B (4:02)

And not to get too much ahead of ourselves because this is an enormous victory. But looking forward four years, these Were, as you say, many of these are low propensity voters who love President Trump, who's a unique political figure, the most unique political figure of our lifetime, a historic political figure, probably the most historic American political figure of the last century. You know, given that fact, are these people that can come out again? Are these people that you can reach again and duplicate again for another candidate, say, J.D. vance?

A (4:24)

Yeah, and that's the question. And the answer is, even if we only do some of it and then do better with high propensity voters, of which Donald Trump was actually doing worse with, then we could still have electoral success. So let's take J.D. vance, for example, who a dear friend, I think he'd be a phenomenal president, is that he can definitely do better with higher propensity voters, more college educated people that might not have liked Donald Trump's approach or tone or whatever excuse they would give. And even if we get some of those low propensity voters to engage in the process, you have the best of all worlds. And so what we have proven, though, is an Obama style get out. The vote turnout machine can be built on the right. And that was always the question, is we as the right, like, can we win celebrity culture? Can we do the thing where we change the electorate? And it turns out, yes, we can. And that again, we were just, we were just kind of benefiting from the draft of the president. Right? Meaning that he had such a life force behind him and so many people knew him and wanted to support him. And it was so illuminating because we hosted the president with Bobby Kennedy back in August when that endorsement happened.

B (5:24)

And that's an amazing event. And Bobby gave an amazing speech.

A (5:26)

It was, it was terrific. And we were honored to be part of it. And we asked the campaign, we said, hey, can we do voter registration because we don't want to step into it. I said, yeah, of course you can. So 18,000 people show up. We registered 900 first time voters. 900 out of 18,000 were Trump supporters willing to stand in line in the Arizona heat for three hours and they weren't registered to vote. And so all of a sudden we said, guys, not everyone who buys a MAGA hat is even registering to vote. And this is the forgotten country. These are people that make the country work. The plumbers, electricians, the welders, the carpenters, the police officers, the firefighters. And so our theory of the case worked. Everyone doubted us. And the secondary part of that was then dominate on social media. This is where the Trump campaign deserves enormous credit, from putting Donald Trump on Joe Rogan, on Theo Vaughn, on these over the top type podcast situations that communicated the people that were lower propensity. And so then by the time we knocked on the door, said, hey, we need to collect your ballot. Yeah, I just saw President Trump on Theo Vaughn. I just saw him on Rogan. He's amazing. So we are going to the people that aren't watching cnn, they're not watching the traditional news channels and media. And we were able to then in Arizona Chase over 200,000 ballots. Donald Trump won by 197,000 votes. In Wisconsin, you know, chase 60,000 ballots of low propensity voters won by 30,000 votes. And so we're not taking credit for anything, but we definitely helped play a role.

B (6:38)

You played an enormous role. And I want to ask you sort of how you got to this point. So for people who don't know the story, I mean, I was, I was here watching from the outside at a distance for a lot of the story. But for people who don't know, sort of the Charlie Crook Turning Point USA story. Why don't you explain where this came from? Because it is an amazing story.

A (6:52)

Yeah, it's an only in America story. And I'm an entrepreneur at heart. You know that. You know, you've done a great job building the Daily Wire and I've watched from afar on that and kind of see this become a beast. And on the Turning Point USA side, I always felt like we could do culture better and we could definitely do the college campus, high school outreach kind of space better. That it needs some disruption. And honestly, I hated losing and I saw us losing. And I know you had a similar kind of drive to the left and that we weren't playing on there cultural terms and that we are constantly in retreat. And so the idea was that can we bring entrepreneurial, disruptive principles to a nonprofit space and you know, create more chapters, create more high school experiences, create events like this. Can we do the grassroots thing better? And again, I, I have to give credit credit to President Trump. I know I sound like I'm repeating myself, but he kind of created an environment where politics and culture were almost indecipherable. Right. And you know the old expression, Andrew Breiper, you know it, you know, phenomenal legend, mentor of yours. And I followed, you know, @breitbart.com after him and he was just amazing. Politics flows downstream for culture. Now it's closer. Like politics and culture almost.

B (7:52)

It's a merger.

