The Charlie Kirk Show - Saving America: A Roadmap to Victory in a Zero-Sum Game

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April 20, 2021 - The Charlie Kirk Show

01:16:29

Saving America: A Roadmap to Victory in a Zero-Sum Game

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	Hey everybody, this episode is brought to you by my friends at ExpressVPN, expressvpn.com slash Charlie.
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	Hey, everybody.
	Today in the Charlie Kirk show, my unedited remarks from the Southwest Regional Conference that we had at Turning Point USA in Phoenix, Arizona.
	You're going to really enjoy this.
	I want to thank you for supporting us at CharlieKirk.com slash support.
	I want to thank Jeffrey from Iowa.
	And I want to thank Jacob from Ohio for supporting us at CharlieKirk.com slash support.
	I take questions at the end of the speech that I think you're really going to enjoy.
	We get deep into the issues.
	And if you want to get involved with Turning Point USA, go to tpusa.com, start a chapter, get engaged, get involved.
	Buckle up, everybody.
	Here we go.
	Charlie, 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.
	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.
	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.
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	I want to just say first, thank you to our amazing Turning Point USA staff.
	They do such an unbelievable job.
	They really do.
	So what an amazingly professional operation, you know, and I started this right out of high school.
	I didn't quite think this is what was going to happen.
	Thank you.
	And we love you too.
	We have your back, most importantly.
	We're going to talk about that.
	But no, our events team does such an incredible job.
	Our field team is incredible, is truly remarkable.
	Our media team does wonderful.
	And I'll tell you, our Turning Point USA team, they work so hard.
	And we just had a whole other event happening simultaneously while this was happening.
	And so it's really something.
	So I want to thank you guys for being here.
	It's nice to be here in person, right?
	Not locked down watching things on our screens all day long.
	And so I want to talk about a couple things and I want to get to questions because that's actually the most important thing.
	So I want to learn from you.
	I want to hear what you're seeing on campus.
	And then if I'm able to share some wisdom, I'd be happy to do that.
	First, let's talk about what's happened in the last year.
	There's been three inflection points, three things that happened that impacted all of our lives.
	And generally, those of us that love America as our home, not just America as a colony, not just America as a temporary place.
	No, this is our home.
	We have seen our country go in the wrong direction.
	Three things.
	First was, of course, our reaction to the Chinese coronavirus.
	Now, why do I word it that way?
	It wasn't the virus.
	It was the lockdowns in response to the virus.
	I can't stand when people say, you know, 40% of small businesses disappeared because of the virus.
	I said, no, Our reaction to the virus caused those small businesses to disappear.
	The virus is a very real thing.
	We have more than enough information now to be able to handle that, to be able to make good choices.
	And so here was my position early on, and it hasn't changed.
	That you have a virus that has a death rate in Ventura County, you guys heard from Rob McCoy, with a 99.87% survival rate.
	Because that's a real thing.
	That means some people are going to die.
	So you need a really, really, really good reason, in my opinion, to just shut down all of American society.
	And so I don't know what the number is, but the number is not 0.03%.
	To all of a sudden say schools, businesses, public gatherings, family members, all of that stuff, we're just going to turn off as if the American economy is like a winter car you could put in your garage.
	We're like, we're going to go turn this on later.
	As if all of this was something that we could just easily restart.
	It'll go down as the worst mistake in American history.
	I truly believe that, what we did with these lockdowns.
	The human cost is beyond anything that we'll even be able to comprehend.
	And so the virus did come from China.
	And we refuse to mention the fact that it is probably a biochemical weapon that was developed by the Chinese Communist Party.
	And we're not going to forget about that.
	Meanwhile, our current government sits down with the Chinese Communist Party and basically is like, you know what, we are?
	We are actually terribly racist and we're terrible people.
	Meanwhile, they're the ones that unleash an epidemiological Pearl Harbor on the world.
	And then we decided to lock down while China reopened their economy last summer.
	So China is richer and more powerful than ever before.
	And we did this to ourselves.
	We need to explore together today why we did that because I don't think anyone's able really to articulate it.
	Because we all just kind of accepted it.
	You guys didn't.
	You guys fought back.
	You deserve credit.
	But generally, would you agree?
	We kind of just allowed this to happen to us.
	We said, you know what?
	We're going to allow an ideology of safetyism to dominate our life.
	We're going to talk about why that is.
	The second inflection point, which was one that I got more, even more vocal about, because I really have zero tolerance for this at all.
	And this is this ridiculous idea that America is a racist country.
	You know, and I actually was able to pinpoint it the other day.
	It was all the race riots, the George Floyd stuff, all of that.
	And you guys remember all the black square posting people, look how good of a person I am, all that garbage, right?
	Like, you know, if only I could be as good of a person as you one day.
	Virtue signaling, all signaling, no virtue.
	And which is what that's the way you could steal that, by the way.
	And so I realize why I get so angry about this is because when you call my country my home racist, you're basically calling me a racist.
	Like, no, part of who I am is my nation.
	Part of who I am is the flag, is our anthem, is our history, is our.
	And so when you go out of your way and you're like, oh, actually, your nation is bigoted to the core.
	I'm like, screw you.
	No, it's not.
	Like, we're the least racist country ever to exist in the history of the world.
	Like, no, I'm not going to take that anymore.
	Like, that, and again, I have to say this for the Apparatchs that are watching on social media.
	There are racists in this country.
	But as my brilliant friend Douglas Murray says, we have a supply and demand problem with racism in America.
	There's an incredible demand to find the racists, yet no one can find them.
	It's true.
	In fact, there are so few racists, we have to come up with these race hoaxes and they immediately become national news instantaneously.
	Like Jussie Smollett or the Bubba Wallace thing, but to a lesser extent, he didn't make it up, but he totally played into it, despite the fact that he probably knew better that it wasn't a noose hanging.
	I don't know, maybe that's a garage pull.
	You didn't need nine FBI agents to tell you that.
	Or our Turning Point USA chapter leader, Avery, don't know her last name in Minnesota.
	I don't know if you guys saw this story or not.
	It's unbelievable.
	God bless her.
	She has courage, which you guys have too.
	I want more adults to have the courage that Turning Point USA students have.
	Truly, we'll get into courage.
	I'll do a whole thing on courage because it's so rare.
	So Avery wants to start a Turning Point USA chapter.
	And then out of nowhere, she gets accused for sending all these ridiculous messages, very racist messages.
	She denies it.
	Doesn't matter.
	The entire school does a walkout.
	The teachers encourage it.
	It's just a mess, right?
	And she gets pinpointed and blamed for it.
	It ends up being a complete and total hoax, of course.
	And no one has to apologize.
	There's no repercussions.
	I can go through five different examples of hate crime hoaxes in the last couple of weeks.
	I want you to ask yourself a question.
	When the Democrats were running the American South and they started the KKK, we'll get through that whole thing too, if there's interest, because the party's never switched.
	They just changed the way they exercise their deeply held beliefs, which the Democrats still are the racist party.
	They just do it differently.
	And we can get into that.
	And so, is that when blacks were getting lynched in the American South, do you think that there were fake lynchings?
	Do you think people went out of their way to all of a sudden create a hoax?
	Of course not, because it was legitimate and it was real.
	Now we have a supply and demand problem where we are such a decent country.
	Anytime we find anyone that says something terrible becomes national news immediately.
	Like immediately.
	And what doesn't get portrayed is actually how awesome we are to other people, regardless of their skin color.
	This short experiment that we have in America right now is a multiracial, multilingual experiment.
	And when I grew up in America, which was 10 years ago, and any high schoolers out there, I don't say this like, I wish you could have grown up when I did.
	I actually do.
	2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012.
	I feel like I'm talking about the 1950s.
	It was actually a different country.
	You want me to tell you what would happen when I was in high school?
	If I would have told any one of my teachers that I think skin color has any sort of bearing on who you are as a human being, I would have gotten suspended from school.
	If I would have told anyone of my teachers that skin color matters, I would have had an intervention with the head of students.
	And they would have said, what do you mean skin color matters?
	We care about character at our school, not skin color.
	And I went to a very multiracial school.
	It was a 53% English as a second language, Hispanic, Wheeling High School, suburbs of Chicago.
