The Charlie Kirk Show - Fighting the “Elites” for America’s Future—LIVE from Cal State Fullerton Aired: 2022-05-11 Duration: 01:22:46 === Turning Point USA Support (04:28) === [00:00:00] Hey everybody, today on the Charlie Kirk Show, my remarks at Cal State Fullerton. [00:00:03] As always, you can email me directly, freedom at charliekirk.com. [00:00:06] If you want to support the Charlie Kirk show, go to charliekirk.com slash support. [00:00:10] But first, I want to tell you guys to get involved with Turning Point USA. [00:00:14] As you know, Turning Point USA is America's best hope. [00:00:17] We're making hope happen at tpusa.com. [00:00:20] Our high school and college students are fighting on the front lines for America, for liberty, for freedom, where it matters most. [00:00:26] It's tpusa.com. [00:00:28] And you can get engaged and get involved. [00:00:30] You can start a chapter. [00:00:31] And so maybe you are a young woman and you want to come to our young women's leadership summit and see Candace Owens and Kaylee McKinney and more. [00:00:38] Go to tpusa.com slash ywls. [00:00:41] That's tpusa.com slash ywls to come to our young women's leadership summit. [00:00:45] Or maybe you want to come to our student action summit in Tampa, Florida, where we now have President Donald Trump confirmed in Tampa, Florida in late July. [00:00:53] Come to tpusa.com slash SAS. [00:00:56] That's tpusa.com slash SAS to check that out. [00:01:01] And just get engaged. [00:01:02] Get involved. [00:01:02] Start a high school or college chapter on the front lines. [00:01:05] That's tpusa.com, tpusa.com. [00:01:09] You can always support the Charlie Kirk Show at charliekirk.com slash support. [00:01:13] That's charliekirk.com slash support. [00:01:15] Buckle up, everybody. [00:01:16] Here we go. [00:01:18] Charlie, what you've done is incredible here. [00:01:19] Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses. [00:01:21] I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk. [00:01:25] Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks. [00:01:28] I want to thank Charlie. [00:01:29] He's an incredible guy. [00:01:30] His spirit, his love of this country. [00:01:32] He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA. [00:01:38] 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. [00:01:47] That's why we are here. [00:01:50] Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at AndrewandTodd.com. [00:01:59] Hey, everybody. [00:02:00] Great to be here. [00:02:02] Thank you. [00:02:03] We are on tour right now. [00:02:05] This is our last stop. [00:02:06] Three stops we started in Boulder, and then we went to Berkeley, and now we're here. [00:02:11] So I think this will be what? [00:02:12] Do you think it'll be the most conservative stop of the three? [00:02:14] We'll see. [00:02:15] I don't know. [00:02:17] It'll be tough to say. [00:02:18] There's been some chatter of protests and stuff, so we'll see what happens. [00:02:21] But it's great to be here. [00:02:22] I love California. [00:02:24] Well, let me say this this way. [00:02:25] I love parts of California. [00:02:27] Well, no, I don't know. [00:02:28] Let me say it differently. [00:02:29] I love the people of Caleb. [00:02:31] I love some of the people of California, but I have a whole theory on California, and it really is a test of how important is weather in your life. [00:02:40] That really is the question, right? [00:02:42] I mean, you wake up. [00:02:43] I woke up very early this morning, and a morning in Southern California say, all right, 18% income tax, homelessness, vagrancy, crime. [00:02:52] All right, if this is the trade-off, then so be it. [00:02:54] It really is the great test of weather. [00:02:57] Because I guarantee you, if California was like Fargo, North Dakota in the winter, there would be nobody left. [00:03:04] But I love it here, and we have so many great friends that have supported us for so many years. [00:03:08] And thank you for that at Turning Point USA. [00:03:11] And Orange County is a really important place. [00:03:13] This is a place where it used to be really conservative, and then it kind of has veered to the left a little bit. [00:03:18] But I think there's a conservative revival happening in Orange County right now. [00:03:22] I really do. [00:03:23] And moms and dads are starting to show up at school board meetings. [00:03:27] Students are starting to rise up and start Turning Point USA chapters. [00:03:31] Pastors are starting to take stands, like the great Jack Hibbs, who's not too far from here. [00:03:35] I know a lot of you go to Jack's church. [00:03:36] He does a great job. [00:03:38] And so I'm honored to be here. [00:03:40] And some people say, oh, Charlie, why do you go to California? [00:03:42] Why don't you give up on it? [00:03:43] I say, look, we're a big country. [00:03:45] This is the largest state. [00:03:46] It's the wealthiest state. [00:03:47] And we're going to give up on this amazing place where there's actually more conservatives in California than any other state in the country. [00:03:55] And I feel an obligation to our fellow countrymen here in California. [00:03:58] I live in Arizona. [00:03:59] I wouldn't live here currently, but I just want to say, though, that there's so many amazing people in California that refuse to give up. [00:04:07] And I really, it really touches me. [00:04:09] It does, because, you know, I have an opportunity to travel the country, and it's easy to get cynical, but there's this remnant of California conservatives that just keep on fighting, that just keep on organizing, that refuse to give up, and know that they might not see victory immediately, but one small victory at a time and organizing. === Saving America From Censorship (15:02) === [00:04:28] Putting things together, that that really is something that inspires people all across the country. [00:04:33] It really does, and if we're serious about saving America, we're gonna have to hopefully get California's house in order. [00:04:39] If not, that then start at a local level, start at a county level, and we're starting to see that happen in some very substantial ways. [00:04:44] So I want to talk about a couple things in particular, um, and then we can go into some q a, which is, you know, obviously the most fun part of all this. [00:04:52] So um, I don't have a twitter account uh currently um, so I got banned from twitter. [00:04:57] You might know this. [00:04:58] So this has been one of the most interesting, like unexpected news cycles in my whole 10 years of doing this. [00:05:04] So I got banned from twitter for uh, participating in dead naming. [00:05:07] Do you guys know what dead naming is? [00:05:09] Um okay, I didn't know before I tweeted. [00:05:11] So here's one of the things, um, and it's i'm. [00:05:14] I'm technically suspended from twitter, not banned, so just to get the words correctly. [00:05:18] Uh, we'll get into that what that means. [00:05:20] So here's how you know you're living in kind of a tyrannical moment when you can't keep track of all the