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- [00:04]
Charlie Kirk
My name is Charlie Kirk. I run the largest pro American student organization in the country, fighting for the future of our republic. My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth. If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're gonna end up miserable. But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful. College is a scam, everybody. You gotta stop sending your kids to college. You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible. Go start a Point USA College chapter. Go start a Turning Point USA High School chapter. Go find out how your church can get involved. Sign up and become an activist. I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade. Most important decision I ever made in my life. And I encourage you to do the same. Here I am, Lord. Use me. Buckle up, everybody. Here we go. Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble gold investments@noblegold investments.com, that is noblegoldinvestments.com. all right, let me say something about Q and A before we get started. So this is a majority conservative audience, I would imagine. Right? So in. If someone who is on the left or someone who disagrees comes up to ask a question, I ask you not to heckle or interrupt. Show respect and show them the respect that they usually do not show us when we show up to events and public places. So please, just be tolerant and to the extent of, let them get their ideas out and then we can respond appropriately. Okay. It takes courage to come up at a conservative event and let your voice be heard. So just show them that, and then we can respond from there. Okay.
- [01:54]
Kiara
The first question, I was wondering if you could give some encouraging words to students who are being alienated by teachers, their communities, and their friends because of their Christian or conservative values.
- [02:09]
Charlie Kirk
That's a really important question. So students there raise your hand if you think you've been graded differently or treated differently because of your beliefs. Yeah, basically every hand goes up, so. That's right. Marco says, worth it. Yeah. Look, I want to say this. So there's a. There's a disagreement on the right. And I have a lot of respect for Ben Shapiro, but he has a different answer than I do on this. And I'll kind of say this. So, Ben, and this is not precisely your question, but I'll incorporate it. So the question. Here's the question. Do you lie on your term paper or how you present yourself to your professors to get a good grade. That's a question a lot of people ask, right? Is like it's easier to kind of hide and to not confront things. So Ben says, yes, lie, misrepresent your beliefs, get the good grade, and get through college or high school. I see it differently. I do not believe getting a good grade is nearly as important as creating strong people filled with integrity, willing to fight for truth at all. And so now why am I bringing this up? Because if you wanted to, kind of, those of you that are conservative wanted to have an easier life, then just pretend to not be a conservative and just keep your head down and, you know, just pretend to be something that you're not and delete your social media. I think there's a lot more important things in life than that. So the word of encouragement is this. First, something that is true that you don't want to hear, and then something that is true that you probably will want to hear. It's never going to stop. You will be harassed, called names, demonized, victimized. You will be smeared and slandered. You will lose a lot of your friends, and you'll doubt whether it's all worth it. Sound fun, right? Well, here's the second thing, though. You will be a stronger, tougher, more resilient person that will look around at your peers one day while they're worried about whether or not they're being called the right pronouns. And you will be. You will have your direction, you'll have resolve, you'll have a intestinal fortitude, you'll have gusto that will run circles around an increasingly fragile society. And you will have what is so lacking in America today, grittiness and toughness. And that is something that I want to instill in every single young person. So, yeah, it's going to be tough. We here turning point USA are here to help you get through that, through our networking events, through our Young Women's Leadership Summit, through our chapter events, through the events like this tonight. So, you know, you're not alone. But we want to try to continue to rise up the citizen of young people and students to be able to take a stand. But it's going to be tough, but it's worth it. God bless you. Thanks for being here tonight.
- [04:40]
Jonathan
Hi. I wanted to ask, how would you
- [04:42]
Max Mickelson
advise that those of us who plan to stay in California effectively convince others to do the same, instilling the same
- [04:48]
Jonathan
passion to fight for a conservative California
- [04:51]
Max Mickelson
instead of fleeing to other conservative states?
- [04:53]
Charlie Kirk
Yeah, it's a great question. Right. So start local. I think that for those of you that live in Orange county, take back Orange County. Orange county is a great project. Focus on it. It's doable. If you're not personally volunteering for local candidates, get involved. Orange county is a great first step. It really is on a variety of ways, whether it be congressional involvement, whether it be city council, school board, super important. Look, you're not going to be able to change the whole state in just one election cycle. It's not going to happen. I know a lot of people were upset with the results of the recall. I certainly was. But I really was in support of the recall then and now. I thought it was a great thing to show the people in charge in Sacramento that they're at least still going to have to get up and, you know, pretend that they represent their voters, spend a bunch of money. And I think it also invigorated a lot of you to get involved in the process that you otherwise would not have been involved in. I thought it was a really beautiful thing. So. And also I just got to say that from a political standpoint, which is not, you know, something that I'll just talk about personally, not on behalf of Turning Point USA in this sense, which is if the races, you get involved from a congressional standpoint in Orange county, they can and will determine the future of the House of representatives in Washington D.C. so all the while it might feel as if the state is lost, but the. There's five congressional districts in Orange county, or did they go down to four now with the new maps? There's three now, there used to be five if I'm not mistaken. Right? Yeah, there's four. So those four, I don't know how they probably obliterated the maps. Right. But the direction of those four seats will be highly consequential to whether or not it'll be Speaker Pelosi or Republican speaker of the House. Right. That's a very, very important dividing line. And so finally I'll say with this though is that one of the keys to saving California is continually getting the churches to rise up and to speak truth. And we have some pastors here in the audience that have done such an amazing job. James Cadiz was here, Rob McCoy, Jack Hibbs, so many phenomenal people. And then, look, if you believe California is your home and is your future, then don't allow someone to just automatically take your future and your home from you. Fight for every inch. And I believe that it's going to be a long term project. But there is, there's a lot more hope for California than I think people realize. Thank you. God bless you. I appreciate it.