	Some of you might know the area.
	Now the school is completely different.
	Now it's all about race, and the school's a mess.
	Everyone hates each other, walking out, protests, taking knees.
	No one talks to it.
	Everyone's talking about race all the time.
	And let me just be very clear.
	If you're thinking about race all the time, you're actually doing a disservice to your humanity.
	There's like a much more beautiful, wondrous, rich life to live outside of people's skin color.
	Let me just tell you, it's like a really boring way to live.
	Like, oh, I'm going to organize people based on how you look.
	Really, that's extraordinarily tribal.
	And dare I say evil, because we actually broke out of that.
	And so the racial issue is one I've spoken out against more than ever.
	And I've been told, Charlie, you can't speak about it because you're a white Anglo-Saxon straight male, which is exactly why I speak out about even more.
	Like, no, I can say whatever I want, regardless of my skin color.
	Truth transcends color.
	It doesn't matter what your skin color is.
	I'm going to say things that are true.
	And I encourage you all to take that tact as well.
	And so that was the second inflection point.
	And our country just decided to all this, just run to the hills.
	Like, we're not allowed to talk about these issues.
	And I think some of it was rooted in good intentions, I think.
	I think.
	But I think most of it was weakness.
	I think most of it was that, and there's something that dominates all of your life and you know this.
	There's something that you don't always identify.
	I want you to think deeply about this for a moment, that all of you are afraid at some level of being called the R-word.
	You're all afraid of it.
	And some of you say I'm not, and you've done the right thing because you've decided not to care, but most people, because that you actually do certain things or you don't do certain things because you do not want to be popped with the scarlet letter of a racist.
	The fear of being called a racist is the most powerful cultural weapon in America today.
	It creates corporate contributions to go billions of dollars in a direction otherwise wouldn't.
	It creates young people to say things they don't actually believe.
	And it silences decent people.
	And what's hilarious is that legitimate racism gets completely ignored from one whole viewpoint where I always love this whole thing, with this whole issue of immigration, which I've been very outspoken on recently, especially since the pandemic, which is that we should shut off our immigrations and put our college graduates first before people across the planet.
	But it's have loyalty to our fellow countrymen.
	And so it's people like, well, Charlie, we need immigrants because who do you think is going to go pick your lettuce?
	I'm like, that's an unbelievably racist thing to say, like that immigrants are only good to pick lettuce.
	Like, who's the racist in this equation, right?
	Like, you think that they're nothing but low-wage laborers and workers.
	And that's kind of a really parochial way to view human beings.
	Anyway, so how do we break through that and how do we break past that is a question we're going to wrestle with today.
	So it's really important.
	The third inflection point was obviously the election.
	And, you know, we're a 501c3.
	We have a 501c4 that does all of our political stuff.
	But on a C3, I'm just going to talk about this culturally from a nonprofit perspective is that one of the, we got to fix the way we do elections in our country.
	And if there's any politician in your life, just look at them clearly in the eyes and say, until you fix elections, I don't care what else you do.
	Like, because elections matter more than just a little symbolic exercise.
	Elections are a reflection of your values into representative government.
	And insofar that we have broken elections with broken voter registration methods and broker ballot practicing methods and machines and all this sort of nonsense that we've seen in this state and other states, then what are our leaders good for if they can't fix our elections?
	And they're doing the opposite.
	They're trying to pass HR1, which would actually further destroy our elections in our country.
	So here's an interesting question that your political science professors should be asking you.
	Why do we have elections?
	That's a pretty interesting question.
	And the answer that most people will give, which is not a complete answer, is like, well, so we can have representatives in our government.
	That's not the complete answer.
	You see, the natural progression that human beings go through is I get really mad about something or I get upset about something and I need a pressure release valve.
	I need something I can look forward to, a date I can circle, something where I believe that outside of me just screaming at my television every time Tucker Carlson has a segment that's true, which is like every night, that there's something I could do about that, right?
	It's actually really helpful to keep the peace to have elections that we trust.
	No one wants to talk about this, right?
	This is the third rail of politics, but it's true.
	It's that without elections, then decent people are all of a sudden become rather indecent rather quickly.
	Elections are the way that we're able to say, here's what I believe, and here's what I see reflected.
	And also, if I get really mad about something, I can run for office, I can collect signatures.
	If you have elections that are broken, then all of a sudden you break that entire system.
	Then all of a sudden, people are not going to listen to their leaders.
	And what's so amazing is that the left did this back in 2016.
	Remember, the left did this after they said, oh, he's actually a Russian agent.
	He didn't actually win voters over.
	He's an illegitimate president.
	They didn't listen to anything he said.
	And now we have actually legitimate questions about our elections, and our leaders don't want to talk about it.
	And they call you a bad person for even asking the question.
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	So those are the three inflection points.
	So we could talk about the election separately.
	I'm actually the least interested in that.
	I'm actually more interested in the lockdown issue and the race issue.
	Why?
	The great Andrew Breitbart, may he rest in peace.
	He's just the best.
	He said it best.
	He said, politics flows downstream from culture, right?
	So the cultural battles that we're having, the Black Square posting, you know, bumper sticker, you know, yard sign people.
	Like, have you seen these ridiculous signs, by the way?
	The sign that says like, love is love, and immigrants are welcome, and science is real.
	Like, you know, and I, I just, I just, I, I, I want to do something so badly.
	And I want to get Benny Johnson on this.
	I want to bring a cartel member to their door and say, yeah, just bring them in.
	Just, it's, it's yours.
	It's like, right in.
	Like, they're welcome, right?
	Open borders.
	That's what you voted for.
	It's, and, but it's all, it's all, again, it's, it's this kind of moral Olympics of I'm going to prove to my neighbors I'm a better person than you because I post the correct slogans and I give $250 a month to Patrice Culler's real estate empire.
	Like that's somehow how good of a person I am, right?
	And you all know those types of people, right?
	And by the way, let's just be very honest.
	BLM Incorporated is mostly an upper middle class white movement.
	It's not a black community movement.
	And it's not at all a Hispanic or Latino movement.
	In fact, the Hispanic and Latino communities are repulsed by this entire conversation, which is why Republicans and Donald Trump did so well with Latino voters this last cycle.
	And the left can't even understand how that happened.
	They're like, how did that happen?
	That's weird.
	We can explore that further.
	So let's go first to the lockdowns, okay?
	Because at turning point, I've told our team, I said, we got to go do more content, more exposés on how these lockdowns actually were happening.
	And so I'm going to be honest with you guys.
	I was wrong about something.
	I thought the American people weren't going to tolerate this.
	I thought we actually loved liberty more than we did in our country.
	I did.
	And I was going to anywhere and anyone that was fighting against this stuff.
	And I was like, come on my podcast.
	I mean, Rob McCoy, you guys heard from him.
	He opened up his church fully.
	And he's courageous for doing that.
	And let me just, just so you guys know, you know, the lockdowns had zero bearing on your health, right?
	The states that locked down did not do any better than the states that were fully open.
	In fact, they did worse.
	How many of your friends are kind of a mess with alcohol and drugs and social isolation?
	I know a lot of people like that because of these lockdowns.
	How many people took their own life?
	More young people took their own life in California than died from the Chinese coronavirus.
	So, what was really happening here?
	Well, number one, people wanted a false promise that they were going to be taken care of.
	So, I'm going to say something that is not exactly an easy concept.
	Liberty is a really hard thing.
	It's actually, you cannot have liberty without virtue.
	You can't.
	Let me tell you what liberty isn't.
	Liberty is not what a lot of your college professors make it seem.
	Liberty is not smoking weed and doing drugs and seeking pleasure.
	That is not liberty.
	It's not.
	That is, you're eventually going to be obedient to any single one of those biochemical short-term releases.
	That is not liberty.
	It's not.
	So, what is liberty, right?
	Well, liberty, as the founding fathers articulated it, is the pursuit of the good.
	It's the pursuit of what actually matters in the world.
	Is that the government's not going to get in your way to go after what really is significant, which isn't just the next marijuana kick?
	It's not just the next 3 a.m. night.
	No, no, it's actually, what does good even mean anymore?
	Your professors tell you there's no such thing between good and evil.
	Or there's, it's all your own truth.
	What a bunch of garbage that is.