rules that you're supposed to follow. [00:05:26] I mean, if you're like me, I can't keep track of all of them right, they're. [00:05:29] They're going to kick you out of a social club or social media because you're like, wait, but what? [00:05:33] What even is that? [00:05:34] So I tweeted out, I think a month ago, about the current health czar, a person by the name calls themselves the name Rachel Levine whatever okay uh, and I said this person used to have a name, Richard Levine, for 54 years of their life and then transitioned. [00:05:49] Okay, whatever. [00:05:50] And I said that in the tweet. [00:05:52] And then you can't even use the name that used to exist. [00:05:54] Right, can't do that. [00:05:55] Um, it's called dead naming. [00:05:57] So you lose your account for that. [00:05:58] And then, in kind of like a Soviet show trial way uh, Twitter comes out and they say okay, in order to get your Twitter account back, you have to admit that you violated our hate speech policies and press the delete button. [00:06:08] So we very well could have done that. [00:06:10] But happened to the Babylon Bee, like two days before that. [00:06:13] And then it happened to us and I thought to myself, you know, I traveled to these events all across the country and I tell young people involved at Turning Point, Usa, you know it's worth fighting for conservative values, but it might cost you something. [00:06:25] And what a hypocrite I would be to tell you that and be like, oh yeah, by the way, i'm just going to delete the tweet and kind of get my twitter account back. [00:06:31] So we're we're, we're in this. [00:06:33] Uh, you would be banned from twitter for saying that. [00:06:36] So um, and I didn't even say that. [00:06:39] So I um, so this standoff started. [00:06:44] Babylon BEE gets suspended, we get suspended. [00:06:46] And you know, we talked to Seth Dylan from Babylon BE and we're kind of like this is insane. [00:06:51] And maybe five years ago we would have kind of deleted the tweet, press the red button and move on. [00:06:54] But we kind of know that when you do that, you conform to these ridiculous rules. [00:06:58] And there's, more important things in life than having access to a twitter account. [00:07:01] There just is, uh, fighting for the truth is way more important than having access to a twitter account. [00:07:05] Um, not lying is way more important than having access to a social media account. [00:07:09] So then Tucker Carlson comes out And he tweets out the tweet of the Babylon BR tweet, which then triggers Twitter to ban Tucker Carlson as well. [00:07:19] But it gets better, right? [00:07:20] So we're kind of like, all right, whatever. [00:07:22] Twitter is kind of a lost cause. [00:07:24] Like, you know, we're not going to delete the tweet. [00:07:26] We'll see what happens. [00:07:26] But there's really kind of momentum starting to be built. [00:07:30] And it caught the eye, this kind of this thing. [00:07:32] And I'm not taking credit for it, but we were definitely part of it. [00:07:35] No, we were. [00:07:36] Because the favorite news source for the world's richest man is the Babylon Bee. [00:07:41] And he loves the Babylon B, he's gone on their podcast on the entire thing. [00:07:45] And this is what I just love about this entire story. [00:07:47] Now, before we get any further, I have a nuanced view of Elon Musk. [00:07:50] I think some of what he does is awesome. [00:07:52] I'm not a fan of other things. [00:07:53] I love his entrepreneurial spirit. [00:07:55] I don't like messing with the human brain. [00:07:57] I don't like the stuff that he does in China. [00:07:59] I think you can have a mixed bag opinion of people. [00:08:00] I think that's fair. [00:08:02] But I just love what's going on right now with Twitter. [00:08:04] It's just awesome. [00:08:05] And so I love, I love every moment of it. [00:08:08] I think it's, and every person who loves the country and loves the Constitution free speech should just be eating popcorn, just seeing the next tweet that Elon's going to come out. [00:08:15] So they ban Babylon B, they ban us, they ban Tucker, and then it catches the attention of Elon Musk. [00:08:21] So Elon has nearly $300 billion. [00:08:23] He's probably even wealthier than that. [00:08:24] We don't even know the true valuation of SpaceX. [00:08:27] And he basically had a decision to make, which is, what am I going to do with all this money, right? [00:08:31] And that is a question that a lot of elites wrestle with. [00:08:34] So, you know, Bezos is like, I'm going to go to Mars, whatever. [00:08:38] Bill Gates is, I'm going to send vaccines all around the world, right? [00:08:42] And Musk was like, you know what? [00:08:43] Like, what? [00:08:44] I could have mansions everywhere and I could send shuttles to Mars. [00:08:47] But if we do not have the fundamental value of freedom of discourse, it doesn't matter how many zeros I have behind my net worth. [00:08:54] And that's a really just unprecedented thing for someone in the ruling class to say. [00:09:00] It is. [00:09:00] They're supposed to obey to the censorship regime, right? [00:09:04] Like, you're like, we shut up voices we don't like. [00:09:07] If you disagree with what we say, don't get in our way. [00:09:10] Well, it just so happens Elon is at the top level of the ability to be able to balance power. [00:09:16] So what ends up happening then is Elon makes this offer. [00:09:20] You guys know that two weeks ago. [00:09:21] He buys just like 10% of TikTok, Twitter. [00:09:25] Not yet. [00:09:25] Buys 10% of Twitter. [00:09:28] And so then he gets into all that. [00:09:31] They say he's going to come on the board of directors, denies it. [00:09:34] And we're like, oh, is he going to back down? [00:09:36] But if he was on the board of directors, he wouldn't be able to buy the entire company. [00:09:39] And at every corner, people think he's not going to do it. [00:09:42] He's not going to do it. [00:09:43] He's not going to do it. [00:09:44] Remember, this is the guy that's trying to go to colonize Mars and has electrical vehicles everywhere. [00:09:49] He's kind of in the whole business of defying people, which I kind of love personally, to be honest. [00:09:54] And this morning, he puts in a cash offer to buy all of Twitter for $42 billion, which is just insane, right? [00:10:03] And it was 44, 42. [00:10:05] 43. [00:10:06] I'm sorry. [00:10:07] Okay. [00:10:07] See, you know what's so crazy about that? [00:10:09] I might get banned from YouTube for disinformation because I said 42 instead of 43. [00:10:14] This is the world I live in. [00:10:16] So Twitter's freaking out, right? [00:10:18] So he's going to buy the whole thing. [00:10:20] Now, just to kind of show how serious Elon is, is he's kind of, I don't know if you've seen Elon's Twitter account today. [00:10:27] He's responding to like random people's tweets with these like super cryptic messages. [00:10:32] World's richest man, just kind of like, I don't know, he has extra time on his hands. [00:10:36] And he says something so