for Americans to trust facts. And when Americans stop trusting

[12:56] the people who inform them of their public health, education, or their elections, they have nowhere else to

[13:03] look but towards him. He's told Americans that the economy is booming. While wages remain stagnant,

[13:09] homelessness has risen 12% in 2025 alone, and one in five children in the

[13:15] United States faces hunger in the wealthiest country on Earth. He claimed he created the best healthcare in the

[13:21] world while millions remain uninsured and medical debt is still the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the

[13:28] United States. He paints climate change as a hoax while wildfires, floods, and extreme heat

[13:35] worsen every year and indigenous communities pay the price. That's not just a spin, it's a strategy. Because

[13:42] when Americans do not know what is true, they cannot demand what is just. That's

[13:48] how he divides us not only from each other but from literally the reality we

[13:53] exist within. So second distraction,

[14:02] you'll notice a pattern. When there's a real fire, Trump pulls out the alarm somewhere else. He doesn't address the

[14:09] root causes of crisis. He manufactures new ones to distract us from focusing on

[14:14] real problems. I'm going to specifically address only three. Safety in society,

[14:20] safety for women, and safety for children. He claims he brings safety, law, and order. An interesting priority

[14:27] for someone who's been convicted of 34 felony counts. But his solution, build

[14:32] more prisons, imprison more people, punish, and repeat. Research shows that

[14:38] mass incarceration does not solve the issues that cause crime. Poverty, mental illness, and

[14:44] addiction. It punishes people for symptoms of real problems. And if you

[14:49] still believe prisons solve crime, consider this. America locks up more people than any country on Earth,

[14:57] holding nearly 1/4 of the world's prisoners. If mass incarceration made us

[15:02] safer, we'd be the safest nation on Earth. But instead of reversing this, President

[15:08] Trump pushes us further into an unsafe reality. Choosing handcuffs over housing, prisons over treatment, he

[15:15] doesn't just distract us from the real roots of crimes. He deepens the crisis that exist. He claims that America is

[15:21] safer for women. President Trump says that he will protect women, and he does. But look closer at what he does and how

[15:29] he actually distracts us. He fuels moral panic about people who are transgender

[15:34] in sports. A policy obsession that targets a few dozen individuals nationwide.

[15:40] No, no, thank you. While distracting from over 40 million women, half of our

[15:45] country, who have identified a very clearly what the threat is of the real harm,

[15:51] which you all know is cisgender men. According to data by the National Crime

[15:57] Victimization Survey, over 90% of violence experienced by women is committed by cisgender men. But

[16:03] President Trump had banned books, not predators. He targets drag shows, not

[16:09] domestic violence. Under his leadership, women's healthcare access has plummeted.

[16:14] Maternal mortal mortality rates have risen, and survivors of violence face greater barriers in courts and in

[16:20] hospitals than perhaps ever before. Meanwhile, President Trump surrounds himself with men credibly accused or

[16:27] convicted of sexual violence, not removing them, but elevating them to decision-making positions. If safety

[16:34] were really the goal, the threats women experience wouldn't be invented, and the

[16:40] real ones wouldn't be ignored. He claims America is safer for children. In

[16:46] America today, the leading cause of death for children and teens is gun violence. Over 4,300 kids are killed by

[16:54] guns each year. And more than 17,000 are wounded. That is 60 children every

[17:00] single day. In just 2025, there have already been 177 mass shootings. And

[17:07] yet, President Trump is silent. Instead of passing laws to keep kids safe in

[17:12] schools, he attacks teachers, slashes education budgets, and distracts the public with crusades against story hours

[17:19] and books in school libraries. Children are not unsafe because of what they're reading. They are unsafe because their

[17:26] classrooms are war zones. When you keep pulling fire alarms for fake fires, no one notices when the

[17:33] building you're in is actually burning. But here's the truth. You cannot fix a crisis you refuse to understand. So

[17:41] finally, my third point, deflection. President Trump doesn't look for solutions. He avoids accountability. He

[17:48] blamed election workers for his own loss, fueling a deadly insurrection that endangered lawmakers and law