	If any of your teachers are telling you that, man, just take the Hillsdale online courses and you know, that's all I could say.
	But so, what is the good?
	Well, I only have 42 minutes and I do want to get to questions, so don't have a lot of time to get into that.
	But let's break it down.
	Let me put it this way: the pursuit of virtue.
	I think we all know somebody in your life that would be in the hero category.
	So, what is a hero?
	That's a good question.
	We don't talk about heroes anymore.
	How about a hero is someone who is daring, takes risks, and is bold for something that is bigger than themselves and something that doesn't just help themselves, but helps the society, helps a family, helps a community.
	And so, liberty, the ability to be able to pursue the good, was completely shut down this last year.
	Why?
	It's because being safe and being taken care of is way easier.
	And by the way, we're not the first civilization to ever grapple with this.
	In the Bible, it says, you know, so Moses freed God's chosen people from Egypt.
	They leave slavery and they go to they're in the wilderness and they start complaining.
	They have everything provided if they're eating well, but they start complaining and they say, Moses, we want to go back to Egypt.
	They want to go back to slavery.
	You know why?
	Because they say, At least we ate meat.
	At least we had better food when we were slaves.
	So they had liberty and they're like, nah, we're not eating as well.
	We're not as filled with pleasure.
	So the natural human condition is to reject the pursuit of virtue and seek pleasure.
	Do you see that happening all around you with your friends?
	Of course you do.
	Do you see that happening with just kind of all of pop culture?
	Like, no, don't actually put restraints on yourself.
	Go do what feels good.
	And you guys all know that.
	I mean, if you don't, you will, that eventually that's a miserable way to live your life.
	Instead, the pursuing of the good is actually putting restraints on yourself.
	So what if I told you that the law rules for yourself is actually what will keep you free?
	Huh?
	What?
	So there's a great quote at the Harvard Law School.
	The law is the wise restraints that keep men free.
	So what you restrain yourself from doing actually keeps you free.
	So the last year we shut everything down.
	Most people didn't clamor or fight in opposition to this.
	And for those of us that love our nation and love our home, it was incredibly frustrating to see leaders that quite honestly were doing this for a very simple purpose.
	And their simple purpose was to get power that they never wanted to give up, crush the middle class, close small businesses indefinitely, pander to a corporate oligarchy, which I will get to, and quite honestly, recondition you to not question authority.
	So, how do they do that?
	Well, they know that people wouldn't listen to politicians.
	So, they decided to create a new type of person on TV, the medical expert.
	What is that?
	I'm sorry, what's like medical?
	I've never heard like this whole like new organism of political commentator started to pop up.
	Like Dr. Fauci, who should have been fired like on day one from anything in any leadership position.
	So, Dr. Fauci gets up.
	I was always so just taken back by just his condescending tone.
	Like, everything about him bothered me.
	I was like, the Constitution was written just for people like you, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
	Like, the founding fathers had a short, angry tyrant in mind with a raspy voice, like when they wrote the United States Constitution, like you, Anthony Fauci, is the reason why we have the Bill of Rights.
	And so, as you can tell, I'm not exactly a fan.
	And so, he goes on television, he's wrong about everything, but he engages in your worst fear to control you so you sacrifice your own freedom and liberty.
	And of course, we saw the contradictions unfolding in front of us, right?
	Marijuana stores and abortion clinics were open, and yet churches were closed and schools were closed.
	You're allowed to riot in the streets, right?
	BLM Incorporated, allowed to do whatever they want, but if you dare have 10 people over to your house for Christmas or Easter, you're trying to destroy the entire community.
	And so, we're finally almost breaking out of this.
	The fact we're able to have this in-person event is a very big deal.
	And we at Turning Point have been leading on that.
	And that's a very big thing.
	And so, the lockdown.
	So, let's get to the race thing.
	I mentioned this briefly.
	I'm going to build this out for a little bit more, which is this.
	Well, first of all, I think that the people that wish to divide us have tried many different strategies.
	They've tried economics, they've tried gender.
	There's something about the race issue that just kind of paralyzes most Americans.
	It just kind of people don't want to talk about it.
	And quite honestly, I would prefer not to talk about it.
	It's somewhat irrelevant, and it should be irrelevant.
	But when you actually get into the discussion of it, you realize that this is not about what they say it's about at all.
	Of course not.
	This is about trying to have the entire country obey an ever smaller group of people to take your freedoms and liberties away and to try to remake America in their image.
	So they do this through critical race theory.
	They do this through BLM Incorporated.
	They do all these sorts of different things.
	And what's been most stunning is how the corporations have pandered to this set of ideology.
	So if there's only a couple things that you remember that I say, remember this, which is that those of us that love America as our home and we love freedom and liberty and we want a pro-human agenda, right?
	Not some technocratic, weird, like identity politics agenda, is that there are two major threats to America right now.
	And I would argue one of them is actually bigger than the other currently.
	There is a corporate class and there's a government class, and they're working together to crush you.
	And something that is hard for conservatives to talk about because we say we love free markets and we do, but we love free markets because we love people and we don't love corporations.
	It's a big difference.
	Special corporations don't act in our interest.
	And so when you have Delta and Coca-Cola coming out and waging economic warfare on our own citizens, all of a sudden we should ask ourselves the question, whose side are you on?
	What nation do you actually represent?
	And so here's the big question, right?
	Is America a colony or is America our home?
	If America's a colony, who cares what happens here, right?
	Maximize the profits, make as much money, we're going to get out.
	That's what the CEO of Delta Airlines believes.
	That's what the CEO of Coca-Cola believes.
	He's literally a foreign national.
	But for those of us that are kind of stuck here in America, right?
	For good reason, like, hold on a second.
	You control an airline that was bailed out by the U.S. taxpayer.
	You control an airline that's basically sanctioned by the U.S. taxpayer.
	And then we have to be lectured by you, Ed Bastian, that showing ID is not in Delta Airlines values.
	Huh, that's interesting.
	How do you board an airplane exactly in our country?
	Yeah, how do you even get through an airport without a form of identification, Ed Bastion?
	He's lecturing us on this.
	And I think what's happened here, though, is that, and all of you have seen this, is the college campus has taken over the entire country.
	Is the ideology that you guys are fighting every single day now runs Delta Airlines?
	It's true.
	Is that Ed Bastian being a selfish, quite honestly, anti-American colonialist, and that's what he, I mean, he's just, he's basically an imperialist.
	He doesn't care about America at all, only about making $17 million a year.
	That's all he cares about.
	He's going around from Delta saying this voter ID law in Georgia.
	And by the way, it's not even voter ID.
	It's if you have a mail and absentee ballot, you have to prove your identification.
	Like you can't give water to people voting in line.
	What are you talking about?
	Of course you can give water.
	But is voting really that dehydrating?
	Like I'm really trying to understand, like is it Navy SEALs training in Coronado?
	Like I don't understand like this whole like weird bizarre thing we're talking about when it comes to voting.
	It's as if like people are passing out in line because they don't have water.
	Like no, you can still give them water.
	Anyway, and so what's happened here, and this is the second inflection point, is this hyper-racialization of our country.
	If we do not take bold and decisive action, all of you, to stand up against this garbage, the country is done.
	It's that simple.
	This is the threat in front of us.
	The threat in front of us right now is this, either the cowardice or the incompetence of the people in charge of our country that are refusing to either contest or fight on this entire issue of race in our country.
	And I'm just going to go through it.
	As I mentioned earlier, we're the least racist country ever to exist in the history of the world.
	We've taken in more human beings than any other country in the last 50 years.
	In fact, we've been more generous, more benevolent, more forward-thinking, more accepted than any other nation ever.
	In fact, in America, we've had 3 million black people legally immigrate to America since 1980.
	3 million from Africa and the Caribbean.
	How racist could we be if 3 million black people voluntarily came to America?
	Why does the caravan go north to America and not south to Venezuela?
	If we are so racist, why do so many people of color want to come into our country?
	If we're so bigoted and backwards, why do so many people all of a sudden want to come into this terrible country?
	And so, and I could go through the statistics and the facts and the arguments of all this, but I'm sure all of you see this.
	It's a discussion ender on your college campuses, right?