interesting, which is that if Twitter denies his offer, they're going to have to withstand possible accusations, legal remedies that show that they're not, let's say, obeying the fiduciary interest of their shareholder because of such a high offer, which they could be, they got huge lawsuits coming. [00:10:57] And so they're meeting right now, and Pragod Agarwal is the CEO of Twitter now. [00:11:02] We don't really know where, we don't know where Jack Dorsey is. [00:11:07] I don't think he's really in the equation right now. [00:11:09] And so Elon wants to buy the entire thing. [00:11:11] And so if you have seen even 1% of the reaction from the left today, it's been one of the most entertaining things I've ever seen. [00:11:18] No, even if you're a leftist in this room, it's unbelievable. [00:11:22] Just like Hitler and just like Stalin, Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter and suppress speech. [00:11:28] This is what they're saying. [00:11:30] And like, it's not just like randos, you know, that are just walking on the side of the street. [00:11:33] These like journalists, right? [00:11:34] Like important people. [00:11:36] And what I love is people say, like, I'm going to get off Twitter if Elon buys the entire thing. [00:11:41] Like, yeah, just like you were going to move to Canada when Trump went, right? [00:11:43] Like, okay, sure. [00:11:44] And here's what's going to happen. [00:11:45] It's like, okay, all like the weird people that wear masks when they shower, like, they'll get off Twitter and all of us will go back to Twitter and it'll be an awesome place, right? [00:11:53] Because we really don't use Twitter much anymore. [00:11:55] And so, you know, we're at this moment where Elon, and this is what I really want to kind of, you know, focus in on, which is Elon is an example of what I think we've lost in the last 20 or 30 years, which is someone with legitimate power outside of the government coming in and fighting for regular people. [00:12:17] And that is something that is worthy of reflection for a couple moments, right? [00:12:21] Because we're used to the opposite. [00:12:23] We're used to Zuckerberg putting $400 million into our elections to have mail-in ballots go everywhere, right? [00:12:29] We're used to kind of this idea of, you know, CNN and all these massive mega corporations coming in and crushing the weak. [00:12:37] And kind of out of nowhere, the very person who is a creation of the American left, and I'll prove it to you in a second, is now the person who is offsetting it. [00:12:45] And so a majority of Elon's wealth is because of the green energy nonsense that they've been pushing. [00:12:51] It's what's so hilarious, right? [00:12:53] Elon is only powerful because they want to get rid of fossil fuels. [00:12:56] So they want to get rid of all fossil fuels and drilling. [00:12:58] Well, someone has to be a beneficiary. [00:12:59] Okay, the electric car guy gets all the money. [00:13:01] The problem is they did not realize they couldn't control him. [00:13:04] So like one of the tweets here is from this person. [00:13:07] I don't even know their name. [00:13:08] Elon Musk is why we need to abolish billionaires. [00:13:11] Okay. [00:13:13] Asking them to chip in their fair share isn't enough. [00:13:15] Regulating them isn't enough. [00:13:17] This is a bleach checkmark person on Twitter. [00:13:19] When people are allowed to acquire this much concentrated influence, they'll inevitably man spread economic power into every other form of power. [00:13:26] Okay. [00:13:27] So I don't know what this person's name is, whatever. [00:13:30] So the interesting part of that, though, is they're okay with billionaires doing their bidding, but they don't like it when billionaires come in and defend Western values. [00:13:41] So a couple of thoughts on this. [00:13:43] The reaction to Elon coming in and trying to consolidate Twitter is, and their insane reaction shows how central censorship is to their plans. [00:13:54] They need to be able to shut you up. [00:13:56] And if all of a sudden that gets put into jeopardy, then a lot of their political control all of a sudden becomes less certain. [00:14:04] And you see the reaction one after the other, after the other, where these people on television are saying like, this is the worst thing for democracy. [00:14:12] Like Robert Reich, you know, at UC Berkeley says that this is like a threat to our entire civilization. [00:14:18] But it's so amazing because Elon said this in his tech talk today. [00:14:22] He says, I'm not doing this for financial reasons. [00:14:24] He says, I'm doing this because I don't want to live in a civilization that does not value freedom of speech. [00:14:31] And so you think about it, what is he really fighting for? [00:14:34] He's now fighting for the true promise of the founding fathers in an internet and technological era. [00:14:40] Like he's now saying, okay, Twitter is a private company or it can make its own decisions, but it really is the place where a lot of the ideas and news breaks today. [00:14:48] It's where the important people go to kind of report things and comment on them. [00:14:52] But if you're not even able to have free and open discourse on that, then you're always constantly living in a different type of censorship regime. [00:15:00] And this is something that I think we as conservatives have started to realize the last couple of years is that the threat to our speech is not just coming from the government. [00:15:08] It's actually primarily coming from private companies. [00:15:11] And so for years, they're like, oh, Twitter can do whatever they want. [00:15:14] They can censor conservatives. [00:15:16] But the moment then someone uses market principles that they were defending, like buying the company and then defending free speech, they all of a sudden want to block it. [00:15:24] So this Max Boot guy, you might know him, he says, I am frightened by the impact on society and politics if Elon Musk acquires Twitter. [00:15:32] He seems to believe that on social media, anything goes. [00:15:35] For democracy to survive, we need more content moderation, not less. [00:15:40] This guy's a columnist for, I don't know, the Washington Post columnist owned by Jeff Bezos. [00:15:45] And so there's article after article after article. [00:15:47] And you think to yourself, like, what drives them to want to keep that kind of internet kind of regime going? [00:15:56] And it really shows that they're so afraid of what would happen in the coming elections if really good ideas would be able to spread freely without them having the thumb on the scale. [00:16:09] That's what they're, let me put it differently. [00:16:11] They're afraid of what happened in 2016 happening every two years. [00:16:16] Because in 2016, we had the closest thing to a free internet in my life. [00:16:19] 2016, the tech companies were taken by surprise by Trump and all these people. [00:16:24] You guys remember 2016 internet? [00:16:25] It was awesome, right? [00:16:27] No one was getting