- [07:23]
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- [09:33]
Jared
Hi, Charlie. My name is Jared. I'm the president of the Turning Point chapter at Yerba Linda High School. So Last week on April 5, in a 3 to 2 vote, my school board passed a resolution to ban critical race theory in my district. So my question is, what's the next steps to ensuring that we have a good education, even after that ban.
- [10:00]
Charlie Kirk
That's great. So it's a two part dance, so that's great. Now you need to say, okay, let's get pro American curriculum in our schools. So what does that look like? Right? Hillsdale College has done a lot of work in this. We're starting to do a lot at Turning Point usa. But we have to teach people what is the American story? What is the proper way to view American history? What is America? Was it a mistake? Was it something that just kind of fell out of the sky? There's just a couple things I'll share here that I think could really excite high school students that they're definitely not taught in school. America was summoned into existence at a time and a place that is very unusual. In fact, it's almost never happened before in human history. Most civilizations or countries stumble into existence. They're not summoned into existence. I want you to think about that. There was a decision to create America. China just kind of existed and you know, it's kind of the Yangtze River Valley civilization just kind of built into itself. Indus River Valley into India and so on and so forth. But America was a group of people that made a decision. Founding Fathers, we have a set of principles. We don't like what's happening. We're going to declare independence of things that are always true. And I'm afraid that most young people are not just being taught that. Even worse, they're being taught the opposite. They're being taught that the Founding Fathers were racist, bigoted slave owners. And they don't know their history. They don't know that the first anti slavery convention in America was hosted in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin in 1775. They don't know that nine out of 13 states before the Constitution was ratified in 1787 had already independently abolished slavery. A lot of young people never taught that. Vermont was the first state to abolish slavery in 1777, inspired by the Declaration of Independence. So the next step is get your local school districts and not just teach this, but inspire young people to, to be excited about the country they live in. A lot of young people, I think are unnecessarily depressed and negative about their life because they've been told the one thing that you have a yearning to associate with your country is awful. Deep down, I think most people actually want to support their home. And you kind of see that when you start to see like a Dodgers hat here and like a Rams hat here, like that's a different way of kind of showing association that you care about where you're from. Yet the one thing they're trying to get rid of is the Jersey of America. Like, and that's something, I think, that excites people, it creates happier lives, it creates stronger communities, when all of a sudden you're like, you know what? I here in California have a direct connection to a time where people decided to say that self government was a moral issue and that separation of powers and consent to the governed is worthy of protection and preservation, and they were willing to do something about it. I think that actually creates a much happier country to live in than one where you think everything is racist, bigoted, awful, colonialistic, homophobic, and backwards. At some point, that only way you could solve that question is to revolutionize the country. And that's what they're trying to get young people to do. It's like, if all that buildup was nothing but evil, then you might as well just burn it all down to the ground. So we as conservatives, and to answer your question, in Yorba Linda, the home of Richard Nixon, if I'm not mistaken.
- [12:56]
Commercial Announcer
Right.
- [12:58]
Charlie Kirk
Is to do this, which is to say to your local school district, we want to create a curriculum that creates grateful and informed citizens and an informed sense of patriotism that is not political, that is essential to the survival of the country. Thanks for being here tonight. God bless you.
- [13:19]
Jonathan
Hey, Charlie. My name is Jonathan. I go to Cal State Fullerton. I guess I have a simple question. Like, in a family full of, like, conservatives, we're kind of the minority in the. In a grand family. I just want to know how I can converse with the rest of my family, being, like, liberal and especially my friends as well, without obviously causing discourse and too much hurt, I guess.
- [13:41]
Charlie Kirk
Yeah. Well, never be the source of hurt. That's my first piece of advice. So don't be the one to call names or, you know, try to disassociate from people. But I think every conservative here in this audience would agree that you lost friends, but they left you. You didn't leave them a lot of. And that's. I never support the severing of friendships over politics, but I'm also realistic. It happens all the time where people stop being friends with you because of politics. I bet every single person in this room could resonate with that. So, look, this is a. This is a situation where you're going to have to balance. Are you going to tell the truth when there might be a consequence to it?
- [14:17]
Commercial Announcer
Right.