	You might be talking to a liberal friend of yours, but the moment they say, oh, that's a racist thing, that's racist, they end the discussion, right?
	It's like, it's over, it's done, there's no more talking.
	And then all of a sudden, you're on defense.
	You're like, no, no, I'm actually not racist.
	Trust me, I'm not racist.
	And so, I have a couple thoughts on this.
	Number one, I think we got to start playing offense.
	I think anyone that starts bringing up the race issue, the moment they bring it up, you say, Oh my gosh, and don't use racist anymore.
	Get it out of your mind.
	Use bigoted.
	It's a much better word.
	It's true, because that's what they are.
	Say, oh my gosh, you're so bigoted.
	Like, you're a bigot.
	And look at them.
	If they all of a sudden want to have a values debate, then okay, you care about skin color.
	You would have been a phenomenal KKK member, the best.
	You want to have a values debate?
	I care about character.
	You care about resegregating American society, bigot.
	That's the offense that you have to have with these people.
	And all of a sudden, they're like, oh, well, you don't know who I am.
	You don't know anything about me.
	It's like, oh, now you know how it feels, doesn't it?
	Maybe we should have a discussion of ideas.
	Maybe we should actually talk about things that are meaningful.
	I am for one.
	I know what they're trying to do.
	They're trying to end all meaningful discussion in our country right now by trying to make you afraid by calling you the R-word.
	The thing they fear the most is if their bigotry actually starts to get exposed.
	What they actually fear is that their ideology, which is a racist ideology, dividing people based on skin color, actually gets brought to light because they're actually preying on your best intentions.
	They are.
	They're preying on your intentions that you say, well, what if I actually am a really racist person?
	What if I actually have done all these terrible things and I didn't realize it, like this ridiculous white fragility book?
	Anyone have to read that garbage in class?
	Oh my gosh.
	1619 Project, Robin, White Fragility.
	And so that's the only way that this is going to end.
	It's the only way that this is going to end.
	Because this constant retreat of like, we're going to keep on like, trust me, I'm not a racist.
	Please read this paper.
	I'm not a racist.
	It's not going to work anymore.
	Trust me.
	The only way is that we start playing offense.
	Like, okay, Columbia University, you are more bigoted than most cities that were run by the KKK in the 1960s.
	You have a black-only graduation and a Latino-only graduation.
	By the way, we should sue them for a violation of the Civil Rights Act for the fact that they're segregating people based on race.
	And so let me encourage all of you: the next time you get called this, don't let it phase you.
	Just get it through your mind.
	If you're going to be involved in politics for the next five years, this is their one and only weapon.
	They will not have discourse with you.
	I'm talking about leftists, not liberals.
	Liberals are ever decreasing.
	There's more leftists because they realize they don't have to have a discussion.
	They can just have a blunt force object and kick you off the chessboard by calling you the R-word.
	So just get it through your mind.
	You're going to be called these awful things, okay?
	And then when you have to confront it, you have to be able to play off and say, Do you want to have a discussion about these ideas or not?
	Do you want to talk about what's actually best for the black community, which is more police and school choice and closed borders and actually rebuilding the black family and stopping the slaughter of what's happening in Planned Parenthood across the country every single year?
	You want to have a discussion about that?
	Of course not.
	But then we have to get to this idea, and this actually doesn't impact you, but this is where you could be an inspiration to people that are older, which is really exciting, which is that the adults, and we've all been impacted so positively by so many adults, but I'm talking about the CEOs, like the people in charge of our country, they don't really know how to handle this moment.
	Do you want to know what gives me hope?
	What gives me hope is that all of you have to deal with this garbage every single day.
	You have to go see the propaganda on Twitter and TikTok and Instagram.
	You see what we're up against, right?
	You feel it.
	We have these amazing, you know, minority conservative turning point USA leaders that are called white supremacists all the time.
	You guys know how vicious these people can get.
	For Ed Bastion, the head of Delta, he's like, I don't understand what's happening.
	Everyone's calling me a racist.
	I don't know what I have to do.
	And so there's a moment now where the courageous are going to win if we hold the line and we push forward.
	So here's really what's happening here.
	And the good news is we have truth on our side and the people are totally behind us is that the wokesters, as I call them, they're making a very, very big mistake, is that they're deciding that they want to take over the nation in what I call a flagless revolution.
	It's the first time anyone's ever tried to take over a country and say, I hate the country I'm trying to take over.
	Think about how weird that is, right?
	I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with the Cuban or the Nicaraguan or the Honduran or the Argentinian or the Venezuelan revolutions, right?
	The people that usually take over the nation usually have something nice to say about the country they're about to govern, right?
	Like usually, usually it's not like, oh, give me power.
	I'm Vladimir Lenin.
	By the way, I hate Russia.
	People have been like, screw you.
	We're not giving you power, Vladimir Lenin.
	Instead, he took the Russian flag.
	He said, I'm more Russian than the Romanovs.
	And people gave him power.
	So they're making a huge mistake.
	Their biggest mistake is they're trying to say, give me more power and I'm going to try to destroy the country.
	So here's the opportunity, right?
	And the opportunity for those of us that are conservatives is we can't just focus on what we're against.
	Trust me, we have a whole thing on anti-socialism, anti-big government sucks.
	I love all that.
	But now we have this opportunity to be like, okay, we can build a multiracial, value-centric, working-class movement that is focused on America as our home, not a colony.
	That America that we want to have stronger families, increased church attendance, lower opioid deaths, where it just basically disappears in our nation, stricter immigration and stricter borders to put college graduates above some person from China that wants to come to America and cut all of your wages instantaneously, that we want to end these ridiculous, endless wars, and that we believe America's greatness is in its people, not all of a sudden in these ridiculous internationalist agreements that we were somehow succumbed to.
	And so we have to talk about what we are for.
	And we have an answer to that, a really popular answer.
	And so there's an energy flowing through politics right now.
	I'm telling you, it's going to be in some ways, it's going to be, it's going to be something that I don't think we're going to understand immediately.
	But you guys are on the cutting edge of this.
	You really are.
	Where the identity politics, woke industrial complex is getting less popular by the day.
	They're louder and they control everything, but all of a sudden, they're going to realize they do not have a sizable constituency for here.
	So the question is, what are we going to be able to put in response for that?
	And it kind of starts with the reason why we're all here, which is strong and flourishing families, which is a country that says, you know what, maybe we should bring down the divorce rate and bring up how many American born children are happening every single year and fix the fertility crisis that's happening in America.
	Like maybe we should have more American born children, not less American born children.
	These sorts of things is what's going to give people excitement and energy and enthusiasm.
	Of course, we could talk about what we're against all day long.
	Of course we can.
	And so I want to close with this and we'll do some questions, is that what you're doing on the college campuses is the most important work.
	It is.
	And high schools as well.
	I know it can feel lonely.
	I know that you can feel you're under attack.
	We understand all that.
	We are here to assist and support you.
	But the decisions you're making right now as a 15, 16, 17, and 18-year-old are going to have such a consequential impact on not just your trajectory, but who you are as a person.
	Most colleges don't talk about one of the most important words, which is the word character.
	Character comes from a Greek word which means imprint, tattoo.
	It's like imprint.
	It's into who you are.
	Every decision you make will be reflected in your spirit and your soul.
	So that's it.
	Here's the question.
	Are you going to stand up and cross-examine the professor when they say that critical race theory is the greatest thing ever?
	Now, if you say no, you say, I don't know, well, that's okay.
	Maybe it's the right decision.
	But that's going to play an impact on it, and it will.
	And so, I'm not a positive one.
	And so the decisions you're making today will be incredibly consequential for the rest of your life.
	And that's what we are here at Turning Point USA trying to do every single day.
	Look, by now, you've all heard me talk about My Pillow and how Mike has done it again by introducing his My Slippers.
	Mike Lindell, he's got a lot of ambition.
	He's a patriot.
	He loves his country.
	A lot of people like Mike Lindell.
	In fact, I get emails from people.
	They say, Charlie, how can I help you?
	How can I help Mike Lindell?
	How can I help the country?
	Well, if you go to mypillow.com and buy anything with the promo code Kirk, it helps both of us.
	That's right.
	Maybe you want to go buy the MyPillow slippers.
	They're beautiful slippers.
