A (0:00)

Thank you for listening to this Podcast 1 production now available on Apple Podcasts, Podcast 1, Spotify and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Hey everybody. Hope you had a great week.

B (0:10)

We enjoyed delivering instant news about the Democrat National Convention straight to you all week. Please go back in the archives from just this last week and a half and please dive deep. It's some of the best episodes we've ever done. Listen to one or two episodes, send them to your friends, and email us your questions. Always@freedom charliekirk.com Yesterday was a tough day for me. I gave the eulogy at my mentor's memorial in Lamont, Illinois, Bill Montgomery. Without him, there would be no Turning Point usa. So for this weekend's episode on Saturday, here, I just wanted to share what I shared with his family, some of his closest friends, and our staff at Turning Point usa. I hope you'll enjoy it and I hope you'll be able to take some lessons away from how Bill Montgomery impacted my life and so many other lives. And if you feel compelled to do so, help support what he cared most about, turning point USA tpusa.com Please enjoy this eulogy that I gave for my friend Bill Montgomery. Here it is, Charlie.

A (1:15)

What you've done is incredible here. Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus. I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

C (1:26)

I want to thank Charlie. He's an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point usa.

A (1:36)

We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here. Thank you, Brad. That was terrific. So you can see a constant theme today of people that needed to be believed in, families that were formed, literally two marriages that we know of just today, thanks to Bill. Bill was a creator. He was somebody that wanted to lift up anyone he came in contact with. So I'm going to share just some of my favorite stories with Bill. Talk about the legacy that is still going on today thanks to Bill and what he was really and truly passionate about. Some of you have heard these stories before, but some of them are pretty awesome.

B (2:32)

I have to say.

A (2:32)