- [14:18]
Charlie Kirk
And it's Also how you say it, it's also how you communicate it. Having that balance of 100% grace with 100% truth, trying to be magnanimous in how you communicate, I think is really, really important. But also, you know, understanding that in family dynamics there you have to prioritize whether or not you want the family to kind of stay together or whether or not you want to make a political point. And I don't say this advice lightly. There's some politics that should. There are some families that should never discuss politics. And there's an argument for that. It's like they're so rigid in their beliefs, it's just going to cause a civil war. Now some people say, you know what? I'm going to say, what I want to say. And I know personally dozens of examples of parents that don't talk to children anymore. I think that's really unhealthy. I think it's not good at all. But it's a balance. I think that everyone should know where you stand. And then the final piece of advice is go to work on the family members where there's a little bit of openness. If you believe that you're right, if we believe we're right, then start to send articles, ask questions, start to understand their, you know, their points of where they think that they view the world in a certain way. Like, well, I just want to help people. Like, okay, then start to find things where all of a sudden left wing policies are not helping people. Right. Like how exactly does it help people when the border is wide open and women are being sex trafficked across there every single day? How does that help people? Exactly. And start to ask those questions. But. And then with your friends, I mean, I kind of answered that already. Just, you know, you're probably going to lose friends and they'll probably continue. And also know the difference between good faith arguments and bad faith arguments. Do not waste your time in bad faith arguments. Just don't. If people are just putting their hands in their ears saying, I don't want to hear anymore, just disengage. But if people are really curious and they're dialoguing with you, that's worth your time. But don't waste your time. And you could use your own prudence and your wisdom to navigate that. Thanks for being here tonight. Appreciate it.
- [16:12]
Unidentified Audience Member
Hey, Charlie, I loved your comment about how you said we should encourage younger people to invest and like, buy property and buy land. Recently, Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis, he passed SB, I think 1050, 1040, 4. I forgot the exact name. He wants to encourage or he wants to teach financial literacy.
- [16:31]
Charlie Kirk
Yes.
- [16:32]
Unidentified Audience Member
Is that something. It's kind of surprising because I've seen a poll that said a lot of parents disagreed with schools teaching financial literacy. And do you think that's something that as a nation can be pushed forward and financial literacy can be taught across all schools?
- [16:47]
Charlie Kirk
Yeah, I mean, it depends what the devil's in the details are. What do they mean by financial literacy?
- [16:51]
Michael
Right.
- [16:51]
Charlie Kirk
If the federal government is teaching us about financial literacy, certainly. Exactly. Trust them on that. Couldn't balance a budget to save their lives. Right. So. But no, I think financial literacy is super important. But here's the thing is that. So if you go. If you take a financial literacy textbook from 2003 or whatever, right. They'll say, saving is good. Save as much money as you can. Right. That's probably something you were taught in financial literacy. That's actually really bad advice right now. Like, you shouldn't be saving money right now. You're going to lose it. You're like, what do you mean? Inflation? Like, you're getting poorer every day. That money's in a bank account. So, yeah, people need to know that. That's really important. Now, I hope and I wish for a set of economic circumstances that reward good behavior and don't reward bad behavior. Saving is a good behavior. We should have a society that does reward saving, but right now we don't. Right now, people get actively poorer when they have cash sitting in their bank account. And so to kind of piggyback on this, I do support financial literacy. I think it's super important. The lack thereof is unbelievable to me. I think that a lot of the financial models kind of prey on young people and their illiteracy when it comes to credit cards and debt and all of that. And the first thing is, this is why I can't believe this is not a law. I want to start with financial literacy. Like, okay, you want to go borrow $80,000 to go to some school to study some kind of super fringe degree? Like, can we. Can we put some more checks and balances in for that? Like, before you actually know what you're signing up for, there was an amazing poll that showed like, 45 to 50% of young people are borrowing money, student loan debt, without their parents understanding how much money it actually is or their payment plan post graduation. That's insane. The way it used to work is you had to go dress up in a suit and tie and go to your local community bank and you'd have to persuade a banker to give you a loan to be able to go to college. And you know what they would say? Show me your grades. What are you going to study and how are you going to pay our bank back? And now you can go borrow $80,000 in your pajamas from your basement and your parents might not even know that. And so, yeah, I'm a big supporter and an advocate of getting more people financially literate. And finally, to be able to have young people own property is what we would call a conservatizing event. People that own homes, they don't go burn Wendy's, they don't. When you have a mortgage, you don't go marching the streets against like systemic inequality. Like, you have responsibility. We need to try to create a set of circumstances more where more young people have responsibility in their lives. The first of which is, do you own property? Like, do you own something that eventually could get more valuable and you have a reason to keep going to work when you're renting? That's not always the case. And so, and then you might say, well, Charlie, I own a car. Well, that's a depreciating asset. Well, actually not anymore. Amazingly, used cars are not a depreciating asset. Everything's upside down, right? Remember the financial l literacy stuff? It's like the more you drive it, it's actually getting more value. So strange. That's not sustainable. I'm just giving you a warning. This stuff is not. When you have cars that have 60,000 miles on them going more than what a used car did two years ago, that's like a fire alarm. Something ain't right. I'm telling you, not sustainable. Thank you for your question. Appreciate it.
- [20:07]
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- [21:31]
Kiara
Hi, Charlie. My name is Kiara and I'm the president of the Turning Point USA chapter at San Diego State University. Thank you. As we enter into yet another very important election cycle and with campaign ads popping up left and right, I find myself feeling torn on the Citizens United v. FEC ruling. My question is what is the conservative approach to the Supreme Court's ruling that corporations spending on campaign election communications can be unlimited, that corporations are people and that their spending, does it need to be regulated?
