HUD Supports 1.5M Homebuyers | Secretary Turner Joins the Charlie Kirk Show

So Secretary Scott Turner, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, you were making a round through Phoenix and you we made this happen, which I'm so excited about. It's great to have you here again. Thank you so much. I'm grateful to be here with you guys. So thank you for the invitation. Yeah, well, every time you're in Phoenix, I actually will get my feelings hurt if you don't come by. All right. No. So you're a busy, busy man. I'm so grateful to have you. And one of the reasons is because, you know, with. Without getting too political about the election, we'll stick on the policies, but obviously affordability is a huge issue. It's something that Charlie talked a lot about, and that's kind of where I want to start. Just set the tone, because this was really, really, I think, something that was very intimate to Charlie and his message, because he spent so much time talking to young people about the American dream, getting a home, getting a family. So let's start there. SOT6. First time since George Washington. That this generation has it worse off than their parents at the same age. It has not happened, not even during the Great Depression. It's about the same. This generation is significantly worse off. And the problem, this is what no one mentions, we're not poorer. You would think, The country's gone through like an economic tailspin the last 15 years. Okay, your young people can't afford homes and they're putting groceries on credit and they're killing themselves. They're socially isolated and they're addicted to benzodiazepines and Zoloft. It's obvious you guys went through like a terrible economic catastrophe. You lost the war, yeah. If you look at the economic conditions, you would think the other conditions surrounding it are like abject poverty. These are the problems that like third world nations have. I know. Our young people can't afford stuff and they have to finance their basic necessities. And yet we're the wealthiest nation in the history of the world on the planet. That was, you know, not too long ago. And so this affordability. issue has become top of mind for so many young people. And I love that that's exactly where you've spent so much of your energies as the HUD secretary, dealing with first-time homebuyers, dealing with the housing affordability, dealing with fraud. So I want to start there with the housing affordability. You have made it a massive, massive plank of your tenure here to deal with first-time homebuyers and to really help them get into their first home. Absolutely. And thank you for setting that up for us and having me here. You know, policies matter because people matter. And when you have bad policies, the people suffer from it. And one of the things that we did when we came into HUD is, hey, man, we're going to take inventory of every program that we have at HUD. And we've been taking inventory. And as we travel around the country and we look at housing affordability, construction of homes, development of neighborhoods, I ask the question, what is the number one hindrance to building affordable homes? What's the number one barrier, if you will, to developing affordable neighborhoods? And the thing that people always say is bureaucratic red tape vis-a-vis regulations. And so the president, myself, and other leaders in the administration have been laser focused on tearing down the regulatory environment Because when you do this, it makes the cost of housing, to build housing, So, for instance. We came in at HUD, we took down the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule. That was a Biden-era rule. It sounds horrible. When you think about it, it's a play on words. Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, it sounds good, but it was terrible. It did not build not one single house, but instead it made building homes more costly. It was a myriad of paperwork on localities. And so we rescinded this to restore flexibility back to the localities. We're here in Phoenix, Arizona. Washington doesn't know the needs of the communities in Phoenix like Phoenix does. But this Affirmatively Fair Housing made Washington a national zoning board. And so we took that down to restore it back to localities. They always think they can regulate into building more houses. The answer is people who like making money will build houses to sell them to people. And you just have to make them able to do that. That's exactly right. I always get annoyed because you'll see complaints of, oh, they're building. Too many luxury condominiums or too many single-family homes. The truth is, anything you build will lower the price of housing. It will. Because if you build luxury places... The people who like luxury stuff will move into that. They just vacated the old luxury ones and know that now that's middle-class housing. Yeah. Well, also more supply and demand. I mean, it's, it's basic rule of economics, more supply, you know, the, the low, the lower the price will come down. So, but you've also worked on first-time homebuyers. You've supported home ownership for more than 1.5 million homebuyers, 80% of which are first-time homebuyers. Absolutely. That's huge. People don't know this. People don't know this. And that's