They make what Bill did for me and for this country was incredible. So I first met bill on April 17, 2012. You see, more so than almost anyone else when people talk about Bill. They almost know the exact minute they met him. They know exactly what they were doing. That's how you know that somebody's special. And sometimes, like, I don't really know how I met that person. Everyone almost always like, you know, I met him right there. And it's just his uniform almost never changed. I use that word uniform because it was very unique. His Turning Point pin, eventually. Starbucks coffee, of course. Heavy whipping cream. Two Splendas. I think I got that right. A smile that kind of just made you stop in your tracks. I think that's such a beautiful picture that captures it. I don't think I ever saw Bill Montgomery wear a T shirt. I think that it was always a blazer and one of these ties. This was actually one of his favorite ties. Very interesting looking, colorblind, thin eyeglasses. He went through a phase where he wore thicker eyeglasses, and he went back to the thinner ones. Cole hand shoes, which I think we're all honoring correctly tonight. Comfortable shoes. The latest watch or Iwatch of some sort. He had more gadgets than I think he even could properly catalog. An iPad, of course, in one hand. An iPhone, probably in his pocket here. Another iPhone in probably the pocket right here. A pocket full of business cards. He would have his right here. Don't know the correct term. Just as many business cards as you can imagine to just give out. June 3, 2012, we went to CPAC Chicago, and Bill had cut out these little handmade business cards. Those of you that knew Bill, he loved doing his own printing, right? So he had the little. And it just was very simple. It's like Charlie, Kirk and I just think we called it the Turning Point. Just so you know, that was the original name, was the Turning Point. We obviously rebranded it from there. And then on June 5th of 2012, I called him. I'll never forget where I was. And I said, bill, I think I actually want to do this thing for a couple months. And any other human being would have come up with 92,000 reasons why this was a bad idea. You have no experience, you have no money, you have no connections. You're just out of high school. No one's going to take you seriously. None of that even just like, was not even just on the radar screen. It was. Quite honestly, it was probably the Holy Spirit, where it was like, I've been waiting for you to call. It was like, almost like, yeah, I've been waiting for this. It's almost like he saw this whole thing playing out, Whether consciously or. It's just for those of you that believe in a higher power, you know, exactly what I am talking about. And he's like, let's go. He's like, well, what do we do? He's like, just go. He's like, I'll drive, and you talk. That's basically what we did. And I think that the lack of understanding of what we were doing is hard to articulate, Right? We would just show up at Tea Party rallies, Susan Petty being one of them. And we would just show up at an event unscheduled, and Bill would go right up to the organizer 30 seconds before the event, and he'd say, I got a speaker for you. And they say, who are you? Just. And he set them down. He said, this kid all these things, and I was always embarrassed. I was like, bill, come on. He's like, no, just trust me. Just let me. He's always embarrassed. I couldn't. Honestly, looking back, I know exactly why he was doing it, but I just did not like it, right? But he would just go on and on and on, and they'd say, okay, we'll give him two minutes. So we'd go to Tea Party. To Tea Party. We would just go on the Tea Party website and just show up. And then all of a sudden, they're like, oh, maybe we'll let this kid speak a little bit longer. Maybe a little bit longer. Next thing you know, we would raise, like, $300, right? Like, well, we have enough to kind of almost do a bank account, you know? Almost. And we just started to meet Bill's friends. We met Bob Bunda. We met so many people across Lemont. So that summer was very interesting, but every day, it was insanely positive from Bill, no matter what was happening. I had a great. I have a great way to describe Bill, and he never said this, but it's so true. It's like the best thing about being surrounded is you could shoot in any direction. Like, that's exactly how Bill viewed life, right? Doesn't matter what's happening. There's nothing but opportunities around you. Right? It's perfect. So on July 4th of that summer, I got on Fox. We started to get a little bit more notoriety. And then Bill called me in late July with this crazy idea. And it's this next week would have been eight years ago, exactly where it was. The Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. I didn't know what a convention was. I thought it was like a hockey game, right? Where you could just buy tickets and StubHub. I think Bill shared that belief, but it doesn't matter. These are just obstacles you just go through Them, right? That's what you do. Tickets. Who cares? We'll just go. So Bill said, let's go down to Tampa, Florida. I said, what do you mean? So now we'll just figure it out. So I'll never forget, he sent me the Expedia itinerary. We were staying in Siesta Key, if you know anything about Tampa geography. Siesta Key is like an hour, 45 minutes from Tampa. But Bill's like, I love to drive. We'll get up early and we'll go up there. Okay. If