booted. [00:16:28] Things went viral. [00:16:29] And guess what? [00:16:30] Like, that was how we checked CNN. [00:16:32] That's how we got the word out. [00:16:33] And these social media companies have kind of been in this non-stop apology to where we're so sorry. [00:16:38] We're to blame for this. [00:16:39] We're so sorry we're to blame for this. [00:16:40] But guess what? [00:16:42] Every single study shows that center-right content, conservative content, is the most popular on the internet when it's actually given a fair sharing to be heard. [00:16:52] There's a lot of reasons for it. [00:16:53] It makes sense. [00:16:55] So when you have a video that's like, actually, men can't become pregnant, thank you for coming to my TED Talk. [00:17:01] Like that goes really viral. [00:17:03] Instead of all this insane nonsense that you keep hearing. [00:17:06] And so this is a glitch in the matrix. [00:17:08] That's what Elon Musk best represents. [00:17:10] Now, what's going to happen next? [00:17:12] And the question will be really how strong is Elon's resolve? [00:17:17] And I think it's rather significant. [00:17:19] Announced today, this is how this works. [00:17:22] The Security Exchange Commission has come out and they're opening an investigation at Tesla for apparent market violations. [00:17:30] Oh, you better believe they're going to bite back. [00:17:32] You're not just able to, quote, stop censorship. [00:17:34] We're going to put you in your place, Elon. [00:17:37] Now, the company they can really go after is SpaceX because of all the government contracts and stuff. [00:17:43] And mark my words, in the coming weeks and months, if this continues at the pace it's continuing right now, you're going to have people on the left say, We have to cancel government contracts with SpaceX. [00:17:53] We have to stop giving money to these sorts of people that want free speech. [00:17:56] Like, yeah, yeah, they're the worst, those free speech people. [00:17:58] And so we're living through this amazing moment where finally, those of us that feel as if we've been outnumbered and outgunned, we're finally starting to see the equivalent of what the American revolutionaries got from the French government in the Revolutionary War, which is just a little bit of a fighting chance. [00:18:16] A bigger power coming in and helping people, freedom-loving people, be pushed back against an overwhelming and it's sometimes very intimidating type of government or collection of power. [00:18:28] And so, yeah, this is the tweet here: as Elon Musk offers to buy the rest of Twitter, legal sources say today the SEC and the Department of Justice have announced what he described as a joint investigation into a myriad of Musk regulatory issues, primarily involving Tesla. [00:18:43] Coincidence, right? [00:18:44] Of course. [00:18:45] Like, you go on to buy Twitter, like, you're going to have to go deal with all of this. [00:18:49] And I don't think that's going to phase him. [00:18:51] Like, he'll just go to Mars. [00:18:51] Like, okay, whatever. [00:18:52] I'll just like, I'll leave. [00:18:53] Like, I don't know if the laws of extradition apply to interplanetary. [00:19:00] That would be interesting, actually, to see, to kind of push the boundaries. [00:19:04] But I'll complete the point here and I'll make a couple others and we'll get the question and answer, which is the anxiety and the frenetic reaction that we've seen, I think goes to show that if we can even liberate speech a little bit in the coming weeks, months, and years, that that's one of the fundamental ways that we make America a more stable and healthy country. [00:19:28] You want to know why you think like America's going in the wrong direction? === Population Density Tragedy (06:30) === [00:19:31] It's because of how much censorship there actually has been in the last couple of years. [00:19:36] How many people, I mean, I could do a show of hands. [00:19:38] How many people you know that you have friends and relatives that have never heard of news stories that would be so obvious to you? [00:19:44] I mean, I just was at UC Berkeley yesterday, and there were like trans activists that had no idea and had not heard that the person who thought that they were a woman won the NCAA championship ensuing. [00:19:57] Never heard of it. [00:19:59] And like no one, like I would say half probably had heard of it, half had not. [00:20:03] And a lot of you saw the story repeatedly covered and all that. [00:20:06] And you got to think, boy, if we had a free and open internet and not kind of algorithms that would immediately suppress sorts of content, how many other people would then be able to be persuaded? [00:20:15] Because here's why. [00:20:16] We know every one of their stories. [00:20:19] There's not one of their stories that we can't recite by name, right? [00:20:22] Like, okay, like support Ukraine, like Maskinvax, Ninth Booster, like everything is racist. [00:20:28] Let all the immigrants in, like, whatever. [00:20:30] Like, we can, it's like an incantation, right, at this point. [00:20:33] But how many of them could actually recite what we believe are some of the more cultural and economic problems facing the country? [00:20:38] Okay, so I'm going to kind of go through two more things here. [00:20:41] So I went super viral yesterday. [00:20:43] I don't have, you guys know, I don't have Twitter. [00:20:45] Someone, it's so great when you don't have Twitter and someone texts you that you're trending on Twitter. [00:20:49] It's awesome. [00:20:50] It's like, so I did something worthy of still trending on that Godforsaken website at Wasteland. [00:20:56] It's so funny when they're tweeting at me on Twitter. [00:20:59] I'm like, you realize I don't have like, okay, sure. [00:21:02] So I said something at CU Boulder that's really true, which is that we want more, we should make it a goal to try to have more young people own property and make it easier for young people to be able to own property, that we need to have less renters and more people that own property. [00:21:16] And at times there's an unexpected cost, and this is a thought experiment, and it's proven through data. [00:21:21] There's an unexpected cost to having development that prioritizes renting, especially development that goes over 5, 10, 15, 20 stories. [00:21:32] In fact, when you have concentrated population density, those areas tend to be a lot more liberal than areas that would be more suburban or rural. [00:21:41] Now, I said this, and I said it in a way that really bothered people, where I said that tall buildings can be a prerequisite towards a city all of a sudden taking a turn away from being a conservative city to a liberal city. [00:21:52] And they just like lost their mind. [00:21:54] Like, how dare you blame tall buildings? [00:21:56] I was like, okay, well, obviously I'm not blaming the height of the building, right? [00:21:59] I'm making an argument that population density and having people living on top of one another creates a couple of factors, like the tragedy of the