what's so important about getting this messaging out. 1.5 million homebuyers are in a home right now because of the work you're doing at HUD. Excellent. And thank you for bringing that up. You know, you talk about the deregulation actions. You can't regulate yourself into having more homes. You have to build more homes. And so you tear down these regulations. You increase the supply. You decrease the cost. And now you have FHA, which is at HUD. And to your point, 1.5 million people in America last year We're able to afford to buy a home. 80% of those are first-time homebuyers, and the mainstream media doesn't talk about it because that's good news, right? And so thank y'all for bringing that up, but we'll continue to shout from FHA, the number one first-time homebuyer program in our country. We'll continue to make it strong day by day. Well, that's huge. And I mean, even in Arizona, I'm looking at some of these stats. So led to construction of about 6,400 housing units, 1 million Americans out of poverty, more than $100 billion of investment. Over half a million jobs. I mean, it's like, that's what's so crazy about the housing piece of it. You're creating jobs. You're also creating homes for first-time homebuyers, FHA, 80% of which first-time homebuyers. And you get all this local investment, and you're creating housing units, which drop the, you know, again, like I said, more supply. It's going to drop the price of housing overall for people. And I can tell you, actually, in Phoenix, I think it's a combination of a lot of what they've been doing over DHS and ICE deportations. Like, there is a lot more inventory on the market in Phoenix, which is lowering the price overall for people. Rents have stopped. I mean, rents in Arizona were, like, going through the roof. Yeah. And now they've stabilized or are coming down. They went up, like, 50%, I think, in the year I moved out here, just before I got here. I was really annoyed. You timed that poorly. Totally, Mike. But are you seeing that now? Like as you, as you look at the. Landscape, are you starting to see housing prices stabilize, rents come down? Is that happening? Yes, and so you alluded to, you know, those one million people coming out of poverty, 400,000 new housing units, 500,000 new jobs. And that obviously was through our Opportunity Zone policy, which has been one of the most transformative policies in our country to create new housing, in particular affordable housing. Here in Arizona, 6,400 housing units have been created in Opportunity Zones. When we came in, you know, we had a border that was run amok. You had tens of millions of people coming across the border, unchecked, unvetted, which made the housing prices go up, supply come down. Yeah, they needed to live somewhere. People forget this. Right. But it also made the rents go up. A hundred percent of the rental increase in New York. And California was because of illegal immigration. But since the president came in under his leadership, now the border is secure. Rents are stabilized in some places going down. Home prices are going down. Deregulation is happening. So the American people should be encouraged that these policies that we're putting in place are an American first policy from an American first president and administration that cares about this country, in particular when it comes to housing and affordability across the board. Yeah. And this is the this is the part that's so. difficult for me. So when I talk to young people, there is there seems to be a lack of just basic understanding about economics, something that is really near and dear to me because one of our jobs at Turning Point is to correct error. But they don't understand how using the free market, using deregulations, using. You know, agencies like yours to sort of incentivize good behavior in the marketplace actually does have an effect. And so I keep saying it's and Charlie alluded to it as well in that clip. We're in a race against time to prove that our ideas actually work, that there have been bad policies that have driven up the price of so many basic goods, too much spending out of Washington. But as these take effect over time, we're going to get where we need to be and we're not going to destroy the country in the process. And so... That's the question. Can we, can we get there fast enough? Can we get the relief for young people, middle-class, you know, salaried workers? Can we get there fast enough? And so I guess it's an open question. Are you seeing the progress that you think that you want to see? Are you seeing it fast enough? You know, for me, nothing is fast enough, but you know, You know, I come from the private sector, but I will say having Having this assignment as a steward of HUD, as a secretary of HUD, I am encouraged by the work that we've been able to do from a HUD standpoint under President Trump's leadership. To really fast track things for the American people as it pertains to the FHA, as it pertains to deregulation, as it pertains to opportunity zones, to securing our border. These policies matter and are happening right now. You know, we have this conflict going on in Iran. You think about the president. He is making sure that our homeland is secure so that an evil regime does not have a nuclear weapon That will literally