	Maybe you want to buy the MyPillow, MyPillow.
	MyPillow slippers are so comfortable that you want to get some for the whole family.
	So go to mypillow.com and click on the Radio Listener Square and use promo code Kirk.
	You'll also get deep discounts on MyPillow products, including the Giza Dream bedsheets, the MyPillow mattress toppers, and MyPillow towel sets.
	Or call 800-875-0425 and use promo code Kirk.
	All right, let's get to some questions.
	Hi, Charlie.
	So I'm majoring in journalism.
	I graduate in about a year.
	My question for you is with media being completely controlled by the left right now, what do you think or how do you think that future journalists that are conservative can save the journalism industry?
	Because that's something I'm thinking about right now.
	I graduate in a year to find a job.
	How am I going to go into an industry that is completely dominated by the left?
	And do you think it's even possible to save the industry right now?
	It's a great question.
	Let me start with this.
	Let me start by saying, if you get into journalism, have the daily mission to change journalism, don't let journalism change you.
	I've seen this happen to a lot of young conservatives that graduate and they go work for some of these big institutions.
	And then they're all these woke, they're like wokesters a couple years later.
	First of all, there's a lot of great conservative journalism outlets that are popping up a lot.
	There's Daily Wire, Daily Caller, Breitbart, and many others.
	But be unafraid to go into these liberal institutions and be a journalist first.
	Everyone has ideology, right?
	But go try to restore what journalism should be, which is the purveying and the communication of facts, going and ask very much in-depth questions.
	I'll give you a great example of a journalistic piece that hasn't been written.
	It's a pretty interesting piece.
	Who's paying for all of these t-shirts that the illegals are wearing on the southern border that says Joe Biden, let me in?
	That's a pretty simple question, right?
	Like, who's manufacturing those shirts?
	Who's paying for them?
	Who's shipping them?
	No journalism journalist dares ask that.
	And so I want to encourage you, though, we need more conservatives going into the journalistic field.
	It's going to be tough.
	You know that.
	You're going to be called names.
	You're not going to be hired on certain things.
	But if you have perseverance through that, it's going to matter more than ever before because there's so many journalists that feel as if they're being silenced.
	They feel as if they're being shut down and they're not able to do the work that they need to do.
	And so journalism should be A practice or a profession where the truth is finally given an opportunity and a fair hearing.
	It's the opposite right now.
	It's an activist media where their mission statement is to destroy us and destroy our way of life.
	So I want to commend you and I want to just say it's have perseverance and have courage and it's going to work out for you.
	Okay?
	Thank you.
	That's you on the hole.
	Okay.
	Hi, Charlie.
	I'm Lane.
	I go to Thunderbird High School here in Phoenix.
	Awesome.
	And I just want to know, here, I pulled up my, I wrote down my question.
	I was wondering what I can do to help the other students at my school to understand that not everything's racist.
	Oh, my gosh.
	It's gone so far that they're changing our mascot because what was your mascot?
	The Chiefs, and it's racist now.
	And they're even trying to change the fact that we have SROs or student resource officers at our school because all cops are bad now.
	And I was even called a racist on Thursday.
	Yeah.
	Because I said that George Floyd was a criminal.
	Of course he was.
	Yes.
	And I just want to know what I can do to help everyone at my school understand how not everything is racist and how that's going to happen.
	Yeah, so I want to ask you a couple of questions.
	What town is your high school in?
	It's here in Phoenix.
	Okay, but what part of Phoenix?
	It's on 19th Avenue in Thunderbird.
	So it's downtown Phoenix or kind of.
	It's like Chandler.
	I don't know Phoenix that well.
	I'm just trying to figure out what it's like northern West Phoenix?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Like, okay.
	So do you have a turning point USA group?
	They said they wouldn't be able to start it like this year, and most of the people in it are seniors this year.
	So I just started the Phoenix Activism Hub.
	Good.
	That's terrific.
	I want to encourage you and thank you for, because look, and I, again, I want to reinforce this point.
	If you get involved in this, you're going to be called a racist.
	How many people have been called a racist recently?
	Raise your hand.
	There you go.
	See?
	There you go.
	Yep.
	But do you know what the?
	Don't cheer.
	But do you want to know the tragedy of that is?
	Is that there somewhere is a real racist, and then he gets looped into all of us?
	And then, yeah, exactly.
	And then the word ends up meaning nothing, right?
	The word literally means nothing when every single person in the room's hand goes up, but they actually believe it.
	Look, that saddens me.
	Let me first say that.
	It saddens me because that is an anti-critical way of you.
	It's like it's an anti-critical thinking way of looking at the world.
	So your question was: how do I convince my friends?
	Just in my school, really.
	Yeah, your school or anyone that not everything is racist.
	I guess you have to ask what racism is, and they really aren't able to define it.
	So there's two definitions of racism.
	There's one that's true and one that's completely false.
	The true one is that one person discriminates another person based on skin color.
	That's what racism is.
	We all agree with that.
	They think racism is a power struggle.
	They think racism is everywhere.
	It's in the air, it's in the sky, it's in the light, it's in your clothes.
	This is complete and total rubbish.
	It's garbage.
	So unfortunately, and I hope all the adults are listening to this.
	Would you say your high school is mostly of that viewpoint?
	They think everything's racist.
	Apparently, it's a public high school.
	So that makes it even more swing.
	I'm curious, have any parents ever gotten involved in like standing up to things in your school?
	They actually just created, the school created a safety thing so that it's easier to report racial insensitivity.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Yeah, I know that if I go to that and say, hey, this person called me a racist, they'd kind of just brush it off.
	Of course they do.
	Yeah.
	Because it's not about that.
	So yeah, I guess my best piece of advice is that it's about the conversations, not the conversions.
	And I guess I would ask the question, can you just show me anyone who isn't a racist?
	I guess that's probably a pretty good way to start.
	I don't know if they'd even be able to say it.
	And I can't reinforce this point enough, everybody.
	If we do not win on this issue, this will break the back of the American Republic in the next five years.
	Like we have to play offense on this issue because what you're telling me is in a high school in Phoenix, Arizona, a very consequential state, an entire high school thinks everything is racist.
	That's the negotiating point.
	And so we have to be more vocal and louder.
	And you have the right opinion.
	Yeah, they call me a racist, whatever.
	You're going to be more free than anyone else because of that because you're like, your insults mean nothing to me.
	I know who I am, and I'm going to keep on acting accordingly.
	So I want to encourage you for that.
	I want to also just say, do not, they're going to get more vicious.
	That these people are very, they're going to personalize politics.
	They're going to call you the worst things in the world, but stand strong.
	And there's more people with you in your high school than you might believe.
	I will say, there's probably a lot of people that are like, oh, I like that, but I don't want to.
	It takes one courageous person to be able to spread truth.
	Thank you.
	Also, I'm involved with a lot of the arts, which makes it even worse because like theater, choir, just everyone surrounding me is in like extreme left-wing.
	Yeah.
	Which really sucks how that's.
	Well, guess what?
	You're going to make a lot of friends here at Turning Point USA.
	These will be real friends.
	Thank you for being here.
	Thank you.
	Hi, my name's Victoria.
	Hi.
	So I wanted to ask you first, how do you see America in 10 years?
	And what are your thoughts on ending polarization in this country, like in our political climate?
	Yeah, it's a great question.
	You know, I hear people that say all the time, oh, yeah, we're too divided as a nation.
	I kind of just chuckle.
	I'm like, wait a second, is it the people that are like burning down our cities that are dividing us?
	Or is it the people that just want to raise their family and go to church that are dividing us?
	And so I just kind of chuckle.
	Here's the one thing I will say, though, and this is not something people want to hear, quite honestly, but it's the truth, is that we're entering this moment where it's either they're going to win or we're going to win, right?
	And I hate to be this binary about it.
	They're playing for keeps.
	You guys know that, right?
	I mean, they're trying to pack the Supreme Court, add D.C. as a state, add Puerto Rico as a state, abolish the Electoral College.
	This is not a policy debate, right?
	This is not like, oh, we're exchanging ideas.
	They're like, we have power.
	We're going to use it until you guys have no voice and your ideas are permanently in the minority, right?
	So where do I see America in 10 years?
	It is completely dependent on what everyone in this room does and what everyone at home does.