you know Bill, you know exactly the type of experience I'm describing. So we land. The first day's a hurricane. I don't know if you remember that literally a hurricane hit Tampa, Florida. We go down to Siesta Key at a day's inn, and this Bill would never tell this story, but he was having trouble that week. Medically. He never let me know about it. He actually. I found out this months later. He checked himself into the emergency room, solved the issue at like 3 o' clock in the morning and came back in time to make sure that I had this coffee I needed to drive me back up. Never knew about it. That's the type of guy that he was. So we would hang around the Republic, we'd hang around the Republican Convention again. All I had was like these homemade business cards from Bill's basement, right? The Turning point. We finally changed to the turning point USA. And so Bill every 20 minutes was just throwing ideas at me, right? And I would. It's just a natural state of being to challenge that is when you just get it nonstop. You just can't. You have to, like, be somewhat contrarian. You're like, okay, well, maybe this is not going to work. No, we're going to meet people, we're going to do this. Let's go hang out where all the people are hanging out. So if you've ever been to a convention, it's kind of like a fortified deal. You can't get past a certain barrier without credentials. So I thought you could buy tickets like at StubHub or whatever. Bad idea. But Bill's like, oh, we'll figure it out. We'll get inside. What do you mean, we'll figure it out? He came to, like, the second to last day on Wednesday, which would have been four years ago, and we were just sitting in the Hilton and Bill had struck up a conversation with somebody, and it's articulated in the book Time for a Turning Point. And I went to just go charge my phone or Something. And Bill came up to me so excited. He said, charlie, I got us a pass. So what are you talking about? He got us a pass. He's like, we're going to go in right now. I said, okay. So I don't know what kind of barter deal he did. One of my friends named Evan was involved. But we got into the convention, but Bill didn't stop there. It was one thing that we're actually in the convention. He's like, let's go find Neil Cavuto. Because I was on his show a month and a half earlier and we hunted down Neil Cavuto, I'll tell you what. And Bill got Neil and he got him cornered and he said, neil, you need to have this young man on this program all the time. And he's like, who are you? And they actually hit it off after the initial. And Neil did. He had me on live from the convention, which is valuable space. And it's all because of Bill. We actually have a picture of Bill and I there. I think it's in one of the things there. So that was a real good kind of launching off point. Early September 2012, went through a really tough time. Something happened in the media that I just was less than pleased with. And Bill didn't let me get down. I actually remember driving to Peoria with him that day. He's like, let's go for a road trip. So why? I don't know. He's like, let's just. We'll get it out of our head. So we went down to Peoria and he showed me all the back roads of where he grew up and showed me right by the river and showed me the hill that his father raised him and loved. Small town America. He loved driving the back roads. In fact, sometimes I would make a joke. I said, bill, you're at the lake house. It's going to take you three and a half hours to get to Lamont. Because you'd always take the back roads and kind of. And it's like half a day experience. But he loved it because I think he liked being in touch with organic America. Like, he just Artificial America really bothered him, right? He wanted to know the stories, he wanted to know the experiences. And so then this is talked about. And I only mention this because memories sometimes fade. I talk about this where I published it five years ago. But there was this moment where I was really done. Like, I was like, we're not raising money. We have $900 in the account. This was December of 2012. And Bill basically forcibly did not let me quit. That's as aggressive as I've ever seen. Bill was like, you're not doing it. So Bill's negotiating position was like, you're not stopping. I was like, well, what do you mean? Like, we have no success. He's like, not going to happen. It was not even like, I'm not going to let it happen. It's like, not happening. He's like, you're better than this. Because I was ready to just kind of, like, close it all up. And this was fun. Didn't happen in the slightest. We then took a trip to New York City that we couldn't afford, but Bill said, we're going to go hunt down Neil Cavuto again. I was like, my goodness, the Neil Cavuto thing, it's true. And so we did, and Bill hunted down Neil Cavuto and got me back on the program and on Stuart Varney and I still have those relationships to this day. And you guys know, it's just snowballed into. Just grew from there. And it was this relentless belief in young people. He was so focused on mentoring people that did not have direction. And, Brad, you said it the best. It's like he didn't care as much about what his day was going. Like he might have forgotten to do something or this. It's irrelevant. A successful day for him was like, did I make one young person's path a little bit straighter? Like, a successful day for him was, did I help somebody figure out with more clarity of what