[17:55] enforcement. He blamed Congress for the violence his words incited. He's weaponized immigration to shift blame,

[18:02] deporting asylum seekers without hearings, and detaining student protesters across state lines, not to

[18:08] protect Americans, but to silence disscent. He calls the press the enemy

[18:14] of the people, threatened journalists, and flooded the courts with lawsuits to avoid scrutiny. As a result, today,

[18:22] America ranks 55th in global press freedom, the lowest it has been in

[18:28] modern history. You cannot run a country by avoiding every mirror and blaming every fire on someone else. Mark Twain

[18:36] once said, "It is easier to fool people than it is to convince them that they have been fooled." So, I have a tough

[18:43] job on this side. But tonight's debate has actually tested that because three

[18:48] people have sat on this chamber's floor for the entire debate. You've stepped

[18:53] over them. You've looked past them. You've ignored them. They've been holding a jar at the back of this

[18:59] chamber full of critical issues that affect millions of Americans. Shelter, hunger, gun violence, unaffordable

[19:06] healthcare, poverty, freedom, and autonomy. But we didn't ask who they

[19:11] were. We didn't ask what they were holding. We didn't ask to help them. That jar has been sitting there with

[19:18] them this whole time. And just like that, millions are left on the floor, silently holding everything he refuses

[19:25] to fix. Meanwhile, this flashy jar filled with manufactured threats and

[19:31] political theater grabs every headline and all of our attention, even in this

[19:36] debate. Trump's America does not solve real problems. It performs around them.

[19:42] If you did not notice that jar or those individuals tonight, that's not your fault. But if you leave still looking

[19:49] away, then he hasn't gone too far. We all have. The thing is, if we let those

[19:56] problems sit in the back of the room for long enough, we all start to believe that they belong back there. Out of

[20:03] sight, out of mind. But they don't. We must get close to that jar. We must feel

[20:09] its weight because when the curtain falls, it's the people on the floor who are still bleeding behind it. And that

[20:15] is millions of Americans. So, House affirm today's motion because Donald

[20:20] Duck was far. But Donald Trump, that's

[20:25] too far. [Applause]

[20:36] I thank Serene for her speech. To continue the case for the opposition, I look to Daniel Ogaloma, Regents Park

[20:43] College.

[20:50] Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, friends of democracy and friends of

[20:56] drama. And of course, Madame President, thank you for the honor of speaking in tonight's debate. I must say it's a

[21:02] historic and inspiring moment for me. Also, let me take this moment to congratulate you on making history in

[21:07] becoming the first black woman to serve in this prestigious society as president. Well done.

[21:18] Now, onto the business for today. This house believes Trump has gone too

[21:24] far. But before we start passing judgment, let's ask what does gone too far even mean? Too far to whom? The

[21:32] media, the woke left, or too far to people who are used to presidents who

[21:38] just have eloquent speeches for eight years without action, like that former president from Chicago. Gone too far.

[21:45] The phrase itself is elastic, subjective, it's vague, and often used more as an emotional expression than a

[21:52] rigorous standard. It sounds like a phrase you use when your mates down the last pizza that you've already called

[21:58] dibs on. It implies that boundaries have been crossed. But which boundaries?

[22:03] Legal, political, democratic. Whose boundary is it? And perhaps most

[22:09] importantly, too far compared to what? Compared to precedent, to expectation,

[22:14] or simply politeness. Trump is going where he said he would. Loudly,

[22:20] brazenly, and for the second time. He's not overreaching. He's delivering. So

[22:26] tonight I'll show you that Trump is working within the constitutional boundaries. He's doing what he is

[22:31] democratically elected to do and he's following through on the policies which will prove he hasn't gone too far. He's

[22:37] just gone as far as he said he would. Now the proposition of course has continuously made the case that Trump is

[22:43] breaking the Constitution. They'll say he trampled democracy, ignored the courts, and is basically running the

[22:49] White House like it's a season 15 of The Apprentice. Here's the truth. Trump

[22:55] isn't breaking the Constitution. He's following it forcefully but fatefully.

[23:01] Yes, he's signing executive orders faster than freshers sign up for societies they'll never attend.