	It's an unknown.
	So some people ask the question, you didn't ask this way, so I'm not saying you.
	They say, hey, Charlie, do you think we're going to win or lose?
	I get this question all the time.
	And I say, huh?
	Are you asking because you want me to give you permission to give up?
	Because if I said, hey, I think we're going to lose, would you fight any less?
	Is this all of a sudden a probability Vegas oddsmaker game where now our activism and our involvement is based on whether or not we think we are going to win?
	So what is courage?
	Courage is doing the right thing when you do not know how it's going to work out.
	What's a great example of courage in American history?
	Storming Normandy Beach.
	No idea how that day was going to work out for them, but they did it anyway for a moral good.
	And so it's completely and totally dependent on what we do.
	Let me tell you how we can win and let me tell you how we can lose.
	Here's what we have working for us.
	The wokester are deciding they want to take over a country they actually hate.
	It's going to be a really tough thing to do.
	I actually think that they're going to reach a ceiling and they're going to collapse from there.
	Here's where we have working for us.
	They're working against, yeah, it's working against us, but it can eventually work for us.
	The left is trying to create more racism.
	Remember the supply and demand thing, right?
	There's such a low supply of racism in America.
	They're trying to create it.
	They're trying to have people always think racist thoughts, and then they're trying to create legitimate racism to justify their power grab.
	Here's what I think is going to actually happen, though.
	There will be an element of that, but that's only going to be a small part of the story.
	In addition to that, I think a massive, multiracial, value-centric, decent political movement is just waiting for representation right now.
	I think that 70% of the country is going to say, you know what?
	Screw you, angry, woke leftist.
	We want a country based on the goodness of America, restore to American greatness and self-sufficiency and strong families, and we will not be governed by you.
	It's not going to happen.
	And so that is waiting to explode in a good way, I'm telling you.
	But it has to be focused.
	And people say, like, oh, you can't say the word nationalism.
	Like, why can't I say the word national?
	I don't understand.
	Like, we want a strong country.
	We don't want this like temporary pleasure-seeking colony, right?
	And so you always should care about the welfare of the nation of which you are in and care about the countrymen around you.
	That's a very popular thing for people.
	It is.
	And so they don't want you to talk about it because people are like, of course I want a strong nation.
	You guys ever, you guys drive through Scottsdale or Paradise Valley here, you'll see people with American flags.
	And you notice that flag means something to all of us, right?
	And that flag means something because to each and every one of us, it might mean a family member that went and fought in a war for this country, right?
	It might mean a police officer that goes to work every single day to keep us safe.
	This flag also might mean how we abolish slavery and pass the Civil Rights Act.
	This flag means something to everyone else, something different, right?
	The point is that if you do not have a unifying political ethos that is like, you know, we're actually about restoring our home and we're just about cutting corporate taxes, which conservatives have been focused on the last 20 years, then of course you're going to lose.
	But there's a moment right now, the populist energy can either go towards a Bolshevik revolution or it can go towards a pro-human, people-centered, value-centric, conservative movement, unlike anything we've ever seen in our country's history before.
	And that's what we must contend for every single day.
	Thank you.
	Man, you ran over there quick.
	The reason why I ran over there is because I have something very special to show you.
	But first, I want to start off.
	I want to thank you so much for being here.
	What you've done for this country is absolutely amazing.
	It's absolutely thank you.
	We sure miss number 45, don't we?
	We sure miss it.
	My question is, do you think that critical race theory is an element of black supremacy?
	Is it a black supremacist ideology?
	That's very good.
	You even say the words in the right way.
	I have to say, that's actually a very good thing.
	There's an element of that.
	Of course there is.
	Yeah, I mean, Ibram X. Kendi has said that.
	I think it's actually worse.
	I think it's actually more white guilt-centric than black supremacist-centric.
	I think it's more about white people feeling sorry just because they exist and never underestimate the power of white guilt ever.
	And that's what Shelby Steele wrote.
	But yes, there is an element to that, but I don't think that's the driving force.
	I think Ibram X. Kendi and I think that Patrice Khan Colors, I think that they focus on it.
	And that's a pretty good impression, I have to say.
	It's very, very good.
	So well done.
	That's good.
	Thank you so much, sir.
	God bless you.
	God bless you.
	It's good.
	We got time for one more question.
	We'll take one or two.
	We get one or two more.
	Yeah.
	Thank you so much, Charlie Kirk, for your talk.
	I really loved it.
	And I also loved your talk and the whole thing at SAS.
	Thank you.
	And my question for you is: what is your one?
	You don't have to just give one, but what is your one takeaway about life in general and about your experience around many different people at your time at turning point?
	Yeah, boy, what's my one takeaway?
	Look, I'll tell you this.
	Here's a couple pieces of advice for young people.
	Try to seek to be wise instead of being right.
	It's a very important thing.
	So what is wisdom?
	Most of your schools don't teach you wisdom.
	Does any school actually teach wisdom anymore?
	Do they actually do that?
	One hand goes up.
	Are you homeschooled?
	Yeah, exactly.
	Does anyone teach wisdom?
	No?
	No, of course not.
	No, but they'll teach anger.
	They're really good at teaching that.
	What is wisdom?
	Anyone can tell me what wisdom is?
	No, thank you.
	That's it.
	Thank you.
	That's not true.
	Wisdom is the knowledge of things that never change.
	You listen to my podcast, don't you?
	Good for you.
	God bless you.
	Well done.
	Let me say that again.
	Wisdom is the knowledge of things that never change.
	If there's only one thing you remember, remember that.
	Now, what does that mean?
	That means that things might change around you materially, but human beings do not.
	So wisdom is your ability, and there's a whole book in the Bible written around it, Proverbs, is your ability to have the knowledge of how human beings act.
	What does it mean to live a good life?
	How do you handle yourself under pressure?
	Should you always tell the truth?
	What is integrity?
	What is beauty?
	What is goodness?
	What is wonder?
	How should you proceed when all of a sudden everyone is against you?
	Believe it or not, that's what your school system should be teaching you.
	They don't.
	Instead, they teach you they're filled with practical knowledge, if even that.
	So there's two types of analogy: eternal knowledge and practical knowledge.
	Practical knowledge is who's the governor of Arizona, all that stuff changes.
	Eternal knowledge never changes.
	And so, what is a mark of a wise man?
	And I don't pretend to be one, by the way.
	I don't.
	Maybe one day.
	But what is a mark of a wise man?
	A wise man is easily and happily corrected.
	You should write that on the top of every single one of your notebooks every single day.
	Even when you go to school and learn from a bunch of people that don't know what they're talking about.
	Maybe like I might be corrected on one thing.
	A wise man is easily and happily corrected.
	What a great way to go about life.
	If you show me a happy man, I will show you a wise man.
	The more you seek wisdom, the more rich of a life you will live.
	So you might say, well, Charlie, where do I find wisdom?
	Well, the Bible's a good place to start, obviously, but it's not there.
	The MAGA doctrine has some wisdom in there.
	I have to say, there's some good wisdom in there.
	Thank you.
	But also, you can seek wisdom from people in your life that have lived a very rich and good life.
	Grandparents in particular are a wonderful source of wisdom.
	And take it, these phones are destroying our country, by the way.
	I become very anti-technology.
	The only thing that, I know, I've like this whole pro-Luddite speech.
	I could give it at a different time.
	But that's true.
	But the only thing I will say that's good about these phones is you should catalog and memorialize your conversation with your grandparents.
	Trust me, please.
	Go save hours of footage with yourself, voice memos, and videos.
	I'm telling you, do this.
	You're going to want that footage later in your life and you're going to learn from it.
	There's something very special about a grandparent's wisdom to a grand.
	It's something intergenerationally magical.
	I think you can all agree at that in one way or the other.
	So take that very, very seriously.
	So, and I guess the final thing I'll say is this.
	I wish that when I was in such a hurry to build all of Turning Point and all this, I wish I would have slowed down a little bit more.
	I know that's hard for me to say because, I mean, I give 300 speeches a year.
	Year.
	We do two podcasts a day, two hours a radio day.
	We're always in a rush.
	We're always in a hurry and for good reason.
	I wish I would have slowed down a little bit more and really thought even more deeply about the origination of these ideas and the wealth of knowledge that preceded my own involvement in this space.