they're supposed to do with their life? That's all he cared about. That's all he cared about. And so we have some of our turning point directors here that had a chance to know him and thank you guys for coming. But he would always be bragging about the success of the organization, and I use that word intentionally because he felt so much pride in it, and he should. Without him, it doesn't exist. It's a biblical term, ex nihilio. Out of nothing. It was like, breathed into existence, right? And not only that, it wasn't supposed to exist. Through all of the different challenges, he was relentlessly positive as to what this organization could accomplish. So I called that one encounter the Starbucks on a snowy afternoon. I was in Rosemont. It was too. It gets dark at, like, 1:30 in the afternoon around here, as you well know. It was just one of those unbelievably depressing days. Just. Just ice everywhere was awful. And you would have thought it was 85 degrees outside and sunny Because Bill was just as chipper as ever. He's like, this is the greatest opportunity. And no matter what happened, no matter what would happen, he said, but you haven't seen the positive yet that could come out of this. I'm like, bill, what is the positive? Like, come on. And it was this incredible thing, right? Because it was a 72 year old and an 18 year old, it's almost poetic, honestly, right? Where you have someone who's literally four times older than the principal and it's. It's like the young person is constantly challenging the aged wisdom, right? And I think it would be incomplete to say that he was flying blind. He wasn't. I think that would be a misinterpretation of what Bill was doing. It's as if he had such a gut instinct and a path. He kind of saw all of it. And it wasn't that he was surprised to see the growth of Turning Point, because he would tell me, he's like, you don't understand. One day you're going to have staff, you're going to have an office. We're going to do all that. He donated that beautiful garage. It's for office space that we still use to this day, right down in downtown Lamont. You guys can drive by it after the service. 217-½-illinois street and I'll tell you what, that was one of the funniest things. Every time I hear that address, I smile. Because Bill was so proud of the half. He was so proud of it because it was an opportunity to tell a story, right? So we'd be in a donor meeting up in Wisconsin or Ohio, and they'd say, I'd like to send you some money. What's your address? I said, oh, boy, here we go. And he said, Our address is 217-½-illinois street and the Secretary would be like, what are you talking half? What is this, Charleston, South Carolina? Right? And so he's like, no, it's a converted garage. If you're ever in Lamont, I'm going to show you around. In fact, you should move to Lamont, lived there and run for mayor. And they're like, I've known you for 20 seconds, right? And that's the type of guy he was. In fact, I believe he has more of a claim to the mayoral office of Lamont than any other human being. Like, no one, no elected official could ever believe in the city of Lamont as much as Bill. But it was almost like Lamont was a microcosm of his vision for the Country. I drove around in that Thunderbird with him all across the Midwest. I did that once all the way to western Iowa and back. And he loved small cars. He loved it. He loved that little race car of his. He loved the Mazda of his. And he had another expression where he used to say all the time, you never know. He always used to say that. You never know. And I just think that was so. That phrase was so embodied in how he approached every single encounter. It was from a belief that the next thing is going to be better than what we're currently going through right now. And we can call that optimistic. I think it's more like hopeful. And I think we have so little of that right now. It's like what we're about to go through could be the greatest thing ever. I have the words written down here. Optimistic, magnanimous, positive. It's hard to articulate how many lives that he touched. It's actually ongoing. That's what the cool thing is, is that it's not actually a temporary number. In fact, it's going to grow forever. Think about that. Like, sometimes when we remember loved ones, we say, well, he touched all these people. Well, that's not. We don't know. The fact is he might have touched all of Western civilization without even knowing it. Every speech I give, every chapter that our Turning Point USA students start, every person that graduated from Turning Point that has been influenced by what we do, it's ongoing. It's as if that light that he shined in the darkness is going through prism after prism after prism and millions and millions of people, all just from one guy. It's incredible. Never more than one phone call away. And I mean that. And so whether it be 3am, 6am doesn't matter. He would always answer the phone with. He'd always answer the same way. Hello. Always at that. Kind of just ready to talk to you. Just kind of handing it off to you is always pleasant. It was never like, what do you want? Right? It was never like, why are you calling me at 2:00am it was, hello. Yes, of course we'll get that printed. I'll drive you there. I'll deliver the books to your home. At 4 o' clock in the morning, it's like, yeah, what else do you need? Always. The answer was always yes. The question was just in his mind, how is he going to do all of