[23:07] But is that illegal? No, it's efficient. Let's compare. Obama signed over 270

[23:15] executive orders. Biden's crossed 160. Trump. He's simply operating just like

[23:21] every modern president trying to get things done in a gridlocked system. He's

[23:26] declared national emergencies. He's not the first. The National Emergency Act exists and he used it. And if you don't

[23:33] like the law, blame Congress. Trump didn't write it. He just actually read it this time. And when the courts

[23:40] disagree with him, and yes, some did. He didn't ignore them. He didn't dissolve the judiciary or arrest any judge. And

[23:48] even in the case of Kilar Albero Gracia, yes, a deportation gone wrong. The

[23:53] system didn't collapse. The courts intervened. Judges ruled the administration was held accountable.

[24:00] That's not a president ignoring the law. That's the law working even when the headlines get messy.

[24:07] Trump isn't going beyond the powers vested in him. As stated in article 2 in the United States Constitution, he is

[24:13] using the powers of the presidency exactly as it is written, unapologetically, energetically, and in

[24:20] line with the mandates he was given. Trump isn't trying to abolish Congress. He isn't attempting to rewrite bills of

[24:27] rights, and he isn't throwing out separations of power to crown himself an emperor. He's operating within the

[24:33] framework loudly and legally. Look, I know the Trump sequel rattled a few

[24:38] cages. It was like the reboot no one asked for that somehow still shattered the box office records. But this wasn't

[24:46] a a political accident. It was a democratic choice. Over 60 million

[24:51] Americans heard the message, saw the chaos, weighed the controversy, and still said, "Let's make America great

[24:59] again." So rewind the tapes. His 2024 campaign was a checklist, not a poem.

[25:06] And guess what? He's ticking the boxes, and many Americans are winning. Young

[25:12] people, he's rolled out apprenticeships and STEM grants, created real jobs, not just LinkedIn dreams. As for the

[25:18] working-class Americans, tax relief and energy infrastructure, more hours, more cash, the elderly, he's kept insulin

[25:24] prices in these first few weeks. legal immigration application cues cut nearly

[25:30] 30% thanks to digitization. So you tell me if Trump's second term has already improved financial standings of

[25:36] students, workers, immigrants, and pensioners, who exactly has he gone too

[25:42] far against? Everybody's saying he's making big moves. He's shaking the foundations. I

[25:48] say yes, that is the job. You don't hire Gordon Ramsay and complain when he's

[25:54] yelling in the kitchen. You don't reelect Trump and act shocked when he's still uh Trump. Now, I know what my

[26:03] friends on the proposition will say, of course, but Trump supporters are uncomfortable with some of the things he's doing. And I say, "Welcome to

[26:10] bloody adulthood. I don't even agree with half of my own Netflix suggestions half of the time. No one gets a perfect

[26:16] match." And even Adele fans skip most parts of someone like you. Voters didn't

[26:23] pick a genie. They picked a leader. Someone who would when handed the keys

[26:28] drive, not spend the entire term adjusting the mirrors. It's messy. It's loud. But that's democracy. Let him do

[26:35] his job. Now just imagine you purchase a ticket to Jamaica. You board the flight

[26:42] and mid-flight you experience turbulence and the pilot tells you, "Guys, sit tight because the route he needs to take

[26:49] might be ugly. It's a bumpy ride, but he still lands the plane safely at your destination. Will you say he went too

[26:56] far? No. I think you'd say, "Cheers, mate. Rough ride, but we got there in the end." So, let's be very clear. Trump

[27:04] isn't going too far. I just think we've grown used to politicians promising everything, delivering nothing, and

[27:10] calling it process. He instead is delivering what he promised, even if it

[27:15] gives CNN panic attacks every 45 minutes. Who gives a toss about Trump's tone and

[27:21] politeness, his language or his tweeting? Trump is rude, they say. He's

[27:26] undiplomatic. He makes people uncomfortable. Well, so does honesty. So

[27:31] does follow through. So does a president who doesn't apologize every 30 seconds like a British person walking through

[27:38] someone in a Tesco. Sorry. Sorry. And yes, supporters of this motion will

[27:43] also say he's damaging America's international image. Look, America's image has been through worse. They once

[27:51] invaded the wrong country over bad intelligence and were still selected to host the Olympics like nothing happened.