- [22:10]
Charlie Kirk
Yes. So let me walk you through the great question, by the way, and you do a wonderful job. You gave one of the best school board speeches I've seen, by the way. You did a phenomenal job. You really did. So it's a great question. So let's go through the lawsuit. The lawsuit was an organization called Citizens United, run by David Bossie, and it was about a movie. Actually. The question was whether or not a movie that attacks a political candidate is political speech that needs to be regulated by the Federal Election Commission. Okay. So it goes all the way up to the Supreme Court. And there was a couple, there was a couple questions I want you to think about before I get to the opinion. And a lot of the, even left wingers will agree that there might be some problems here where there was a question in front of the U.S. supreme Court. Someone asked, they said, wait a second, would you consider, for example, a book written unfavorably about Hillary Clinton to be political speech that should be regulated? And they said, yes. So I think that's incredibly dangerous. I think that if all of a sudden my podcast, my radio program, my articles and my books will be start regulated as if it's a campaign ad on television, I think there's something very wrong with that. In fact, that's what would have been the standard. We would have expanded a speech bureaucracy that would go after anyone, any person, any time, and say that's the equivalent of running an ad on television. That's the equivalent of running a 30 second ad. That is an attack on journalism, on commentary and speech. But you do bring up a Good point. Which I will say I do not think it's healthy, nor do I think it's sustainable to. To have major corporations that, whether it be the pharmaceutical corporations or labor unions or kind of public sector unions, or tech oligarchs like Reed Hastings or Reid Hoffman or any one of the big tech billionaires, Zuckerberg or Bill Gates, be able to parachute in and completely basically carpet bomb a race and make it where it matters less of what the candidate's message is. And it's just who's going to get the more outside money. Now, this is an important point. The left, they're always trying to repeal Citizens United. So basically the decision of Citizens United was, you can spend as much money as you want, no matter what. There'll be no restriction on it, okay? Now, because of that, believe it or not, the left has always been trying to get rid of that. In 2020, left wing groups spent $1.5 billion. Conservative groups spent $900 million. So it's actually the left that has been using this more in recent years, understanding they can pump a lot of what's called dark money into the system and trying to change, you know, persuasion and outcomes and all this. Let me just talk about from like a health of society standpoint. I don't like it. I wouldn't. I do not like the idea that someone can just parachute in with $500 million, like $400 million, like Mark Zuckerberg, and change the way elections themselves are actually done. So what is the conservative approach? I think the conservative approach should be the. That you make sure that political speech by individuals, commentators, podcasts, authors, and movies are protected no matter what. That is not political speech. However, I would support a law that is common sense and transparent that would say that if you're going to donate, you must be disclosed within 24 hours that there's no more anonymous donations. We must know where it's coming from. No more like giving through shell stuff or dark money. We want to be able to see it. And I do think that a reasonable cap on money and races is something that I think would actually deradicalize our politics. When all of a sudden we're starting to say that the Pennsylvania Senate race is going to be at $185 million Senate race, and Wisconsin's going to be $110 million Senate race. What then ends up happening? Unfortunately, massive corporations that don't always have our country's best interests at heart, like Disney will come in and start to run ads, and then candidates will then be beholden to those corporations to not represent their voters, but instead the people that drop the biggest ad spend towards the end of the campaign. And I don't think that's a good thing. In fact, I think we can have common cause on the left. So I'm worried that if we just blanket say, yeah, you know, repeal that decision, political speech from people like me would then soon be regulated. But I do think that a common sense middle ground could be found where all of a sudden we try to make it where we say there has to be some form of transparency and regulation with the amount of money pouring into some of these races. And I don't know about you, I'm so sick and tired of seeing these political ads already. It is exhausting. I don't think it's. I don't think it's good to constantly see negative political ads about how awful things are on this person. And I don't think it's healthy or good. Thank you for your question. You're doing a great job. Thank you.
- [26:44]
Unidentified Audience Member
So, Charlie, you've been a very strong supporter of President Trump, but when lockdowns descended on our country two years ago, President Trump did not take a strong stand for freedom. He consistently refused to fire Dr. Fauci. On March 20, 2020, he gave a press conference where he said that Gavin Newsom and Andrew Cuomo locking down their states. He said, they're taking bold, strong steps, and I applaud them. On April 22, he criticized Brian Kemp for reopening Georgia, and he also attacked Thomas Massie for criticizing the $2 trillion CARES act, which has contributed at least as much to this inflationary crisis as anything Biden's done. So when Trump did not stand up for our liberties, why should we stand for him as opposed to, say, Ron DeSantis in 2024?