it? His favorite place, at some of our big Turning Point USA events, we've hosted the most amazing events that he believed in. He was always pushing me. I'll Never forget it. We hosted our first Student Action Summit in Holiday Inn. And we thought we were, like, the coolest thing, right? We had 300 students there. We were in kind of a room smaller than this. I thought it was on top of the world. And Bill said, but it's just the beginning. Come on, Bill. Let me enjoy it. He said, no, dream bigger. Aim higher. Think bigger. And I think that my staff is like, so that's where he gets that from, okay? They're like, okay, so. And the answer is yes. But his favorite place at these massive conventions, back in December, being the greatest example of it, 5,000 students, President, Vice president, all these incredible people. Rush Limbaugh. Bill would come in and out for maybe one speaker. But no, his favorite place at a convention. And all of our staff knew it was in the absolute back of the back of the convention where he would hold court, where he'd just go find a random kid and buy him a cup of coffee. When I mean random, I mean random, right? Just a kid that's just kind of standing in line, just looks like he's a little passive. And Bill would go up like, can I buy a cup of coffee? They have no idea who he is, right? They have no idea. They don't know if he's a board member. They don't know if he's a speaker or a lecturer. And he said, massive turning Point pin, right? Like the biggest pin ever. I think we did many different variations. He always is this big, right? He'd sit him down and he'd just talk. Active listening, as Brad beautifully said, leaning into them. And then at the end of the conversation, and it was never Bill that ended the conversation, though. It was the student that probably had to go and do, right? Bill never ended a conversation, right? Unless it was something for Edie or something. He enjoyed the process of learning about other people. He embodied the biblical principle that every person can teach you something you need to know. He embodied that perfectly. And then while all the music and the lights and the laser beams are going off on the main stage, and ladies and gentlemen, introduce Rush Limbaugh. All this Bill was pouring into a kid that needed it. And we have received so many emails at turning point of kids that didn't commit suicide because of Bill, people that are living healthy lives because of Bill, people that have their. Their whole life together. Because Bill very well could have been front stage and center at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit, looking at what he helped build, right? He could have just been enjoying it, but for him, he was like, that's on autopilot. That's fine. Who else needs me? Whoa, that's very deep, right? Because it's very easy to just be like, oh, yeah, look at this incredible hill we've conquered. For him, it was like, there's a kid out there that needs to hear something that I can lean into him. Amazing. That's where he was actually most comfortable. To be honest with you. He was most comfortable in that intimate setting, leaning into other people. So here's seven lessons that I think we can derive from Bill that are applicable. And then I'll get into something else, which is, first of all, and this very people say, how do we live on the legacy? I agree with all of that. And one of the things that I can smile, that I am very thankful happened was last summer, and it was not easy, but we did it. Where Bill did finally meet President Trump, that was something. The picture is right there, and there's actually a picture right there where I'm pointing at Bill and the President smiling because I'm telling the President, without him, none of this existed. And that was the one thing that Bill used to say, Charlie, I'm never going to ask you for anything, but I really want to meet. I really want to meet the President. Because he was having the Trump for President signs made a decade before anyone even thought it was possible. I mean, it was. He was months ago, actually, back in April, he was xeroxing me and sending me, scanning, I should say, all of these documents of things where he was just sending around pamphlets to local. Lamont Trump for President. We need a businessman. This is back in 2011. But him meeting the President, I think was, was, was very. He really. He really meant a lot to him. It really did. So the first lesson is this. We talked about this, but it's very applicable. Find one person today that needs you to believe in them and lift them up. And what I mean by believe in them, it's, don't just check the box and move on, but, like, really get into it, right? Really lean into it. That was always built. Number two. Beautifully said by others. Love your country. He was. My goodness, man, if we could have a country that loved America as much as Bill, none of these, I just forget it. It's like, it's just the patriotism exuded from him. He was a true patriot. There's nothing he wouldn't have done for his country. And that's a really special thing. This is a good one. And I love this picture is smile more and complain less. I think Those are four good words. Smile more in your life and just complain less. He was not a complainer. He wasn't. He suffered at times from sciatica. You know, he had issues that he could have always been complaining about, but he really lived the embodiment that age is just a state of mind. When he was