[27:56] Trump being blunt isn't the collapse of diplomacy. It's just the end of pretending everyone likes each other in

[28:02] the group in the G7 group chat. Here's the real threat to democracy.

[28:08] Politicians who talk a good game and do nothing. Who run on dreams and govern on differing. who make hope a product but

[28:16] not a plan. Trump is certainly not that man. You may not like the method, but

[28:22] you can't deny the motion. Trump is moving. Friends, I'm not saying he's a

[28:27] political saint. He's not even polite. I know. But that's not the requirement to be president. If Trump unnerves you,

[28:35] maybe what we fear isn't overreach, it's accountability. So, I leave you with this. If democracy

[28:42] still means electing leaders and expecting them to do what they say they would, then Donald Trump hasn't gone too

[28:48] far. He's gone exactly as far as he is allowed to. Thank you all.

[28:56] I now look to Laura Smith to close the case for the proposition.

[29:02] [Applause]

[29:08] Thank you so much for this opportunity. It's great to be back in Oxford. Um I suppose uh I really owe actually a debt

[29:14] of thanks to our friend Mr. Kirk here because uh you know I I'd love to think that my students have wait this long to

[29:20] hear me lecture but uh to be honest with you um you know been here this long just because of him but I must caution you

[29:28] entertainment is on this side for you education is on this side.

[29:34] Now I got to mention one thing that has been a sort of running current through the argument that you've heard from

[29:39] opposition today which is this idea of he won. He got the popular vote once.

[29:45] Once he got the popular vote once he did win twice. Okay. But the assumption is

[29:52] that he therefore had a mandate. A lot of political scientists dispute

[29:57] that there's even such a thing as an electoral mandate. that people could actually take of his word and that

[30:04] somehow Elon Musk was elected too. So, you know what happens when you make assumptions, right?

[30:11] And I hate to use a Democratic daycare because it's got that connotation, but you make an ass of yourself. That's what

[30:16] happens when you make an assumption. Everyone knows that. Now, the word unprecedented is intrinsically

[30:23] associated almost to redundancy when it comes to Donald Trump. He is not

[30:29] unprecedented in being the first, he's definitely not the first president to try and push the boundaries of executive

[30:35] power to beyond its scope. He is even not the first president to do so in a

[30:42] time that is out of sync with his context. I can think of two other examples. Andrew Johnson after the Civil

[30:50] War, he was America's first president to be impeached. Why? because he wanted to

[30:55] welcome the Confederate rebels back with open arms. Like the Civil War just a bit of a brotherly scuffle, wasn't it? No

[31:02] problem. Oh, all these freed African-Americans. No, let's not have any more civil rights for them. No. So,

[31:08] he got impeached. He wasn't removed, but he was the first president to be impeached. Richard Nixon, here's another

[31:14] example of a man acting out of the context of what was acceptable in his

[31:19] times. No, he wasn't impeached because he was forced to resign. He lost the support of his own Republican party. So

[31:26] what is the difference when it comes to Donald Trump? A president who's been impeached twice and not removed. He's

[31:33] not being held accountable. He's pushing the against this for more executive

[31:38] power. It is not acceptable in the 21st century, but so far he has yet to be held to account.

[31:46] No, thank you. Presidents have formal powers and informal powers, but one of

[31:51] the key ones is of course executive orders. We've already heard it tonight, but I would just like to point out that

[31:57] there was a little bit of fake news over there. Okay, so let me get the numbers straight. In his first 100 days, which

[32:03] is why we're here in the first place, Donald Trump signed no less than 147

[32:10] executive orders. Now, to put that in context, Joe Biden signed a similar number. That's what you heard, but over

[32:17] four years, not a 100 days. Big difference. So, Donald Trump has brought

[32:23] up the yearly average executive orders since 1944,

[32:28] all the way through the modern presidency, since FDR. Now, he has also used his pardon power,

[32:34] his clemency power, another formal power. Most controversially, in his first 100 days, we already mentioned the