- [27:26]
Charlie Kirk
Okay, fair question. So let me just first take my opinion. Let's just so you know where I stand. So I wrote a book that was published in February 2020 called the MAGA Doctrine, defending Trump and his policies and all that. You're right. And then with all of that, I came out in March and April saying that this Fauci guy's got to go. I was against lockdowns, federal spending. So I've been consistent all the way through, even publicly disagreeing with the Trump administration. I think Trump's instincts were right. I will push back a little bit. I think his instincts were right, and I think he was suffocated and unfortunately overwhelmed by a deep state medical bureaucracy that scared the living daylights out of him. And I believe that he probably has some form of, of regret that he would have handled things a little bit differently. Now, I'm not defending it because I think the lockdowns were the worst mistake in American history. I think they did more damage than we'll ever know. And I think also the pushing of the vaccine on the American population is something that will be studied for years to come. That I think in a lot of different ways we still do not know the entire story behind that, especially from a mandatory perspective. And in Trump's defense, he never supported mandatory vaccines. Now, with the Fauci thing, firing Fauci I think would have been a mistake, but that doesn't mean that I don't think he should have been handled. You should put Fauci on a 30 person committee and send him off to the hinterlands and have him be on some form of bureaucracy where they just meet all year and issue a report. Firing Fauci would have made him into a cable news pundit and he immediately would have been able to go on TV all the time and would have been the I told you so. They fired me. I think it would have created a bigger liability. But I agree he should have been sent off, you know, to like, you know, the CDC office in, you know, Fairbanks, Alaska to, you know, investigate pathogens and polar bears. So your question is why should so and finally, you asked a question of hypothetical question in 2024. So I'm going to talk personally on this, not on behalf of Turning Point USA on the political side of this it all. But it's pretty clear Trump is going to run in 2024 and people have mixed opinions on that. Ron DeSantis may or may not run. I am Ron DeSantis biggest cheerleader. I think he's phenomenal. I think he's America's greatest governor. I think he's terrific. So I've said this before and everyone will have their own opinions on this. That issue aside, which I would give, you know, I believe Trump did more good than bad. And you've seen how bad Biden did on that particular issue. We definitely have to look at the totality of the presidency as a whole. And he had our country. We were experiencing a blue collar boom. We were energy independent. The southern border was under control. Putin wasn't invading countries. Da, da, da, da. I could go on and on and on. The question is, did he earn a chance to be able to run for a second term? I believe given the shenanigans in 2020, the mail in ballots going in every single direction. And all of this. I believe at the very least he needs to be given an uninterrupted case to tell the Republican base why, why he need, why he wants a second term and what he would do differently. And I've already said he has my support if he runs again in 2024. There's no mystery behind that. With that being said, Ron DeSantis I believe very well could be a once in a generation political statesman. I believe Ron DeSantis could be in the mold of Churchill, Lincoln and Washington. But I said I think. But here's what I I know Donald Trump was a phenomenal president. I know that he fulfilled his promises and I know he would do it again. Thank you for being here. I appreciate it.
- [30:53]
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- [32:09]
Max Mickelson
Hi Charlie. So my name is Max Mickelson. I'm the chapter president of Orange County School of the Arts Turning Point chapter. And
- [32:19]
Charlie Kirk
that's like a radical right wing university, right?
- [32:23]
Max Mickelson
So earlier this year, as you may have heard from my friend Alexo Alx. Yeah, sure, we were, I started a chapter there. We were egged, harassed, vandalized, had basically threatened attacks from administration, all kinds of things. So I kind of have a two part question first question is, do you think Elon Musk will free Alex?
- [32:47]
Charlie Kirk
So, yeah, Alx is banned from Twitter, I think. So if Elon sorts this out, I support that and hopefully he'll free me, too.
- [32:55]
Max Mickelson
Thank you. And my more serious question is, what's your message to. I'm always trying to recruit people to the chapter, and a lot of the response I get is, oh, I don't want to be harassed. I don't want to lose friends. I don't want to be egged, basically. And so what would be your message to people who believe in conservative ideas? Want to get involved, but I guess don't want to suffer the backlash that comes with it.
- [33:17]
Charlie Kirk
Yeah, that's. I mean, it kind of goes to the first question, right? Which is, you're going to get it. It's worth it.
- [33:21]
Gabby
Hold.
- [33:22]
Charlie Kirk
Hold the line and strengthen your resolve. I would love to go speak at one of these art schools and I'll tell you why. The left has destroyed art in our country in a way that I don't think we can actually appreciate. And I. This is kind of like one of my kind of, you would say, kind of like unexpected kind of focuses. I think that our society has become so aesthetically ugly the more the left has taken things over from architecture to what we consider to be art, to music, to dramas, to this garbage they call, you know, television at night. And so I believe art should try to strive towards the divine, the beautiful, the good, and the true. There's two rules in architecture that used to exist in Western society. You should try to have buildings that point upwards to God, and the circle is the perfect shape because it has no beginning or end, just like God. Very two simple rules. We get away. You just look at Western architecture now. It's just an amalgamation of, like, the very same deconstruction. Deconstruction ideology that we're seeing right now. And so there's. One of my favorite people to follow, he passed away recently is Roger Scruton. He was amazing. He talked a lot about objective beauty and also talks about more fundamental things, which is, do we believe there are such things, objective standards? You didn't ask anything about this. I'm just, you know, kind of riffing on it. But I'm sure you love it. But that's what's so interesting is that actually where these discussions are the most robust is in the art school.
- [34:53]
Commercial Announcer
Right.