A (7:54)

Exactly right. It's a merger. They're kind of one and the same that you don't get politics, culture, and culture, politics. And so we at Turning Point would say, look at ourselves as a cultural transformation machine from our influencer network for some of the voices that we've helped elevate and lift up from some of the things that we've done on college campuses and high school campuses. And it's just been 12 years of grinding and a lot of people that thought we weren't going to last or that they could try to take us out. And the team deserves just such enormous credit. And there's been so many different inflection points and people that have poured into us and donors that believed in us. And, you know, here we are today, thanks to the, you know, glory and grace of God, with 400,000 donors and hundreds of thousands of students and this event, we have 20,000 people coming. They're thrilled to hear from you, by the way. And the president keynoting this on Sunday, which we consider to be a great testament to the work and what we've done. And we can kind of look at the landscape now, and we can say we are, as an organization, one of the more important organizations on the right, and something where the left never took us seriously. And I think that's what, really, it's an understatement.

B (8:54)

I mean, you may be the most important organization on the right at this point. And when you look at also sort of what your life is like now, could you have imagined that that's what your life was going to look like when you were 18? I mean, first of all, I don't think anyone could have imagined Trump himself. I mean, he just came in literally from nowhere. Wrecking Ball destroys everything in his wake. And you, on a daily basis, get to interact with President Trump. You get to interact with Elon Musk. It's a pretty cool life.

A (9:17)

I mean, it's awesome, man. And it's just. I have to just say, thank you, God, for putting us in this situation. And you kind of know what it's like to be in the public eye. Obviously, you do, and that's fine. That comes with a different life. A lot of death threats, a lot of derailments. The coolest part of what I get to do is be around just the most awesome people on the planet, right? Like, just sitting back and watching Elon Musk and President Trump talk about consequential political issues, like, what am I doing here, right? Like, I didn't go to college. I'm a kid from Chicago. I'm 31. Years old. And it really goes to show that this country still has meritocracy at its core. I didn't go to a great school, obviously. I wasn't born to, like, a very prestigious family. Did a couple of things, took a couple risks turned out. And I think that is a testament to why this country is so great, that if you prove yourself, if you have the right work ethic, if you have a little bit of grit and resolve, you can end up around the kings of today. And I think that's really cool. See, I have to pinch myself all the time. I never could have imagined it. I mean, I remember the first time I met President Trump. I was like, my life is set. I met a president, right? I'm all good. And now we are in 2024, going into 2025. I have a great relationship with the president. He asked me my opinion on certain things here or there. And again, he believed in us as an organization and me when others did not. And that also speaks to him. He's fiercely loyal. We've had his back and he's had our back, and he's always believed in us. And now everything here is largely testament to how he's poured into us.

B (10:46)

So looking at the next couple of years, at least before the midterms, what are sort of the big things on your agenda item? What do you think the big things should be on the GOP agenda item? What are the things that are also doable? Because obviously, when it comes to politics, I think there's a tendency sometimes to say, well, if we just have sort of a Nietzschean will, we can ram through anything we want. But as we can see from even this week, it's a pretty complicated process. There's a lot of sausage making that goes on. So what are the things that, as conservatives, we should all be looking forward to?

A (11:10)

Yeah, it's not all will to power. Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a dangerous political manual, to say the least. I will say that as far as turning point action, we have a very simple ask on the political side, which is our goal. And our hope is that we want the Republican Party to be as conservative as its voters. So we think it's unhealthy if there are senators from deep red states that act as if they are metropolitan Rockefeller Republicans. And this, the first kind of test of this is, can Donald Trump get his cabinet right? Absent any, like, bombshell, like, earth shattering stuff, does an incoming president who won a popular vote, an electoral vote landslide, and won some of these states by 20 or 30 points. Can he earn the trust of senators that keep on going back to the well every six years from their Republican voters saying, keep on giving me political power? We at Turning Point Action think we're uniquely positioned to help make that case because we are not born out of the Republican Party. We're an outside group. We're obviously loyal to the president. And it's going to be a test of candidate senators who might get a little wobbly when it comes to people like Tulsi Gabbard or Bobby Kennedy or Pete Hegseth. Can they say yes and confirm them? We hope. We think yes. And we're seeing good directional energy there. And Cash Patel, I would definitely add to that list. So we want to just try to make the Republican Party get into alignment with its voters. Very simple and easy ask. And then beyond that, we want to try to change the philosophy of the Republican Party. Be a party to win and win long term, invest in long term infrastructure, invest on it on the ground, and then accelerate this kind of cultural transformation that we've seen. I think we're entering a golden era of this country. I think we're going to see amazing economic growth. I think we're going to finally have our allies back in many different ways. I think we're going to have a secure southern border. I think we're going to deregulate the economy. I think we're going to be able to have a mass deportation force. And then we're going to see all these promises made and promises kept. And my hope is that we can kind of make the Democrat Party a minoritarian party for a generation, the same way FDR made the Republican Party a minority party for like 15 to 20 years. And it's really on us. It's for us to screw up, to be honest, and for us to mess up. And so, and then from there we have to do something dramatic with education. That's the core of everything we do at Turning Point usa.