[32:41] pardoning of 1,500 January 6 riers. hugely controversial and a huge push in

[32:49] the use of executive power. He is the commander-in-chief, another immensely important formal power. What

[32:56] is he using it for? Well, so far, thank goodness, he's only organizing himself a

[33:01] birthday military parade. And how much is this going to cost, you ask? Well,

[33:06] the Guardian suggests it could cost up to 45 million American dollars for the

[33:12] American taxpayer to pay. Does this sound like the leader of the western

[33:18] democracy what they would do? He likes to create crisis. Now we all

[33:24] know that when there's a crisis for example he was in charge when there was

[33:30] COVID when there was crisis with Black Lives Matter George Floyd an economic crisis related to COVID how badly he

[33:38] mishandled or mismanaged that. Why does he like to therefore create crisis?

[33:44] because he can control them. It's this idea of controlling. Andrew Jackson, a

[33:49] president he most admires, used to use the phrase, I am the storm. That's the

[33:54] idea. It's like he wants to be the storm. He wants to control the narrative and create these crisis. No, thank you.

[34:01] to establish himself as more powerful pushing back against traditional allies.

[34:06] Can I think of an example? Too many, but I'll give you a couple. Recently, he's got really keen on this idea of an Iran

[34:14] nuclear treaty. Wow, I feel like I'm in 2015 again. Wait, we had one of those.

[34:19] Oh, yeah. It was under President Barack Obama. And yet, because it was associated with Obama, it became no more

[34:26] under Trump. And now he's trying to create a treaty with no trust whatsoever. He talked in his election

[34:32] about the Panama Canal and most egregiously recently in terms of the economy, his tariff wars going after

[34:40] America's one of their oldest and strongest allies, Canada. Why? Fentinel

[34:46] is racing across the border. We got to stop it. It's dangerous. How much fentinel comes across the

[34:51] Canadian US border? 0.01%. I'm sorry, that's wrong. Less than 0.01%

[34:58] 01% comes across the US Canadian border. And of course, I would be remiss to talk

[35:05] about Donald Trump if not to talk about immigration and his deportation policies. From the start of his

[35:12] political career, a mere 10 years ago, his immigration rhetoric rested on

[35:18] xenophobia and racism. And I'm not going to dignify this chamber by repeating some of it.

[35:24] What it has created is it has encouraged some of the worst of Americans and

[35:30] statements to come out to feel vindicated. For example, in American campuses today

[35:37] after his re-election 2024, some Republican student groups were actually encouraging their fellow students to

[35:45] report other students they believed to be there illegally.

[35:50] So, you are now innocent. no longer innocent before proven guilty.

[35:56] He has been told by the Supreme Court, his own Supreme Court, one might say, considering that he appointed three of

[36:02] the justices, that he must return a man who should not have been deported to El

[36:08] Salvador's max security prison. He must return him. And he refuses to do it. The

[36:13] president has enforcement. He is utilizing this power to an extreme extent.

[36:19] like this he is mirroring Jackson. Jackson is the one who 200 years ago almost 200 years ago in 1832 the Supreme

[36:27] Court said no Cherokees Native Americans must be able to stay on their land. They said this to

[36:34] someone who had driven through the Indian Removal Act of 1830. And Andrew Jackson ignored it. Why?

[36:42] Because he was living in the democracy of the white man. That was almost 200

[36:48] years ago. Thank God we no longer live in the democracy of the man. Although I

[36:53] do notice a bit of a gender divide here, which may reflect the support that Donald Trump has and that gender divide

[37:00] of his own. Another really interesting thing I find about Donald Trump and his use of power

[37:06] and deportation and immigration policies creating the crisis, he seems to be

[37:11] really fixated on a potential genocide in South Africa against white South

[37:16] Africans. Nobody else has really heard of this. And yet white South Africans, no thank

[37:23] you. You'll get your chance, Mr. Kirk. Like my students, they get their chance.

[37:29] So these white South Africans are able to come and relocate to the United States

[37:34] while others, including those of minority, racial, and ethnic backgrounds, do not get that privileged

[37:40] opportunity, the same privileged opportunity. Finally, I'd be remiss without

[37:46] mentioning Doge. Of course, I mentioned before Elon Musk. I mentioned before how he was unelected.