- [34:53]
Charlie Kirk
So the question is, do you believe, like, a signed urinal is art and beautiful? This was a question in the 1920s. I can't remember. Yeah, that's exactly right. Duchamp. That's right. Marshall Duchamp. Where he signed a urinal. I don't think that's art. I think that's, you know, a place to, you know, relieve yourself. But that was considered to be art. And I think that's actually directly connected to a lot of the philosophical deconstruction that we're living through right now. Right. If all of a sudden, you know, art is nothing more than what, your own opinion of what is beautiful, well, then why can't you also have all these kind of other societal cancers all of a sudden start to infect every single portion of American society? So, okay, so what do you say to friends that don't want to get involved? Look, you can only push them so far, but it's all about leadership. It really is. And so if you're the leader, you know, you're going to have to say, hey, I'll take the hits for you. Just help me out. Try to be part of it. And so there's. There's two types of people. You could be a George Washington, or you could be a John Hancock. George Washington went right into battle, stared the bullets in the eye, and went straight into there. John Hancock. Of course, we know he signed the Declaration. No mystery he was involved, but he never wore a uniform of the Continental army and was the number one financier of the effort. There's people that are the fighters and the people that help the fighters, and both are equally important. So if people are afraid to get involved, be like, hey, can you be a covert graphic designer for our Turning Point USA chapter? Something would tell me you guys would probably come up with some of the coolest memes in the world at your school. So there's a lot of different ways to get people involved, but you as a leader, are the most important thing. We have a crisis of leadership right now in our country. George S. Patton had a great quote, which is, lead, follower, get out of the way. And leadership is hard, but a lot of people think they want to be leaders, but in reality, they just want the perks of leadership, right? They want the corner office, the Instagram followers, the chauffeured car. But they don't really want to work till 2am on a Sunday morning to go reach a deadline, make payroll, borrow money, fire, hire people. They don't want to have to do that. Leadership is hard, but it's necessary because it requires you to take responsibility. A leader is someone who does not point any fingers except for themselves when things go wrong. And that's what you're doing as a Turning Point USA chapter leader. So God bless you, man. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
- [37:09]
Michael
Hello, Charlie Kirk. My name is Michael, a student here at CSU Fullerton and a member of the TPUSA Club at Fullerton. And thank you very much for coming. I greatly enjoy the speech. Anyway, so my question. With foreign leaders being in power for decades to even a lifetime, and with the presidency in the United States being changed out every four to eight years, how do you effectively deter and combat a foreign entity when they could essentially just wait it out for a president who is much more lenient on foreign policy? Because four to eight years compared to a lifetime is a drop in the bucket.
- [37:45]
Charlie Kirk
Sure, that's. That's a good question. So there's. There's benefits and there's disadvantages to having term limits. I think the benefits far outweigh the negatives. Let me kind of give you a very obvious one. If you have a really bad leader, you should have a way to get rid of that leader, right? That's a pretty obvious one.
- [38:00]
Max Mickelson
Right.
- [38:01]
Charlie Kirk
We believe in checks and balances. That's a fundamental moral good. We believe it's part of what it means to actually have self government in the west to be able to check and balance against bad leaders. But you bring up a point, right, which is, you know, how do you. How do you fight back against Iran or Russia or China that can just wait it out? The answer to your question is exactly why the deep state was built and how they justified it, and it was used against us. So to answer your question, in the 1960s, we all complained about the deep state, but we never actually asked the question, why was the deep state created? Yeah, it was sort of control things and all this, but they weren't actually. They weren't doing it in secret. In the 60s, they said, Listen, we're up against foreign adversaries that are there forever. We need to create a permanent bureaucracy in Langley, Virginia, that runs the Central Intelligence Agency, formerly oss, and they'll always be there, therefore, they'll be the ones that will actually be able to be sustained. Yeah, except what happens when they become corrupt to the core and spy on a sitting president of the United States, you know, start to leak information illegally, and they actually go against the will of the people.
- [38:59]
Max Mickelson
Right.
- [39:00]
Charlie Kirk
So I would only push back to your question in one regard. We kind of do have a permanent bureaucracy in our country. Right. We just have kind of different people that come in to try to manage it. Does that make sense where it's like we have, yeah, we have a new president, but the FBI doesn't change. Like DOJ doesn't change, the IRS doesn't change. And look, I will say this, that you know, there's, there's a temptation to be like, oh yeah, a dictator could just fix these problems. They can wave A1. I know that's not what you're saying at times, but I think that we need to do everything we possibly can to resist that. That separation of powers and believing that a single person should not have the dominance over the many, that the many need to rule the few, the few should not rule the many is something that will actually allow the civilization to survive a lot longer than the Potemkin village of the Chinese Communist Party. So CCP or Saudi Arabia or Iran or Russia might be able to wait it out, but they're actually sitting on a much more, I would say destructive set of circumstances. Because I do not believe dictatorships are sustainable long term. I don't. I think they can be passed down, but eventually there'll be fault lines, divisions, civil war, and hopefully a citizen led movement to displace them. So thank you, I appreciate it.
- [40:18]
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- [41:33]
Gabby
Hi, how are you? I'm a huge fan. My name is Gabby and I am here to ask you a question. How many believe that California needs help in saving California? Well, I believe that we need help in Getting Newsom out. And so my question to you is I obviously support this candidate right here. So I was wondering, and I wanted to ask you what are your thoughts on Anthony Tremino and if you were still living in California, never lived here, but would you what are your thoughts
- [42:06]
Charlie Kirk
on him and support him. So I'll answer this personally, not on behalf of Turning Point. I have to separate the two because we want to keep the event educational in nature. So I'll just give you my own personal beliefs. So yeah, I think highly of Anthony. I had a chance to pray with him up in Rockland. Don't know enough about, you know, the other candidates to endorse yet, but pretty impressive guy, I gotta say. Awesome family, very articulate, very charismatic. But yeah, don't, haven't made my mind up yet, so. But in the recall I was a big elder guy. I'm a big fan of Larry Elder. I know he's not running again, but I made my allegiance there. But I will say that to Anthony's credit, he has some of the most passionate and dedicated grassroots volunteers I've seen in a candidacy in quite some time. They were up at Berkeley tabling yesterday. Like it's pretty amazing on UC Berkeley campus. Like there's some resolve to that.