make our lives and our conversation we're having today a lot different if they have one. Impossible. Impossible. And at the same time, he's laser focused on domestic policy. You know, he's putting American people first. He's bringing jobs back to America, manufacturing back to America. We're leading in the super intelligence race. You know, he secured the border. We're bringing housing costs down, pharmacy prices down, drug prices down, you know, for the American people. So, yes, it's happening. Is it happening fast enough for any of us? Probably not. But is it happening faster than it would under any other president? Yes. Yeah. And because of that, I actually agree with it. I actually agree with the answer. You know. You look at the polling, you're just like, you know, what or what or what the polling would be if the gas prices were were not what they are and they will come down. I mean, it's just so frustrating because I think they'll talk about affordability and all you need to do is look at any left wing state to see, can they deliver on affordability? No, no, they can't deliver at all on housing. They can't deliver on. They don't want to deliver on gas prices. And that's why. Everyone moves out of those states. So they want to get rid of single family homes. Yeah. So they're hostile to the American dream. Like they don't like it aesthetically. We are the party that can solve problems. And problems exist, but we're actually solving them. And that's got to be the message. More with Secretary Turner in just a few minutes. We're going to talk about fraud and what he's working on in California, New York, other places with homelessness. We'll be right back. All right, welcome back, everybody. We are joined by Secretary Scott Turner of the Housing and Urban Development. And we're having a fascinating conversation just in between the break here about how you are working on these manufactured homes, right? So explain what that, I had no idea. You just told me a crazy stat that over 20 million people, 20 million Americans are already living in manufactured homes. And then my mind goes to, wait, is this like a mobile home park? Is it? So the floor is yours. This is like a big new push. Indeed. And, you know, that's fair because when you think about manufactured home, the first thing people think about is the mobile homes, the trailer parks of old, you know, from the 60s and 70s. But manufactured homes today are modern, brilliantly built homes that are luxury. And, I mean, they have granite countertops. They have engineered wood floors. Some have garages, decks, beautiful kitchens, multiple bedrooms. And so, as you said, 22 million people in our country live in manufactured homes around our nation. And, you know, manufactured housing are half the cost of a traditionally stick-built house. And they only take about literally a fraction of the time to put up and to build. And these houses are built in a factory, put on a truck. Taken to the site, built on the site, and families literally can move in and form and raise their families. And so they're a tremendous asset to the housing market, to the housing supply needs that we have. We just had our innovative housing showcase on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to showcase some of these houses. I mean, you know, the HUD code, so the manufactured housing code sits at HUD. It's 50 years old, outdated, like many regulations and code in the government. But the new road bill literally took the permanent chassis rule and we are that has been taken away. So now you can innovate, build more manufactured housing, build multi-story manufactured housing. And so this increases supply for Americans that are looking to be first time homebuyers or to own a nice home. Yeah, it's a it's a renaissance in this space. I think that's because you don't want to be thinking mobile home, a trailer park, because that's the aesthetic isn't good. But this is actually a beautiful home, ready to go. And it's $84 a square foot to build these. And even if they're comparable to a mobile home, we should have better mobile homes. We should have better apartment blocks. Yeah, and that's a great point. When the left puts up affordable housing, they always want it to look like these depressing prisons. Right. And, guys, that's a great point you made. Because now we have storms, obviously, in our country. These houses are weather-resistant, storm-resistant. And the innovation and really the ingenuity that has gone into this next generation of manufactured housing is really incredible. And I would encourage people to research it. Come look at it. Call HUD. Ask us. We'll give you all the information that you need. You know, I've actually seen a lot of people use manufactured housing stuff. For like their ADUs, like additional dwelling units. So if you build like kind of like a another house in your backyard or something, which we should also encourage. And as another thing, the left loves to harshly regulate. Well, yeah, I mean, it's but it's it's interesting. So I know people are doing it and they're beautiful. Their design, the aesthetic is is wonderful. So anyways, that's that's cool. But I wanted to talk about this fraud. You know, it really is a crusade. It's a whole of government approach. J.D. Vance is doing