[37:52] Getting hand cramped there, Mr. Kirk. Lots of notes. I'm looking forward to it. Oh, I'm looking forward to it. I'm

[37:57] looking forward to it. So, when it comes to Doge, we know that

[38:05] he is not the first president to try and reorganize and restructure the American government. William Taft there 1909 1913

[38:12] he did it from a fashion of organizing of studying it of specialism. This was a

[38:19] period in which Congress and he got together while he used unilateral power got together and worked together to

[38:27] ensure that they had someone who was a specialist in government to steady it for almost four years before slashing.

[38:33] There was no chainsaw government. It was streamlining government and it certainly wasn't denigrating those very unflashy

[38:42] civil service jobs that people do tirously day in and day out and mostly

[38:47] thanklessly as well. So ladies and gentlemen, I ask you in my final 30 seconds, 30 seconds, how do we judge

[38:55] whether a president has gone too far when the method that the founders gave us, the high crimes of misdemeanor, the

[39:00] last block of check, the impeachment mechanism, seems meaningless for a man who has been impeached twice. How do we

[39:07] hold him to account? Well, by the only means that we know how and that we spearheaded. We must vote. We must vote

[39:15] in proposition. We must vote by democratic means to prove that Donald Trump has gone too far. Thank you very

[39:22] much.

[39:31] I thank Laura for her fine speech. And now closing the case for the opposition and indeed the whole debate, Mr. Charlie

[39:37] Kr. My final

[39:48] Okay. Uh, before I begin my prepared remarks, I feel like I got to run the gauntlet. Uh, first I'll give you a,000

[39:53] pounds right now if you could tell me the US citizen that was deported under Donald Trump. You said that twice.

[39:59] Yeah. The US citizen that was deported under Donald Trump. Can anyone tell me thousand pounds? I'll give it to you right now. Yeah. Name

[40:04] wrong. Not a US citizen. Salvador citizen El Salvador. Anybody else? US citizen deported under Trump. Nope.

[40:09] That was a lie. You should know better than that. You go to Oxford. So that is a correction. Number two. Can you tell me when it comes to Charlottesville

[40:15] something you said when Donald Trump said that there were people on both sides? He was actually talking about the

[40:20] statue debate, not what you said. So that's a hoax. That's line number two. Um Oh yeah, you said that somebody over

[40:26] here said something about uh Pete Hegth being nothing more than a TV host. You should also mention that he was a

[40:33] service member of the military. Nope. Sorry. I'm going to talk uninterruptedly. Thank you. Service

[40:39] member and was a decorated war hero. Funny you didn't mention that. Oh, yes.

[40:45] January 6 came up multiple times. From You tried your best, but from you. Um,

[40:50] and from the opposition, it's not an insurrection. You've called them all rioters. It's funny. A small

[40:58] percentage of people that were actually there on January 6th did anything violently. The vast majority walked into the capital building after they were

[41:04] invited. Also, back to your point, um, I certainly hope reform and AFD wins. Uh, so I hope that it's not to teach Trump a

[41:11] lesson that he goes too far. We'll get that in a second. Finally, the Donald Duck really, like what was that all about? What is this jar? I have no idea

[41:16] what you're talking about in the back of the room. It's like it's completely lost on me. So, I don't know what that what

[41:22] that's all about. Um, also on the Canadian border, the professor failed to mention that the Canadian border was

[41:27] closed. President Trump said fentanyl and the amount of terrorists that are coming across the Canadian border, of which the most terrorists that come into

[41:33] America come across the Canadian border on the terrorist watch list. You did not mention that. And finally, professor,

[41:40] you never heard of it in South Africa. Interesting. You never heard of that. The fact that a a major political party

[41:46] in South Africa says, quote, "Kill the boores. Kill the boores." I would expect more of somebody who wrote dissertation

[41:51] and teaches here at Oxford to say that you would not know about the attempted slaughter and genocide of white South

[41:56] Africans. Okay, now on to we I'm sure there's lots of POIs and I will talk uninterrupted now to my remarks, but

[42:04] actually is that all of it? Let me see here. Yeah, that's just a taste. Hello everybody. It's great to be here

[42:09] tonight. Thank you to the Oxford Oxford Union for inviting me.