B (13:13)

And one of the things that's really fascinating about President Trump as a political figure is just how pragmatist he is. I mean, I've spent some time with him. You spent way more time with him. And the thing that when people ask me about President Trump, I always say is that his only metric is winning. When you're talking about a meritocracy, when you talk about the thing that he actually cares about, it's just witness. And so that means that if a policy is tried and it doesn't work, he is not going to do that policy anymore. And it also means that he actually is going to be able to judge by results. And so all these people who are out there suggesting he's gonna be an extremist or that he's going to pursue crazy policies, gonna tariff everybody 75%, it's like, that's not what he's gonna do. He's going to do the things that win for the country, which is why we have such an opportunity going forward.

A (13:49)

Yeah. And I will say this, that out of the gate, he's gonna do what he campaigned on. You know, I was talking to a reporter recently, he said, well, do you really think that President Trump's gonna do mass deportations? Like, well, the American people knew he was gonna do it. So. Yes. I mean, it's not that surprising. Like, yes, he's gonna keep men out of female sports. Like, he's gonna drill, baby, drill. He's gonna have Israel's back. Like, he's gonna keep Iran in check. Like, he's gonna do his best to try to end the Russian, Ukrainian conflict. These are things he campaigned on transparently. And it's unique because in politics, like, for example, when Kamala Harris said, oh, I'm for frack, and we all knew she was a liar. And look, there's a lot of complaints people throw at President Trump. The one that I wanna make sure we're clear is that he tells, like, the blunt truth so directly that it almost makes you disoriented, where he's like, I'm sick of. I'm sick of losing. We're going to win again. We're not going to allow men in female locker rooms, and I'm going to defund every single school that does that. He means that when he says that, like, we're not going to put up with that anymore. And as far as, like, the extremists and the unshackled thing, I just kind of think it's laughable because everything he's talking about and the cabinet he's putting together is directly symmetrical and mirroring what he campaigned on. And it's not as if there's been, like, some surprise. Not he's like, oh, surprise, actually. Amnesty for everybody. And, you know, green cards. And so it was the most transparent campaign. Pledges and promises. 20 points. He said, the American people, this is what you. This is what you want. This is what you're going to get. And you're right. He cares the most about the country succeeding and thriving. And the first term, he did a wonderful job. And I think. And I'll Make a final point. I'd love your thoughts on this, too, Ben. I actually think the four years of exile was good for us. I think us being out of power made us ask, who are we? What do we want to do? Who are the best people to do this job? And I think it was good for him. I think it was good for me. I think it was good for everybody around him for us to really kind of say, no, we want this, and we're a better version of our former self, and that the second administration will be much better than the first.

B (15:36)

I think that you're exactly right on that. I also think that President Trump being out of power, I think one of the things that it did is it meant that he is coming in with a vengeance. He's not a lame duck president. He is somebody who's going to come in with a real agenda, and it's going to be like he has a second first term. I mean, normally we have a second term president, the second term. Nothing happens. Right. Second term of George W. Bush, for better or ill, nothing happened. And when it came to. Exactly when it comes to President Trump, not only does he have an agenda, he's treating this running on the ground just like that. And I think that that's a wonderful and unique thing. I also think that because the Democrats have lost their minds and because they've swung so far to the left, what that means is that what we are actually seeing is something that I've described as the normie revolution. What we're seeing is this just. It is now subversive to just be normal. I think one of the best examples of this was the bizarre attempt to paint JD Vance as a weirdo by Tim Walls, who is legit a weirdo. And JD Is one of the most normal people in the history of American politics. Married, has kids, served in the military, comes from a not particularly wealthy background, made something like he is the American story embodied. And somehow he was a weirdo who was having relations with. And meanwhile, these people who actually would have relations with couches and try to actually marry their couches are saying that there's something weird about us. And so what you're seeing is, I think, a surge of just, can we go back to normal? And Trump feels like normalcy now.