- [42:55]
Jonathan
So.
- [42:56]
Charlie Kirk
And I got to say the one thing I am convicted by personally spending time with Anthony, he really, really has a heart for this state and to turn it around. So you're supporting a good man. Thank you, I appreciate that.
- [43:11]
Johnny
Good evening, Charlie. My name is Johnny and I'm an MBA student at Cal State Fullerton. And like many other students and conservatives here, I believe this movement that we're starting is created at the grassroots level, which in turn starts in the classroom. So my question to you is this. What do you feel is the biggest problem in the collegiate education system and how do we fix this moving forward if we wish for our movement to continue to gain ground?
- [43:35]
Charlie Kirk
Yeah, man. I mean the biggest problem with the collegiate education system is the collegiate education system. I mean it's top to bottom, rotten to the core. College is right for some people. It's not right for most people. It just isn't. It's a racket and a cartel for a lot of people. I have a book coming out called the College Scam where I put, put forward a 10 count indictment against the current state of college that I think that will blow you away. So for example, you know, I'm not going to put you on the spot, but I just want you to think for a second you Know, what do you think the national graduation rate from College is? It's 59%. Raise your hand if you know someone that dropped out of college. Every hand goes up. 41% of people that go to college don't graduate. That's demoralizing. They leave with debt. They leave with less direction. They never should have gone to college in the first place. Now, that's only one part of it. Not to mention the student loan burdens, right? Where people are borrowing money, they don't have to study things that don't matter to find jobs that don't exist, to go into a job market where everything's hyper inflated, where that piece of paper means less and less and less. A vast majority of people going to college are not trying to get their mba, which is a great reason to go to college as long as it's not completely woke. But they're getting sociology degrees. They're getting degrees that don't exactly have a highly, say, a very competitive kind of standpoint to what that degree would be, especially where people are looking to hire. Right now, we need more people in the muscular class in America. We need more plumbers, electricians and welders and police officers and firefighters and entrepreneurs. And we need to not demean them or diminish them. We need to elevate muscular labor in our country. If you ask me, we have way more than enough people that studied North African lesbian poetry in the last couple of years and that have, you know, that have this huge debt burden and they don't really know where their place is. So look, top to bottom. College is doing a lot of damage to our country. I wish that wasn't the case. I don't think it has to be the case. College can be awesome. Hillsdale College is a great example of that. If every college like Hillsdale College, I'd have a complete, completely different opinion. I've spent time at Hillsdale College. I've got to know Dr. Larry Arm. You know what they try to do from day one? They tell you that you don't know everything. And there's something here at this college that's special, and you're going to go on a journey to discover it. They also say this. They say, we're going to complete the whole human being, the mind, body and soul. We're going to read things that are ancient and beautiful and good, and you're going to really wrestle with the most important ideas and topics. That doesn't happen a lot at universities anymore. Instead, it's, hey, you have your own opinion of truth. Who's to say what is good and beautiful and kind of just go have fun along the way? So, look, not to mention, I just want to say this about college in general. Is that for parents out there, just be very, you know, pray about this and be filled with wisdom. If you're pushing your child to go to college because of you, that's a bad reason. Most kids going to college believe they don't want to be there. And I might say, oh, they don't know what's good for them. Okay, there might be an argument to that, but it's also them that's borrowing the money. Maybe it's not. Maybe you're paying for it. That's a different dynamic. But at Berkeley yesterday, this one kid has $85,000 in student loan debt. I say, do you want to be here? So my parents are making me be here. I said, that's quite an operation there, right? Like, go borrow $85,000 in your name because your parents are making you do it. Like, that's not good. It's not sustainable. So we need less people going to college. We need more people to start businesses. We need more entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs. We need more people to do things. And we need more people to be filled with integrity and courage and character and less people to be filled with post modern, secular, atheistic ideas where they start questioning the most. I had a woman yesterday at UC Berkeley came up to me at the table. She said, charlie, we don't know what human beings are. We're just a collection of cells. And I said, only at a university campus could you be filled with something that is so unwise to spend so much time on something so fundamentally deranged as that question. And she really was wrestling with it. She said, there is no fundamental difference between a human we call a human and a goldfish. And I said, listen, I don't have a college degree. I didn't go to college. Goldfish, they don't write symphonies. And she's like, you're right. Thanks for your question. I appreciate it.
- [47:50]
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- [48:49]
Charlie Kirk
So I have a question that might
- [48:50]
Kiara
be a little bit different. I wanted to ask why you're a Christian.