commons. [00:22:09] When everyone owns something, nobody owns it. [00:22:12] And so you're not actually responsible for the dog park. [00:22:15] You're like 1 100th responsible for it. [00:22:17] And then all of a sudden you might be using more public transportation than driving yourself. [00:22:21] So you're not as like connected what gas prices might be or a car insurance payment. [00:22:25] Now, I'm not saying there's anything inherently wrong with those things, but they definitely foster an environment that make you look at things more collectively and less individually or kind of less in a way of what are all these different factors. [00:22:37] And you guys know this, when you rent, there's a way to find out, but a lot of people pay rent without actually looking at their bill. [00:22:42] You're usually immune, not immune, but you're not totally dialed into what the property taxes are and to kind of what all the other factors are. [00:22:49] You just kind of pay your rent and you move on. [00:22:51] But when you own a home, you know what your property tax bill is and you know whether or not property values are going up or not. [00:22:56] And so I said this, they lost their mind. [00:22:59] I totally stand by it. [00:22:59] I don't know why this is like such a triggering thing, but like we should try to encourage young people in particular to try to own homes and to try to actually be able to be in communities that are not as population dense as urban cities that I believe actually create liberal thinking habits and behavioral habits. [00:23:18] In fact, I mean, we have a lot of land in this country. [00:23:21] I think that we should encourage young people to quote unquote go west again. [00:23:24] Like to go on the frontier and to grow your own food and to actually be self-reliant and independent and not just be like, Uber 8 eats is down and I don't know how I'm going to feed myself. [00:23:34] And so I'm going to make another argument with this though, which is, you know, a little bit less, a little even more provocative. [00:23:40] Media Matters is going to love this, which is when you live in vertical housing units, you're a lot easier to control. [00:23:49] And you look at what's happening right now in Shanghai. [00:23:52] Shanghai is completely locked down from top to bottom because all you have to do is bar the door and you can control the movement of every single person in the building. [00:24:01] So that's just a technical thing, right? [00:24:04] If you could control a building, you can control every single person in that building. [00:24:07] It's a lot harder to control. [00:24:09] So if you have, let's say you have 250 apartments, and if you're able to control that building, you can control all the people in there. [00:24:15] That's a lot harder to actually control 250 suburban homes in a community that would be all spread out, right? [00:24:21] So you see that in Shanghai. [00:24:22] They can lock down 25 million people for the technical reasons are easier in that way. [00:24:28] Now, it's not obvious that you could still lock people down and control them if they're in single family homes, but it comes a lot harder. [00:24:34] It takes more manpower. [00:24:35] And it also, I think, in a lot of different ways, I think it has a psychological component to it as well. [00:24:42] So I stand by those comments. [00:24:44] I don't know why it's so controversial. [00:24:46] So I live in Phoenix. [00:24:47] Phoenix used to have height restrictions on their buildings. [00:24:50] Maricopa County, anyone from Phoenix, Arizona live there? [00:24:52] Maricopa County used to be the most conservative major county in America. [00:24:57] It's now flipping a little bit, unfortunately. [00:24:58] But because they had height restrictions, Maricopa County would always spread through East, West, North, and South development. [00:25:05] And it had the largest explosion per capita of single-family home development in the country because developers were capped at how high they could make the buildings. [00:25:14] And because of that, that actually made the valley, as we call it in Phoenix, more conservative. [00:25:19] Because young people were like, okay, I'm going to go buy a house instead of go buy a penthouse or whatever. [00:25:23] And your behavioral habits change. [00:25:25] And the data shows it. [00:25:27] Political scientists show that there's a decisive break between left-wing ideology and right-wing ideology when the population density changes between 800 person per square mile. [00:25:37] Okay, the second thing that I said, oh my goodness, I say these things and like all of a sudden these reporters start writing them and I don't think they actually, this is what I say. [00:25:44] So I'm going to clarify it. [00:25:45] So this, I read this headline and they say Charlie Kirk blames trans people for inflation. [00:25:50] I'm like, what are you? [00:25:52] What? [00:25:52] Like I never said that. [00:25:54] Let me tell you what I did say, okay? [00:25:56] Which is nothing even like remotely close. [00:25:59] I'm so dishonest to these people. [00:26:00] Here's what I said. === Inflation Is Not Real (05:10) === [00:26:02] I said that if you are willing to believe in a certain worldview where things are not true, right? [00:26:09] Such as men can become pregnant or that biological reality can be changed, then you also might be likely to believe in economic things that are also not true, such as you can create money out of thin air and it will start to create wealth. [00:26:24] That's what I said. [00:26:25] And it's true, by the way, which is that if you do not have a, let's say, a coherent worldview based in reality, then you might be more likely to believe that, yeah, $7 trillion created out of thin air is somehow going to give us some sort of ticket to prosperity. [00:26:39] And that's why I think some of these more fundamental issues of kind of what is real, what is true, and what is good are super important. [00:26:45] It comes down to this idea of deconstructionism, though. [00:26:49] If you're able to deconstruct what we consider to be the laws of reality, then you are able to, I think, get closer to a place where people question everything. [00:26:59] And all of a sudden, they're like, yeah, well, maybe money's just a construct and we could create $8 trillion. [00:27:04] And who's to say? [00:27:05] Maybe inflation is just how you feel about things. [00:27:07] We think that's insane as conservatives, right? [00:27:10] We believe that creating money out of thin air is going to have dollar bills chasing value, not value chasing dollar bills. [00:27:17] And best articulated, we can go into this in QA if you want. [00:27:20] It's called modern monetary theory. [00:27:22] It's this plague on economic thought that has just totally spread over both political parties that believes you can inflate your way out of all the problems. [00:27:31] I believe that inflation is a tax on working people. [00:27:34] It's a tax on young people. [00:27:35] And inflation is a killer. [00:27:37] Inflation