[42:22] I never went to university. I take that as a great compliment. So therefore, everyone who went to university should be able to run circles around me. You'll

[42:28] be the judge, but I'll do my best. Has Donald Trump gone too far? Well, I can nitpick at how vague that question is.

[42:35] What is too far exactly? Are his tweets too long? Can all of us even agree on what we're

[42:41] aiming at? I don't think so. The truth is this. If you dislike the West and if

[42:47] you hate the West's values, if you think the West is evil fundamentally and deserves to be destroyed, then anything

[42:52] Donald Trump does basically short of surrender will be too far for you. If I

[42:58] was visiting the school hundred years ago speaking in support of an American president, I think we would at least

[43:04] have some broad agreement on what a country's leader should be trying to do. But we don't anymore. I don't think it's

[43:10] because America's changed. In fact, I think it's because Britain has changed. From my perspective, Britain is one of

[43:16] the greatest countries in the history of the world. You were the country of Shakespeare, the steam engine, and Adam

[43:22] Smith. You defeated Napoleon. You destroyed the slave trade. You stood up to Hitler. My country, America, became

[43:29] great as it is because of what we inherited from you, from Britain. When I

[43:34] hear the slogan, make America great again, I'm also hearing, quote, "Return

[43:40] America to its British roots." Great Britain has everything in the world to be proud of. But when I look at Britain

[43:46] today, I see a country where the ruling elites are in a race to abandon the very values, the values that made them so

[43:52] great in the first place. I wish I could blame this all on labor, all on the left, but I can't. This country just had

[44:00] its 14th uninterrupted year of so-called conservative rule. And what did they

[44:05] conserve exactly? Well, they didn't conserve the ancient British rights to freedom of speech. In Britain today, 30

[44:12] people a day are arrested for offensive posts on social media, according to the Telegraph. Praying silently within 600

[44:19] feet of an abortion clinic can get you arrested in Scotland as a 74 year old woman named Rose just learned weeks ago.

[44:26] Members of Parliament scold British citizens for thinking they have the right to say things, say that they do

[44:31] not have the right to say things that offend Muslims. 14 years of conservative rule didn't conserve British prosperity.

[44:38] Adjusted for inflation cost of living, the average British worker makes less today than they did in 2008. Outside of

[44:46] London, the British have lower incomes than every one of America's 50 states. And it never used to be this way.

[44:52] British industry pays four times as much for electricity as America does. You have the highest electricity rates in

[44:58] the world. A consequence of a choice of going netneutral. Nothing will kill a modern economy

[45:05] faster than high energy prices. And the country that again that invented the steam engine now has some of the highest

[45:10] energy prices on the planet. But above all, 14 years of conservative control didn't preserve the British nation. This

[45:17] country's conservatives thought it was their moral duty to allow anyone from the third world to move here. They

[45:23] didn't need to hold Western values. They didn't need to have useful skills. They could go on welfare immediately. Just

[45:29] last week, Kier Starmer announced he's changing the law to make sure immigrants who commit crimes are deported because

[45:35] the conservatives never actually bothered passing that law themselves. The dying out of the British nation

[45:40] means the dying out of Christianity. Britain is the birthplace of Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Anglicans,

[45:48] Quakers, and more. I would guess that more Christian denominations trace back to Britain than any other country. But

[45:54] soon, Britain will have more practicing Muslims than practicing Christians. I think that will be a catastrophic change

[46:01] and everyone knows it. That's why it's only Muslims moving to Christian countries, never the other way around. I

[46:08] don't want America to go the way of Britain. I want us to remain free. I want us to remain rich and innovative. I want us to remain Christian. I don't

[46:16] want Americans to be replaced. But forget what I want. This is what the American people want. And in a

[46:22] democracy, the people are supposed to get what they want. The very same people that lecture us about democracy have a

[46:30] lot of problems with the consequences democracy when the people vote away that they don't like. And that's where Donald

[46:35] Trump comes in. When I was growing up, people would say that Britain was where America would be 10 or 20 years in the

[46:41] future. What they meant was that Britain was more leftwing than America, but we'd catch up eventually. That's just how

[46:47] things were over time, and nothing could stop it. I don't hear people saying that anymore. Donald Trump is the reason why.