an amazing job. But you have encountered a massive amount of fraud in the homeless industrial complex, especially. And so I instantly said, so you're spending a lot of time in L.A., aren't you? Tell us what you've discovered in your tenure here so far and how the fraud is happening specifically with homelessness. Absolutely. So, you know, during the Biden administration, really the Obama and Biden era. They had a term called Housing First, and this Housing First model was supposed to eradicate homelessness. But as we've seen, that has been a failed model in our country. How's that going for you, L.A.? Well, you know, we have record funding. And guys, I'm going to tell you, we have record funding for homelessness. Sounds like we're going to have record homelessness if there's record funding. And we have record homelessness in our country. The homeless industrial complex is real. And you know that saying, follow the money? You know, that is a real deal. And so there's about... Nearly $4 billion of American taxpayer dollars that's allocated and distributed for homelessness through our Continuum of Care program. And we're supposed to partner with these agencies, nonprofits, cities, counties, to take care of our homeless neighbors, our homeless men, women, and children. But what we have found is fraud just running rampant. There's a guy in L.A. Multiple guys in LA. We just made a multiple person arrest a few weeks ago with DEA, FBI, US Attorney's Office. But one gentleman in particular, about $23 million he used, but he bought a $145,000 Range Rover, $7 million house in California, $500,000 vacation house. And this was money that was supposed to go to feed our homeless neighbors. And that's just one example. Others who had money. American taxpayer money is supposed to be doing stuff for homelessness, built a bingo hall, was paying off his credit cards, was giving lavish gifts to his family. And so, you know what? Law and order under President Trump has been restored under Vice President J.D. Vance with our task force to eliminate fraud. No longer can we just allow things to be status quo. We cannot award fraud and award crime when it comes to American taxpayer dollars. And on the homelessness thing, it stands out to me almost that the fact that that's under... Your portfolio gets at how the left has influenced our framing of things because like why were they saying housing first that they're saying the problem with these individuals who are criminals drug addicts often violently antisocial mentally ill that the problem is they lack housing like this is all downstream that they didn't have housing when the truth is very often they're not in housing because of all of those problems that They have no family who can handle them or no family at all. They're addicts. They can't maintain a job. And that's what you need to fix. And well, the fact that they're so rife with fraud, it just shows this NGO industrial complex. The left's plan for everything is, oh, I hate Elon Musk. He's too rich. I'm going to take all of his money. He's very good at distributing capital efficiently and getting a return on that money and that investment. And I'm going to give it to government, which is the worst distributor of capital. So I'm going to take from the productive class. I'm going to give it to these NGOs. I'm going to I'm going to siphon it out to these local communities. And then I'm not going to police it at all. There's just going to be rife with fraud. This is fundamentally the problem with the way the left tries to fix problems. They just make everything worse. It becomes bloated, administrative bloat, all this stuff, and then fraud bloat. And it's just everything about it. Bothers me, it irks me, and yet it sounds pretty and compassionate when you sell it to a voter, even though it's all going to go to crap. That's basically my take. And it's not even doing what it's supposed to be doing. Exactly. This homeless industrial complex, man, you know, this housing first, that's a failed model. We want treatment first. And to your point, it's what's the root cause of homelessness? It's mental illness and it's drug addiction. In L.A., they hand out brown paper bags with drug paraphernalia in it to keep drug addicts to continue using drugs, mentally ill. That's all. You've got to follow the incentives. The incentives are we get paid more as an NGO if we have more drug addicts and more homeless. So guess what? Guess what you end up with in places like L.A.? You get what you pay for. You get what you pay for. I hope that this has been time well spent for you. I've been loving this, and hopefully the audience appreciates the sheer amount of wins that this administration is putting up. Yeah, you might be upset about the gas price at the pump. You might be upset with Iran, whatever. We cannot go backwards, not one step back. We are finally getting our country back. We're finally instituting common sense reforms and rooting out fraud and getting affordability back. And you're a big part of that, Secretary Turner. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you all for having me. We appreciate it. Keep up the good work. Thank you. Appreciate you. All right, hour two. We've got a lot in store. Not enough time to tell you about it. We'll see you in a few minutes.