is a killer of a country, a nation, and a society. [00:27:41] Inflation is bad for everybody unless you're in the top 1% of 1% and you're able to allocate resources separately and you're able to differently. [00:27:50] You're able to move money around quickly and you're able to outpace your rate of return on top of that of inflation. [00:27:55] And it's especially dangerous inflation is for young people because by the time you guys graduate college, you guys can get into the workforce. [00:28:04] You're going to be a set of circumstances where everything costs three times as much. [00:28:08] Wages are not keeping up with inflation, not even close. [00:28:11] And I mean, I know some of you drove from all across Southern California here. [00:28:15] It costs like $180 to drive there and back. [00:28:19] And then, you know, your boss might give you a 2% or 3% raise. [00:28:23] And at some point, you're going to have to cut back on your spending or you're just going to go into debt. [00:28:30] Now, the other group of people that benefit from inflation are people that have incurred a lot of debt. [00:28:35] Those are people that actually benefit from inflation. [00:28:37] This is why corporations increased their borrowing during the virus by $600 billion. [00:28:44] They increased their borrowing. [00:28:45] Now, why would they do that? [00:28:47] Because they knew that they would never be able to get money this cheap again with interest rates that low, that even the growth rate will outpace the interest rate and will almost pay for itself long term. [00:28:56] And so basically overly leveraging their position, if you will, is what benefits their position. [00:29:03] So what a lot of you are now encountering, like, wait a second. [00:29:08] So you're trying to tell me that people that owned homes, they actually were, you know, or had mortgages, they're the big beneficiaries the last two years. [00:29:15] Your property value probably went up. [00:29:16] I don't know if that's the case in every community. [00:29:18] Probably did, especially in Orange County. [00:29:20] And then your debt burden, or let's say a $500,000 mortgage or a $600,000 mortgage, it actually has decreased the more dollar bills that we print because it's relative to how many dollars there are. [00:29:31] Because half a million dollars is not what it used to be, especially if it's 20% inflation year over year over year. [00:29:36] That is a, that disenfranchises students in particular. [00:29:40] Because now you're saying, wait a second, I need $75,000 just to make the down payment for a home that my parents used to be able to put $12,000 for a down pay to my home. [00:29:49] And so inflation is a silent killer of working people and young people. [00:29:53] So we believe in those pesky shackles of reality. [00:29:56] We believe we must be anchored to a natural law and things that do not change. [00:30:01] And this is, we don't have to overthink it. [00:30:03] We don't have to overcomplicate it. [00:30:04] Things such as money cannot be printed out of nowhere and create wealth. [00:30:09] We believe that we believe in something as simple as men are different than women. [00:30:15] We believe in certain things like human life is worthy of protection and preservation. [00:30:20] We believe a nation needs borders in order to be able to survive or else it ceases to be a country and it turns into a colony and kind of a mixture of all sorts of different factors that play into it. [00:30:30] These are principles that do not change despite what year or time or circumstance you are in. [00:30:36] And what really you're seeing right now is you're seeing a collection of people that are kind of wearing the jersey of team reality and people that are kind of on the woke side. [00:30:45] And here's the great opportunity and why I'm optimistic. [00:30:48] And then we'll get to questions. [00:30:49] When you start to have someone like Bill Maher and Joe Rogan, all of a sudden, like, I'm agreeing with them more than I'm disagreeing with them, there's something massive that is going to come in the next couple of years that is going to obliterate these woke people, the wokeys, I call them. [00:31:05] It's like, if you have Bill Maher, that's basically like, yeah, I think men and women are different and looting is wrong and defunding the police is a bad idea. === Humility Versus Pride (04:48) === [00:31:12] He is a little bit of a salty language. [00:31:16] And so, but has Bill Maher changed or has what it means to be a leftist in America radically changed in the last couple years? [00:31:23] And that's really the dividing line. [00:31:25] Do you believe that we have to operate within the framework of things that we can agree upon and then find ways to solve them? [00:31:31] Or do you want to just completely deconstruct everything that we've known to be true in humanity for as long as we've existed and think that you got it all figured out because you're a 20-year-old that took a sociology class at a local university? [00:31:44] Like, I figured it out because my professor said something that I've never heard before. [00:31:49] Like, actually, this is the problem. [00:31:51] It's a humility versus pride problem. [00:31:53] We as conservatives need to have the humility that there were a lot smarter people that wrote books, gave speeches, and governed societies before we were ever here. [00:32:02] And we have a lot to learn from those people. [00:32:05] And people that make promises of restructuring society and revolutionizing things, they're not just probably wrong, they're probably going to do a lot more damage than good. [00:32:14] And those people need to be stopped in their tracks. [00:32:17] And partners like Elon Musk and Joe Rogan and Bill Maher, I consider them to be incredibly exciting and helpful allies in this now new moment where it's like, okay, are we going to go in the direction where at least we recognize reality? [00:32:30] Or are we going to go say that we need to defund the police? [00:32:32] You know, that it's just gender is a social construct and all that. [00:32:35] That is the dividing line. [00:32:36] And my bet is that team reality is going to win. [00:32:39] Okay, let's do some questions, everybody. [00:32:41] And thanks for sitting through that. [00:32:46] Big tech is monitoring, censoring, mining, and selling your online information. [00:32:50] And SquadPod is the solution. [00:32:53] 100% U.S. programmed, owned, and operated, SquadPod is a convenient, all-in-one application supporting your private connection with others of your choice. [00:33:02] Safety brings together your friends, family, team, club business, or congregation with SquadPod's chat, document sharing, discussion, and televideo capabilities. [00:33:12] The SquadPod application is encrypted, protecting your communications and content without annoying advertisements. [00:33:18] They do not censor, mine, profile, or sell your information. [00:33:21] I have gotten to know the SquadPod team quite well, and they are true patriots with a mission of