[46:53] Almost alone, Donald Trump has changed the course of history. He's destroyed the assumption that the left's victory

[46:59] was inevitable. Under President Biden, more than 10 million illegal aliens entered America. Guides were published

[47:05] on Tik Tok explaining how to break into America. Say some magic words at the border and nobody would stop you. Entire

[47:12] neighborhoods of American cities were turned over to migrants living on the dole. America was treated as a pile of

[47:20] wealth for the rest of the planet to ponder plunder at will. Now that is all stopping. President Trump has cut border

[47:27] crossings. Not 90%, not 99%, but 99.9%.

[47:32] For years, my country's leaders lied that the southern border was an unfixable mess. President Trump exposed

[47:39] them all as liars within weeks. But closing the door didn't fix the damage that Biden did. We have well over 10

[47:46] million people in America who should not be in America. If somebody breaks into your home, you don't fix the problem by

[47:52] closing your door and locking it. Things aren't fixed until the burglar is kicked out. And President Trump has been

[47:57] fighting harder than ever to make that happen. But I'd be happy if we fought even harder. Of course, illegal migration isn't the only threat facing

[48:04] America. In Joe Biden's America, we had the tyranny of DEI. Even though America's Constitution explicitly

[48:10] forbids racial discrimination, our government ordered people to do it anyway. People were denied jobs and

[48:16] denied promotions. Kids were shut out universities based on the color of their skin rather than their ability.

[48:21] Companies were denied federal contracts because their owners didn't look a certain way. People who didn't discriminate enough in hiring could be

[48:28] sued by the government. Every company in America lived in fear of their government deciding to target them for

[48:34] offenses against DEI. Trump has ordered DEI to be torn down. But I want him to

[48:40] tear it down faster. I want every university told that they're losing all federal dollars immediately if they

[48:46] don't stop racial discrimination. I want the Department of Justice to start auditing auditing every federal

[48:51] contractor to find DEI and shut off contracts immediately wherever we find it. This is a kind of cancer that cannot

[48:58] be phased out. It must be ripped out from the core. The same goes for the toxic social contagion of

[49:04] transgenderism. In Joe Biden's America, public schools and medical organizations were co-opted into endorsing this

[49:10] insanity. They urged children just 10 years old or younger to take barely tested hormones and surgically alter

[49:16] their bodies. In some of America's liberal states, a parent who objects to their child's transition can lose

[49:21] custody. I've met dransitioners who escaped from this social poison. They tell me that getting sucked into the

[49:27] first place was the greatest mistake of their lives. President Trump has taken steps to stop promoting this lunacy.

[49:32] He's acted to protect women's sports. Another POI meant to make. She said it's only a couple dozen. 890 biological men

[49:39] have stolen awards, trophies, and championships from women in America. It's not a couple dozen. Over 890 women

[49:45] were displaced by pervert men. That's why I want Donald Trump's administration and why I support it. It's mostly what

[49:51] I've gotten, but I want more of it. I'll be honest. We the American people, we want more deportations. We want more

[49:57] peace deals. We want more woke colleges defunded. We want more DEI parasites to lose their jobs. The American people

[50:03] voted to put America first. And you know what? You should all too. This is my final point. Do I have to stop? Okay. I

[50:09] mean, you should want to No, it's fine. I I don't know the rules. I It's fine. You should want to preserve and restore the greatness of Britain. You should

[50:14] want the decline to stop and you can make it happen. Starmer wouldn't be saying any of what he's saying without what President Trump is doing. If you

[50:21] are honest with yourself, if you want a great Britain, again, not a mediocre Britain, if you want a Britain that you

[50:26] could be proud of, you should all be wearing MAGA hats and cheering Donald Trump on every step of the way. Thank

[50:31] you very much.