around, people would always say, he is the youngest 77 year old, the youngest 78 year old I've ever met. Right. You feel like you were dealing with an 18 year old. Smile more, complain less. Number four, create the future that you can dream of. And he's really. He really showed that you can create something that makes the world a better place. Number five is anyone can change the world. Anyone can. And there's no excuse. That is a living legacy of Bill. Number six is kind of a really. I mean, being on road trips with him and being all across the country and it, it didn't really hit me. He actually hated flying. He hated it. He was claustrophobic if he had to sit on an aisle with his left hand and even with that. But he never told me that while we were flying around the country because he never wanted me to feel like it was a burden. I didn't know that until years later. But he still had that chipper attitude, which is to seize the day. Every day is an opportunity. At the end of it, you could do something moral and something good. I think this is the seventh thing, which is a. We all need to hear this in our country right now, which is that things can actually get better. Like, that's a really. I think we need to keep saying that, that things can actually get better. He embodied that better than any other human being I've ever met. It's like he didn't have no tolerance for many things. He had no tolerance for negativity, none. When people were negative, he was just impulsively using the weight against them and saying, but have you seen the whole picture yet? Like, no, Bill, things are bad. No, they're not. They're just about to be good. Like, no matter what. It was amazing. So a lot of us are here because Bill touched us individually, directly or indirectly. Right. And I. I want to tell you about the last conversation I ever had with him. It was on July 3rd. I was in South Dakota. Erica was with me, and I. Again, I. It was the Holy Spirit. I hadn't called Bill for about a month and a half and I had awful cell service, but I was sitting at a table and there was all this political pageantry going on in Anticipation of the Mount Rushmore thing. I turned to Erica, said, I gotta call Bill. Kid, you not right. Stood up and went and called Bill. Looking at the beautiful hills of Rapid City, South Dakota, right there in the Black Hills. And Bill and I had the greatest conversation. It was just calm. It was mutual. It was talking about the crazy things we've been through. And it was just no other way to describe it than the Holy Spirit that just said, you gotta make that phone call right now, right? And at the end of the call, I'll never forget how it, how it ended. I said, we were talking about all sorts of different things and I don't know why I said it, but I said, bill, you know I always have your back. He said, I know you do, Charlie. I know you do. And that was it. And so the way I interpret that is Bill would want all of us to continue to press on for the betterment of our country and for young people. That's what having his back is. Because as Brad, you said it perfectly. He actually never wanted to be on center stage. In fact, he really didn't. It was disinterested him. Bill didn't want to be at the big flashing lights being like, oh, look at me. Having his back would actually be believing in someone who needs it. That's what that is. And that's all that he would want. So as we ask ourselves now, what can you do to make the world a better place? It's be more like Bill Montgomery. Care less about just kind of how the light shines on you and maybe what is good for the country. Maybe there's an 18 year old right now that needs to hear from you. Maybe there's someone that's contemplating self harm right now that needs that phone call. He would call people every week that he'd only met once and check in on them. How you doing? Well, not doing great. And he would be on the phone for an hour and a half just believing and leaning in on them. It's incredible pouring into them. So that's what I plan to do. I. I miss him. I really do. Terribly. Brad. I completely agree. It has not set in yet, hasn't, because at times we would go a month without seeing each other, or two months, we would text back and forth. But a couple days ago, I looked at my phone, I was like. And then it began to hit me. I was like, I hadn't gotten a text from Bill in a while. And it was. No matter what it was, he would always be watching Fox. He'd always be Watching something, and he'd say, keep it up. You're doing great. I love this. By the way, can you speak at these four different rallies, call these six different people? I have an idea. Call me. Right. No matter what, it was perpetually planning and optimistic. One man did something so special for our country. One person. And he deserves credit for that. He does. He never, ever sought it. Never did. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't give it. So every time you see a turning point leader, a person who's ever been touched by your organization, it's because of one guy that came up to me in April of 2012 and said, you shouldn't go to college. Go do something different. That I think is the greatest call to action to remember Bill Montgomery that I think we could possibly remember. So I'd like to close in prayer and then we will have a lunch service. And for those of you watching live, thank you and apologize for any of the. The audio issues. So please, please join me in a word of prayer.