A (16:53)

Yes, it does. And that's what's so unique, is because we've been propaganda, I believe that Trump is the abnormal, and that, like, I don't know, like transgender strippers in front of the White House is normal, like, everything's fine or like, cocaine in the West Wing is fine, and actually it's good. And that's what's so unique about the President Trump's agenda is. So much of what he's talking about is actually just a rebalancing to the center of gravity where we once were. It's like, okay, a border. Like, we're not going to send all this crazy money to people that hate us. Like, we're going to have a social contract where our people come first. We're going to have a booming economy. I don't think that's radical. I don't think it's revolutionary. I think it's reasonable. And I will say this, that the one issue where the Democrats really went all in on and they thought they could break the will of our movement, and Matt Walsh deserves such credit for this. I've said this publicly and privately. I sent out a tweet, and I meant it sincerely. Is on the trans issue. And I think that Matt Walsh was, like, one of the, like, quiet reasons that we won this election, because him holding the line on the trans thing, he started this, like, sea of courage with myself included, saying that this is insane. We're not going to put up with this. The most successful political advertisement that President Trump ran, this campaign, the most successful, you know, this was the illegal immigrant transgender surgery funded by taxpayers. It was, like, so outrageous, right? Like, Kamala bragging about how literally didn't.

B (18:11)

Believe she had done that because it was so crazy and she had totally done it.

A (18:15)

And what I love is the Trump campaign. Brilliant from Susie Wiles. They ran it, like, during NFL football, right? It's like, we'll be right back. Two minute warning. And it's like, wait, what is this? And then Charlamagne on his show, the Breakfast Club, comments on it. They run another ad of his reaction to it. The Trump campaign spent $75 million on that ad. They did not spend a lot on ads. That one ad they went all in on. Now, what was it about that ad that animated people? It was so outrageous that it fit this vibe. Like, oh, she is as radical as people say, and she's bragging about it. It's not like it was like some, like, secret recording. It's like she was out in the open being like, I am going to use your taxpayer dollars to chop off the parts of illegal aliens in prison. And. And it just. It was like. And then the ad was like, donald Trump is for you. Kamala Harris is for they. Them. It kind of played into that kind of pronoun, police stuff. And yet President Trump was kind of a revolutionary back to normal.

B (19:10)

I think that's totally right. And one of the things that you're seeing, even when he's talking about the candidates who are considered out of the box, say, RFK Jr. One of the things that he said in a press conference this week, listen, I'm not getting rid of the polio vaccine. I think the dirty secret of this campaign is that Donald Trump ran as a moderate, okay? They treat him as though he's an extremist. He's actually a moderate. On virtually every issue that you can name. From, should we shut down the entity? The answer is no. But to should we trans the children? The answer is no. To should we lower taxes? The answer is yes. These are all, like, 80, 20 issues. And for some reason, Democrats have decided to take the 20%. It's insane.

A (19:42)

I think that's such a smart point, because the only thing, like, immoderate about Donald Trump was just, like, how the media portrayed him and like the rallies, like, whatever, fine. But, like, you think about you actually, if you just like, hey, These are the 20 things that Donald Trump stands for, okay? Like, the only one that I think that might be quote, unquote, radical was like, maybe what he wanted to do with immigration was a little bit, like, different than the status quo, but, like, not that much different than what Bill Clinton would have said in 1996.

B (20:05)

Also, the answer is not anymore. Because here's the thing. It was a total reaction to what if we leave the border wide open for three years?

A (20:11)

I mean, I know that with no checks.

B (20:13)

I mean, you live down here. I went down to the border and I actually looked at the border. It's legitimately wide open. There were no agents.

A (20:18)

It's a crime scene.

B (20:18)

I mean, there was a drone from the Mexican drug cartels flying on our side of the border, and the border patrol agents were telling me they could not shoot it down without explicit permission from Alejandro Mayorkas. So, yeah, I mean, the reaction to that from the American people is going to be like, maybe we should glue this thing shut. I mean, that's not exactly a wild reaction.

A (20:33)

Yeah. And so. And then President Trump always said, I ran. He ran on common sense. And this is what's so important, is that that as we lose our sensibilities of our Western culture, which is Judeo Christian in nature, we don't actually have a bearing on what common sense actually is. Is that who is to say that men in female locker rooms is wrong if you don't have a Shared Western morality that is derived from the Bible. Like, who's to say it's wrong that you shouldn't chop off kids, you know, body parts? And so what Donald Trump was, is he was this, this, this unapologetic force to bring us back to foundational Western morality, which I don't think anyone really appreciated.

B (21:07)

That's exactly right.

A (21:08)

Which is like, okay, we're gonna have sovereignty, we're gonna have borders. And when you look at a 35, 35,000 foot view, you're like, this is actually the most sensible political agenda, like, ever. And they're the radicals, like, they're the ones that are calling about, like, banning fossil fuels and like, getting rid of, like, we're gonna clamp down on like corporate price gouging, like insane stuff. Right. Whereas President Trump is running on stuff that is 9010 issues and did so in a cultural transformational way. And then secondly, and we could talk about this forever, he was also the most masculine political figure in a hyper toxically feminine culture. Right? So he was just like the absolute opposite. We were living under, like, you can't say that feelings first. Reason is dead. And he was just like, nope, we're going to be unapologetic. And we're.