	I know that that might not make a lot of sense to you, but in the last two years since we've started the podcast, I've just gone on a wonderfully satisfying and rich journey of rereading the great books of the West and re-exploring the timeless philosophical ideas.
	And it's been such a, it's actually why I love what I get to do.
	I get to host two hours of podcasting every day, and I do two hours a day of learning where I turn off my phone and I read a book or watch a lecture or listen to a deep podcast and I take meticulous notes and it's the greatest time of my day.
	And I get to dive deeper and I get to really understand the world, hopefully in a better place.
	And the more I know, the more I realized how little I knew when I thought I knew it all.
	And that's something that I hope some of you will take away.
	The last thing I'll say is this: is just when you're young, ask questions.
	That's a great thing to just ask questions of everyone all the time.
	From taxi drivers to Uber drivers to people, people are way more interesting than I think we give them credit for.
	They're like infinitely interesting.
	And there's more wisdom, by the way, in plumbers than in professors.
	Remember that.
	There's more wisdom in American plumbers than in professors.
	All right.
	I took too long on that answer.
	We'll try to get to one or two more.
	Okay, next question.
	Thank you.
	I know I'm over time.
	I got it, Lauren.
	I know.
	Thank you.
	Okay.
	Mind if I hold it?
	Yeah.
	Hey, I saw you at Dream City Church today.
	Yes, sir.
	I'm actually going to let this young man ask the question, but I wanted to thank you for coming to Dream City Scottsdale.
	It's my childhood church, and it was really crazy in my life to be coming back to the Lord and to do a 360 and to see you at my childhood church.
	And thank you.
	Thank you for briefly approaching my friends and I after and signing my copy of the MAGA Doctrine.
	And I hope to be seeing you on May 4th, Turning Point Faith.
	God bless you.
	What's your name?
	My name is Samuel Justice.
	Samuel, God bless you.
	Your last name is Justice.
	My middle name is Justin, but I'm going to start using Justice.
	Did he say Justice or Justice?
	I like Justice.
	Just go with Justin.
	Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying.
	You probably couldn't read the last name.
	God bless you, Samuel.
	Thank you.
	Thank you, Charlie.
	Appreciate that.
	Hey, Charlie.
	How are you doing, man?
	Good.
	My name is Ishmael.
	I'm actually.
	That's a great name.
	Thank you.
	I appreciate it.
	I'm from Illinois.
	What part?
	Westmont?
	Where?
	Westmont.
	Yeah, of course.
	Yeah.
	So, first of all, thank you very much for hosting this sort of event.
	Thank you.
	I came here from Westmont, actually.
	We got our TPUSA chapter recognized at University of Illinois Chicago.
	Awesome.
	That is a very liberal school.
	So Bill Ayers still teaches there, right?
	Yeah, I believe so.
	Yeah, Bill Ayers is a professor at UIC.
	All right.
	So I just had one quick question for you.
	It's, do you believe the modern conservative movement that we are all proudly a part of today is going to be enough to save our country from the extremism that the left brings?
	No.
	This is part of it.
	We need a couple other things to happen.
	First of all, thank you, Ishmael, for running the group.
	It's terrific.
	And that really touches me because UIC is just like, it's a den of thieves.
	It's just a terrible place.
	And so I love hearing from our turning point chapters.
	It just gives me hope for our country.
	No, it's not going to be enough.
	We need strong families.
	We need a value crusade in our country to get people to care more about pursuing truth and embracing self-control instead of self-esteem.
	We need parents to be much more involved in their children's lives to become their children's parent, not their friend.
	We need to get away from these ridiculous devices that are turning us into quasi-sideboards that are dehumanizing our interaction, seeking the next dopamine rush as if your values, how many Instagram likes you get.
	All those things need to happen, but they can happen in tandem together.
	What I think, though, is that the conservative movement can lead on these issues.
	I really do.
	And what I think is we're starting to see is that we're seeing community here today.
	Because Aristotle said that politics is the highest form of community because it blends morality and sociability.
	But no, it's not going to be enough.
	We need to build new businesses.
	Any entrepreneurs out there, anyone that wants to start a business, Ishmael, you said, go do it now.
	Just like, just please, we need big risk takers right now.
	Just shut off the rest of the world and go do it.
	I don't know if I would have had the cultural permission to start a business like I started Turning Point USA back when I was 18.
	There's so many people that say, don't do that.
	Just go to college, sit down and obey, just get a job and all this.
	We need risk takers.
	We need to build new stuff.
	Anyone want to start an airline?
	Anyone?
	Anyone?
	Airline.
	It's yours right there.
	Okay?
	Done.
	How about a soft drink company?
	Anyone?
	$40 million.
	Yeah, here's the thing, though.
	You got 75 million customers waiting for you like that.
	And so the point is this: think really big.
	We need, I want you to dream.
	No one tells young people to dream anymore.
	So they tell you to obey.
	They don't think, they don't tell you to dream.
	They're like, oh yeah, go do what you're told and put on the mask and turn on the Zoom call.
	You're a terrible person.
	You're racist and all these.
	No wonder why we have a mental health crisis in our country.
	Of course we do.
	You're being lectured all the time by miserable people.
	And instead, you should be like, you know what?
	No, you can go start that business, Ishmael, whatever that business might be.
	It might be a restaurant.
	It might be a railroad.
	And you're going to come up against opposition.
	You're going to come up against hatred.
	But in our country, we're really good at figuring out problems.
	We always have been.
	It's part of our entrepreneurial spirit.
	We can never lose that.
	And so, no, it's not going to be enough, but it can be part of it.
	And I just wanted to mention that one part about thinking big and taking risks.
	If I could tell you the biggest problem I have with the conservative movement is how small we think.
	So who are the ones that are supposed to be pushing that forward?
	Young people, you guys.
	Our whole system is built right now of trying to get you to sit down and not dream and think.
	They want you not to dream and think.
	They want you to just become a cog in the machine, right?
	Go into debt, go get your degree, and go work for some miserable Fortune 100 company and go be like in a 2,000 square, like a 1,000 square foot apartment in downtown Chicago.
	And maybe one day you can be happy and say, you know what?
	No, I have an ambition to start a nonprofit to solve this.
	Or I have an ambition to start a business to do that.
	Or I want to build a really good family.
	That's a good thing to do too, by the way.
	That's a noble and a great thing.
	And so I am encouraging you right now, tonight, privately, to allow yourself something that the school system does not do.
	Allow yourself to dream a little bit.
	Stop being so, like, everything around us is so unbelievably negative all the time.
	All the time.
	Everything's burning.
	Everyone's racist.
	Cops are there to kill you.
	You can't go for a jog of your black person.
	Ridiculous thing to say, of course.
	Instead, it's like, no, actually, just release yourself of all of those energy flows and maybe you can go create and build something new.
	Go build with a little bit of a daring risk, right?
	Like go put yourself out there a little bit.
	Go all of a sudden and say, I don't know all the answers, but I know that I'm going to have the ambition, the drive to do it.
	That whole belief system is lacking in our country so much, isn't it?
	And by the way, all of you can do that.
	I'm going to tell you right now, the only thing that separates me, people say, well, Charlie, what was the key to success at Turning Point USA?
	Right place, right time, great mentors, generous people behind me.
	And the only thing I did better than anyone else is I outworked everyone.
	It's the only thing I did.
	So I put in more hours, I made more phone calls, did more meetings, took more trips.
	That's the only thing I can actually say.
	Guess what?
	That's 100% at your disposal.
	It's not a talent thing.
	Talent's whatever.
	Talent comes and goes.
	But you can make a decision today.
	You're like, you know what?
	I am going to be the hardest worker in the room.
	I am.
	No one is going to put in more hours than I can.
	Now, by the way, once you decide that, then all of a sudden you're getting to the next level and you're going to say, man, now I'm going to have to hold myself to a higher standard.
	Maybe I'm not going to be able to go out and drink every Friday night or Saturday night or Sunday night or Monday night or Tuesday night or Wednesday night, right?
	Maybe I have to stop doing that substance.
	Maybe I got to stop visiting those websites.
	Maybe I have to act a little bit more upright because if I'm going to be the person and dream, I'm not going to allow other things get in the way of my dreams.