dedicating themselves to your privacy, safety, and freedom of speech. [00:33:29] Join myself and other organizations such as Turning Point USA, nonprofits, and churches by adopting SquadPod as your collaboration platform. [00:33:37] Take back control of your privacy by visiting squadpod.com/slash Charlie. [00:33:42] That is squadpod.com/slash Charlie. [00:33:48] All right, let me say something about QA before we get started. [00:33:51] So, this is a majority conservative audience, I would imagine, right? [00:33:56] So, 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. [00:34:04] Show respect and show them the respect that they usually do not show us when we show up to events and public places. [00:34:11] So, please just be tolerant and to the extent of let them get their ideas out, and then we can respond appropriately, okay? [00:34:18] It takes courage to come up at a conservative event and let your voice be heard. [00:34:22] So, just show them that, and then we can respond from there. [00:34:25] Okay, the first question. [00:34:27] 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. [00:34:39] That's a really important question. [00:34:41] So, students there, raise your hand if you think you've been graded differently or treated differently because of your beliefs. [00:34:45] Yeah, basically, every hand goes up. [00:34:48] That's right. [00:34:49] Marco says worth it. [00:34:50] Yeah, look, I want to say this. [00:34:51] So 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. [00:35:00] And I'll kind of say this. [00:35:01] So, Ben, and this is not precisely your question, but I'll incorporate it. [00:35:06] 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? [00:35:13] That's a question a lot of people ask, right? [00:35:15] It's like it's easier to kind of hide and to not confront things. [00:35:18] So, Ben says yes. [00:35:20] Lie, misrepresent your beliefs, get the good grade, and get through college or high school. [00:35:25] I see it differently. [00:35:27] 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. [00:35:35] And so, now why am I bringing this up? [00:35:39] 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 just pretend to be something that you're not and delete your social media. [00:35:50] I think there's a lot more important things in life than that. [00:35:53] 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. === Integrity Over Good Grades (15:44) === [00:36:01] It's never going to stop. [00:36:02] You will be harassed, called names, demonized, victimized. [00:36:06] You will be smeared and slandered. [00:36:08] You will lose a lot of your friends, and you'll doubt whether it's all worth it. [00:36:12] Sound fun, right? [00:36:14] Well, here's the second thing, though. [00:36:15] 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. [00:36:25] And you will be, you will have your direction, you'll have resolve, you'll have an 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. [00:36:42] And that is something that I want to instill in every single young person. [00:36:44] So, yeah, it's going to be tough. [00:36:45] We here at 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 events like this tonight, so you know you're not alone. [00:36:55] But we want to try to continue to rise up the citizen of young people and students to be able to take a stand. [00:37:00] But it's going to be tough, but it's worth it. [00:37:03] God bless you. [00:37:03] Thanks for being here tonight. [00:37:11] Hi, I wanted to ask: how would you advise that those of us who plan to stay in California effectively convince others to do the same, instilling the same passion to fight for conservative California instead of fleeing to other conservative states? [00:37:24] Yeah, it's a great question, right? [00:37:26] So, start local. [00:37:28] I think that for those of you that live in Orange County, take back Orange County. [00:37:31] Orange County is a great project. [00:37:33] Focus on it. [00:37:34] It's doable. [00:37:36] If you're not personally volunteering for local candidates, get involved. [00:37:40] Orange County is a great first step. [00:37:42] It really is, on a variety of ways, whether it be congressional involvement, whether it be city council, school board, super important. [00:37:50] Look, you're not going to be able to change the whole state in just one election cycle. [00:37:55] It's not going to happen. [00:37:56] I know a lot of people were upset with the results of the recall. [00:37:59] I certainly was. [00:38:00] But I really was in support of the recall then and now. [00:38:04] 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 pretend that they represent their voters, spend a bunch of money. [00:38:13] 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. [00:38:19] I thought it was a really beautiful thing. [00:38:21] So, and also, I just got to say that from a political standpoint, which is not 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. [00:38:40] So, all the while it might feel as if the state is lost, but there's five congressional districts in Orange County, or did they go down to four now with the new maps? [00:38:48] There's three now. [00:38:49] There used to be five, if I'm not mistaken, right? [00:38:51] Yeah, there's four. [00:38:52] So, those four, I don't know how they probably obliterated the maps, right? [00:38:56] 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? [00:39:04] That's a very, very important dividing line. [00:39:07] Um, 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. [00:39:17] And we have some pastors here in the audience that have done such an amazing job. [00:39:23] James Cadiz was here, Rob McCoy, Jack Hibbs, so many phenomenal people. [00:39:28] 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. [00:39:38] Fight for every inch. [00:39:39] And I believe that it's going to be a long-term project, but there's a lot more hope for California than I think people realize. [00:39:46] Thank you. [00:39:47] God bless you. [00:39:47] I appreciate it. [00:39:52] Hi, Darlie. [00:39:53] My name is Jared. [00:39:53] I'm the president of the Turning Point Chapter at Your Belinda High School. [00:40:01] So, last week on April 5th, in a 32 vote, my school board passed a resolution to ban critical race theory in my district. [00:40:11] So, my question is: what's the next steps to ensuring that we have a good education even after that ban? [00:40:18] That's great. [00:40:19] So, it's a two-part dance. [00:40:21] So, that's great. [00:40:22] Now, you need to say, okay, let's get pro-American curriculum in our schools. [00:40:26] So, what does that look like, right? [00:40:28] Hillsdale College has done a lot of work in this. [00:40:30] We're starting to do a lot at Turning Point USA. [00:40:32] But we have to teach people what is the American story? [00:40:35] What is the proper way to view American history? [00:40:37] What is America? [00:40:38] Was it a mistake? [00:40:40] Was it something that just kind of fell out of the sky? [00:40:42] 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. [00:40:48] America