- [48:53]
Charlie Kirk
I am a Christian. It's true. Sunday is Easter. And so look, there's. We're all made in the image of God. The universe that we live in right now was created by someone who loves us. And the Bible tells us this. The Bible has one author, 66 books of telling the story. And look, we're all. We're made in that image of God. And the gospel can be summarized in four words. Three words, two words and one word. Four words. Jesus took my place. Three words. Him for me. Two words, substitutionary atonement, and one word, grace. We don't earn it. We don't start to do a lot of good things to be able to have eternal life. I'm a Christian because I had a collision course with Jesus Christ in 5th grade. Changed my life, gave my life to the Lord. And every single year, it started to mean more to me. As I got older, I realized, like, wow, I'm broken. I am. You know, there's something not right with me. It's like, yeah, that's original sin. But Jesus is there to give us something we did not earn, to give us something we do not deserve. To be able to get back into true and real communion with the God who loves us. And it's true. You look at the archaeological evidence, the evidence for the resurrection, the evidence through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the Book of Acts, you. You look at how there's never been an archeological discovery that disproves the Bible. All that things can be done with reason. But there's one final reason why I'm a Christian. It's less because of this and more because of this, which when you start to open up your heart and your soul and all of a sudden have the humility that you're just kind of a speck in this massive cosmic creation, all of a sudden, I think many People in this audience might be a little skeptical all of a sudden that Lord who does love you is going to all of a sudden come into your life in a way that you might not expect and so celebrate that Easter. And if you haven't given your life to the Lord, he sent his son, Jesus Christ for you. Thank you.
- [50:42]
Kiara
Hi, Charlie. I'm running for a local school board here in Orange County.
- [50:47]
Charlie Kirk
Thank you.
- [50:51]
Kiara
When I get elected, what is the most impression. When I get elected, what is the most pressing issue that I could focus on to make the biggest impact in our public schools?
- [51:05]
Charlie Kirk
Well, first of all, God bless you for running and thank you for your courage and your conviction. It's just awesome. So first you'll be demonized, slandered, smeared. I just kind of went through all that, especially if you go on a school board. But no, we're going to have your back in more ways than one to be able to do the right thing and to stand with conviction. So, look, there's a lot of different things that I think that are incredibly important if you're on a school board. Number one, you gotta ask questions about textbooks, curriculum, appropriation of funding to make sure that there's policies in place that schools will never be locked down again, and making sure kids are not wearing masks. I was driving in Beverly Hills today and I saw groups of children walking on the side of the street coming out of Notre Dame Academy, right near Beverly Hills, all wearing masks outside. And that's nothing short of child abuse. It's child abuse to put a mask on a child. It's bad for their development, it's bad for their spiritual development, bad for their linguistic development. But the most important thing that you can get done as a school board is be a relentless hawk for transparency and accountability. You need to be the public sector teacher union's worst nightmare. You need to be asking questions they don't want asked. You need to follow the money. You need to find out whether or not they're teaching gender transition surgery nonsense to five, six or seven year olds. And then you need to channel righteous indignation and not put up with their excuses, their delay tactics, their nonsensical one liners like, oh, it's all about equity. No, it's not. It's not about equity. It's not about teaching children. You are grooming children to be something that they shouldn't be and I'm not going to put up with it. So the most important thing is you need to have courage, which, look, you do have, but then you need to Have a mission. Your mission is not to be liked. Your mission is not going to be, like, voted the most popular person in the school board. Your mission is to protect the innocence of children and lead them through truth and to create informed patriots. God bless you. Okay, so in closing, I love California. I have a couple asks out of you. Do not give up on this state. And you might be cynical in all this. Focus on Orange County. It's a beautiful place. People are waking up. They really are desiring a change. Get involved in local races. Get involved in city council races. Know who's running for state senate. Know who's running for statehouse. Help on the congressional side. All up and down the ballot. Get involved in voter registration. I mean, people right now, I'm telling you, they're opening their eyes in record numbers, especially in the Latino community. There are. There's huge opportunities that are otherwise would not be happening. And then finally, just keep in your prayers and keep in what you're doing, what Turning Point USA is doing on the front lines on high school and college campuses across the country. Country. I believe it's some of the most important work to make sure that we pass down American values to future generations. We're working really hard traveling the country. Last year, I traveled 330 days. Last year, we're doing three podcasts a day, three hours of radio a day. If you're not yet subscribed to our podcast, thank you. Please consider subscribing. And thank you for considering. You guys can take out your phone really easily and subscribe to the Charlie Kirk show podcast. All of this content will be rebroadcasted there. But in closing, I believe the momentum we are seeing of regular, normal, everyday people running for office that are starting to ask questions, it is the rise of the citizen against the regime. And isn't that the most American thing to do, which is regular, everyday, normal people rejecting the cynicism, rejecting the negativity and saying instead, this is still my country, that the many are going to rule the few, and that I'm not going to put up with these edicts, these orders, these mandates and these double standards. Instead, we're going to renew this idea of citizen government by and for the people. And we've been given this gift by the American Founding Fathers, and it's up to us to conserve and preserve it. And each one of you plays such an important and critical role in helping make that happen every single day. God bless you guys. God bless California. God bless Orange County. Talk to you soon.
- [55:06]
Jonathan
For more on many of these stories
- [55:08]
Max Mickelson
and news you can Trust, go to charliekirk.com.