	I'm not going to allow the other person to get in the way of the person I could be.
	And that is something that I think there is so much untapped potential in our country.
	I meet, that's why I love high school kids because high school kids still have a little bit of this.
	By the time some of you are in college, I love you guys to death, but not anyone in this room, of course.
	But like some of you guys, it feels like you've been in like some sort of like war industrial camp.
	Like, man, I don't know what I'm going to do.
	I got all this debt.
	I'm like, what are we doing?
	Like, just, you should have the most ambition at that age, right?
	To seek further and to take new and to be daring and bold.
	And you guys can do that still in this country.
	That's going to be part of what saves us.
	It's a new, energetic, aspirational, entrepreneurial generation that says, we're going to start new stuff.
	We don't care.
	We're going to do the impossible.
	And that's always what has made America different.
	So thank you, Ishmael.
	I'm inspired by you.
	Okay, I am way over time.
	I'm sorry.
	And so we'll do one last one.
	Thank you, Ishmael.
	And then the team's going to kill me.
	Okay, last one.
	Hi, how are you, Charlie?
	My name is Simon.
	I'm originally from Venezuela.
	I study.
	Awesome.
	I study at international relations at the University of Maryland.
	So right now, our college campus is under attack.
	We have academic president who is pandering with students, who is using critical race theory, who wants to use the BLM politics to defund the campus police.
	We have teachers who pretty much they fail me because I'm using the logic, because I'm questioning them.
	So, and this is really dangerous for the mind of the future of America.
	So I want to ask you, what would be the legal challenge and the legal strategy to forbid leftist professors, to forbid presidents of universities to have this radical agenda?
	What school?
	Who did you go to?
	University of Maryland College Park.
	Wow, so you traveled a long way to be here.
	From Washington, D.C. That's amazing.
	Thank you.
	And so, can I ask you a question?
	Did you grow up in Venezuela?
	I was born and raised in Venezuela.
	I came here six years ago, and I'm really proud to become an American citizen.
	We're very happy you're here.
	It's a very good time.
	And I'll tell you.
	We need more people that love our nation like you do.
	I just wish that more people in America did.
	Let me ask you a question.
	Do you see similarities between what's happening here and what you saw happen in Venezuela?
	Pretty much I see the same thing, radicalism.
	You know, there is no future.
	In Venezuela, the educational system is totally destroyed by the Maruji regime.
	And right now, I see that I'm afraid that it will happen in America if we do not do something.
	Yes.
	So you asked about a legal challenge.
	This is something that makes some conservatives uncomfortable.
	And I'm going to say this as bluntly as I can.
	I am not going to oversee a managed decline of this beautiful gift we've been given to by God.
	So what does that mean?
	That means that we have to use whatever political power that we've been given from the people to start pushing back and launching a counteroffensive against the left.
	So what is that actually?
	Some conservatives are okay.
	I am not one of them, to kind of just be in this position of managed decline.
	Like, we have the right ideas.
	Like, we're going to win the debates and the arguments in the coffee shops, but we're going to watch the country around us because we're unwilling to do what's necessary.
	So here's what we need to do.
	By the way, we didn't start this fight.
	They started the fight.
	They are intruding on our values.
	Let's just be very clear.
	But here's how this works.
	If you're a governor of a state like Kansas or Oklahoma or Missouri or Kentucky or Tennessee or Florida, DeSantis are doing a great job and he's starting to do this, but we have to be more aggressive.
	Say, hey, you know what?
	We're all for free speech.
	That's fine.
	You're actually not.
	And so you're going to teach Western civilization in every single one of our schools.
	We're going to teach the values of the American nation.
	And by the way, if you don't, as a professor, you're going to be fired.
	Now, some people say, well, Charlie, that's anti-free speech.
	Let me be very clear, okay?
	I'm for free speech in our society and all these sort of things.
	If you're even teaching kids fundamental American values and you're like not doing something about it under the guise of freedom of speech, at some point that feels like an excuse rather than a reason, especially when every single one of you are being indoctrinated every single day by your teachers and your professors and the conservatives in charge are like, well, we can't do anything about it.
	No, I'm talking about bold and decisive action.
	I'm talking about finally we have to use the political power that was given to us to save the country.
	So this is, we're going to break up the tech companies from a state level.
	Like we're going to say, you know what, Facebook, Google, and Twitter, that if you're going to keep on silencing conservative voices, there will be a price to pay for that.
	Because here's what's going to happen.
	If we do not do things quickly and we don't act fast and boldly, all of a sudden we're going to lose with all the right ideas.
	We're like, oh boy, well, we won the debate, but we lost the country.
	I'm not okay with that.
	And so there has to be a legal price to pay and there has to be a political price to pay.
	How do you deal with bullies?
	You punch them back twice as hard.
	And right now, the left is, they are poking us in the eye and they are saying very clearly, oh, why are you taking it?
	Why are they taking it?
	Republicans are terrified of using political power.
	Democrats are enthusiastic about using political power.
	And how did we get the political power?
	Did we take it?
	Do we say JQ?
	No, we actually got elected.
	So people elected us to protect their value system.
	It's about time we actually start doing it.
	About time we start making these measures policy so that you can actually enjoy America as the republic, not the soon-to-be Venezuela.
	God bless you.
	I'm so glad you're here.
	Thank you.
	So, sorry, guys, we have to run.
	I just want to say you guys are heroes because you have courage, because you're doing the right thing, even though you don't know how it's going to work out.
	You're doing the right thing, even though you might get kicked out of your fraternity, kicked out of your sorority, lose your friends, have a less than desirable job resume, as if that really matters.
	You have courage.
	Don't lose it.
	Be even more bold in your coming weeks and months.
	Because guess what?
	We have your back.
	We have your back when all of a sudden you become under huge backlash from university.
	Turning point USA has your back.
	You're not going to be left to fight it alone.
	All of a sudden, there'll be an infrastructure, a staffing support to be able to support you in all of that.
	And then arm yourself with the resources and commit yourself to say every 10 minutes a day, I'm going to learn something new about our beautiful country.
	So it might be the Charlie Kirk Show podcast.
	And by the way, if you're not yet subscribed, if this whole room subscribed at once, everyone took out their phone, and we would beat Rachel Maddow on the podcast charts, which I would just love to be able to say that this room did that.
	And it's very easy.
	Let's do it.
	I think that's a great idea.
	Don't you think that's a good idea?
	Everyone has a podcast app on their phone.
	Apple is preferred, but if you have Spotify, that's whatever.
	But anyway, I would be blessed by that.
	Thank you.
	Well, then you're a great American, my friend.
	So thank you.
	But let me close by this.
	I have to do the shameless self-promotion thing at least once.
	Let me close by this.
	We are at a turning point in our nation.
	It's kind of funny how that works, right?
	And so You guys right now, 20 years from now, when you have kids, 20 or 30 years from now, when you have kids your age, they're going to ask you what you did at that moment that's written about called the uncertain 20s.
	Because that's what you're living through right now.
	I have other descriptors for it, but it's not the roaring 20s, let me be clear.
	So your kids and grandkids are going to ask you, what'd you do in the 20s when all this stuff kind of happened at once, right?
	Because when historians write the books, they're going to be like, oh, wow, there were race riots and tech companies and the January 6th thing and the election and the fraud and like all this stuff happening.
	What are you going to be able to answer?
	Well, you have the really good answer.
	You're like, you know what I did?
	I stood my ground on a college campus.
	I didn't take their BS or their nonsense.
	I persuaded other people.
	I inspired positive change.
	I started a group and I'm really proud of that.
	And guess what?
	That's what actually is going to matter in your life.
	That's the stuff that actually lives forever.
	Not these like silly friendships that all that's that stuff goes away.
	It does.
	What really matters is a person doing the right thing when it's hard.
	That lives with you in eternity.
	That thing never changes.
	And so pursue that and commit yourself to that.
	And together, we, I'm telling you, our generation, we're going to save this nation together.
	Our home, America the beautiful.
	Our home.
	Thank you guys so much.
	Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
	Email us your thoughts, freedom at charliekirk.com.
	And please consider supporting us at charliekirk.com slash support.
	God bless you.
	Speak to you soon.

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