B (21:55)

If you had a line chart and 0 was sort of gender neutrality. And so on the far left, you had Tim Walls and Doug Emhoff.

A (22:00)

Bingo.

B (22:00)

On the far right, you have Donald Trump.

A (22:02)

That's right.

B (22:03)

That's exactly right.

A (22:03)

And so it's just like that is. It's hard for people to articulate that, but that is kind of just something that people sense. And from Donald Trump's like, red tie to his alpha posture, you know, just like, that's a guy that I want representing me, not, you know, whatever Walls is.

B (22:19)

Yeah, exactly. Well, speaking of these gender issues, you guys at tpusa, you're working with us, we're working with you.

A (22:24)

We're really excited about this.

B (22:25)

To release this brand new documentary, Identity Crisis, which is all about the detransitioner movement. We're really excited about. This is going to be released on January 10th for free on X for a couple of days. And it goes to Daily Wire plus exclusively, which we're also very excited about. Tell me about the documentary.

A (22:39)

Yeah, we've been working on this for a while and we're so honored to be partnering with you guys on this. It's perfect partnership. Look, Matt Walsh did what is a woman? And in some ways that's not like a sequel, but this is a, this is A good accompaniment to that general idea because this goes deep into the severity and the graphic brutality and the medieval nature of what transitioning actually is, which is in some ways it is the result of if you can't answer what a woman is, you're going to start chopping off 12 year olds breasts. Then we get into the movie in great detail on the parents that lose their kids through divorce settlements and medical kidnapping. This is not just a one off thing. This is happening with great detail across the country. And Matt Walsh will say it best, that the T and LGBT really is tyrannical. It is, it is that it is full totalitarian control of your speech, of your children, of your body. And that's what's so interesting, is that it cloaks itself on its surface. The trans agenda as live and let live. Just let me wear a dress and you be you. And honestly, my temperament, I'm fine with like, okay, I guess, like, and I don't think it's right, I think it's weird. But like, okay, if you want to wear a dress in your living room, I'm not going to have a public policy measure against that. But it's never been about that. That's always been okay. Instead it's like, no, allow me to propagandize your 13 year old child and then put them under general anesthesia and chop off their breasts because it's good for them. So we are going right at the heart of what I hope is going to lead to a consensus that we can ban this in every state in the country. My, like little pet, one of my pet projects, I got four or five of them, is for this incoming Trump administration to sign executive orders and launch a DOJ legal blitzkrieg into every general affirming care center in the country, from Lurie Children's in Chicago to Mayo to the Nashville one. That we need, we need, we need criminal Investigations. Civil investigations. Dr. Ethan Heim at Houston's Children is under federal indictment for this. I know that you covered it on your show. This is one of the moral crimes of the century. We're exposing it in this movie. Identity Crisis. People should check it out. And hopefully we want this to eventually get to the audience, White House staff and government officials to build a consensus 10 days before inauguration Day that this can be a public policy agenda so that we can end this in this country once and for all, folks.

B (24:48)

Stay tuned for that on X. That's gonna be available exclusively on X on January 10th. And then a few days later over at Daily Wire Plus Charlie I really wanna thank you, say congratulations. Very few people outside the President and the Vice President elect, outside of that, very few people in this country have had more to do with the success of Donald Trump's reelect effort. And I think this may have turned around the entire country. So you deserve enormous thanks, enormous kudos. Well done.

A (25:11)

Well, thank you. I'll throw it back at the Daily Wire. I love the Daily Wire. You guys are doing great work. And you guys really had the President's back when it mattered most during the summer and fall. I remember you texted me, said, I will climb through broken glass to do whatever it takes to get Trump elected. And it really helped a lot. Mattered a lot. And this is a victory for the American people. And glory be to God, we have four great years and maybe beyond that with J.D. vance and more, but it is a reprieve from the terror that we're living under right now.

B (25:35)

Charlie Kirk, again, thank you so much. Congratulations. Look forward to the rest of this amazing event.

A (25:39)

Thanks, man.

B (25:40)

Gender affirming care is healthcare and it can actually be suicide prevention care.

A (25:45)

They're talking about hormonal therapy or sex reassignment surgery on children. I thought fixing me externally would fix me internally. Of course I was wrong. Puberty blocker surgery is big money maker. Hospitals, physicians. It's evil to tell children happiness lies on the other side of double mastectomies. That's a five alarm fire. It's criminal.