was summoned into existence at a time and a place that is very unusual. [00:40:53] In fact, it's almost never happened before in human history. [00:40:55] Most civilizations or countries stumble into existence. [00:40:59] They're not summoned into existence. [00:41:01] I want you to think about that. [00:41:02] There was a decision to create America. [00:41:05] China just kind of existed and was kind of the Yangtze River Valley civilization. [00:41:08] It just kind of built into itself, Indus River Valley, into India, and so on and so forth. [00:41:12] But America was a group of people that made a decision, founding fathers, we have a set of principles. [00:41:18] We don't like what's happening. [00:41:19] We're going to declare independence of things that are always true. [00:41:22] And I'm afraid that most young people are not just being taught that even worse. [00:41:26] They're being taught the opposite. [00:41:27] They're being taught that the founding fathers were racist, bigoted slave owners, and they don't know their history. [00:41:31] They don't know that the first anti-slavery convention in America was hosted in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin in 1775. [00:41:37] They don't know that nine out of 13 states before the Constitution was ratified in 1787 had already independently abolished slavery. [00:41:45] A lot of young people are never taught that Vermont was the first state to abolish slavery in 1777, inspired by the Declaration of Independence. [00:41:52] So the next step is get your local school district to not just teach this, but inspire young people to be excited about the country they live in. [00:42:00] 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. [00:42:11] Deep down, I think most people actually want to support their home. [00:42:15] And you kind of see that when you start to see like a Dodger's hat here and like a Ram's hat here. [00:42:20] Like that's a different way of kind of showing association that you care about where you're from. [00:42:25] Yet the one thing they're trying to get rid of is the jersey of America. [00:42:28] Like, and that's something I think that excites people. [00:42:31] It creates happier lives. [00:42:33] It creates stronger communities. [00:42:34] And all of a sudden, you're like, you know what? [00:42:36] 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 was worthy of protection and preservation, and they were willing to do something about it. [00:42:50] 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. [00:42:58] At some point, that only way you could solve that question is to revolutionize the country. [00:43:03] And that's what they're trying to get young people to do. [00:43:05] It's like if all that buildup was nothing but evil, then you might as well just burn it all down to the ground. [00:43:10] So we as conservatives, and to answer your question in your Belinda, the home of Richard Nixon, if I'm not mistaken, right? 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. [00:43:28] That is not political. [00:43:30] That is essential to the survival of the country. [00:43:32] Thanks for being here tonight. [00:43:33] God bless you. [00:43:39] Hey, Charlie, my name is Jonathan. [00:43:41] I go to Casa Fullerton. [00:43:42] And I guess I have a simple question. [00:43:45] Like in a family full of like conservatives, we're kind of the minority in the grand family. [00:43:51] 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. [00:44:02] Yeah, well, never be the source of hurt. [00:44:04] That's my first piece of advice. [00:44:06] So don't be the one to call names or, you know, try to disassociate from people. [00:44:11] But I think every conservative here in this audience would agree that you lost friends, but they left you. [00:44:16] You didn't leave them. [00:44:18] And that's, I never support the severing of friendships over politics, but I'm also realistic. [00:44:22] It happens all the time where people stop being friends with you because of politics. [00:44:26] I bet every single person in this room could resonate with that. [00:44:30] So look, 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, right? [00:44:38] And it's also how you say it. [00:44:40] It's also how you communicate it. [00:44:42] Having that balance of 100% grace with 100% truth, trying to be magnanimous in how you communicate, I think is really, really important. [00:44:49] But also, you know, understanding that in family dynamics, you have to prioritize whether or not you want the family to kind of stay together, whether or not you want to make a political point. [00:45:03] And I don't say this advice lightly. [00:45:05] There's some politics that should, there's some families that should never discuss politics. [00:45:09] And there's an argument for that. [00:45:10] It's like they're so rigid in their beliefs, it's just going to cause a civil war. [00:45:15] Now, some people say, you know what? [00:45:17] I'm going to, you know, say what I want to say. [00:45:19] And I know, personally, dozens of examples of parents that don't talk to children anymore. [00:45:24] I think that's really unhealthy. [00:45:25] I think it's not good at all. [00:45:27] But it's a balance. [00:45:28] I think that everyone should know where you stand. [00:45:31] And then the final piece of advice is go to work on the family members where there's a little bit of openness. [00:45:36] 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. [00:45:46] Like, well, I just want to help people. [00:45:48] Like, okay, then start to find things where all of a sudden left-wing policies are not helping people, right? [00:45:53] Like, how exactly does it help people when the border's wide open and women are being sex trafficked across there every single day? [00:45:58] How does that help people exactly? [00:45:59] And start to ask those questions. [00:46:01] But and then with your friends, I mean, I kind of answered that already. [00:46:04] Just, you know, you're probably going to lose friends and they'll probably continue. [00:46:08] And also know the difference between good faith arguments and bad faith arguments. [00:46:12] Do not waste your time in bad faith arguments. [00:46:14] Just don't. [00:46:14] If people are just putting their hands in their ears saying, I don't want to hear anymore, just disengage. [00:46:18] But if people are really curious and they're dialoguing with you, that's worth your time. [00:46:22] But don't waste your time. [00:46:23] And you could use your own prudence and your wisdom to navigate that. [00:46:26] Thanks for being here tonight. [00:46:27] Appreciate it. [00:46:33] Hey, Charlie, I loved your comment about how you said we should encourage younger people to invest and like buy property and buy land. [00:46:41] Recently, Florida's governor Bron DeSantis, he passed SB, I think, 1044. [00:46:48] I forgot the exact name. [00:46:49] He wants to encourage, or he wants to teach financial literacy. [00:46:52] 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. [00:47:00] And do you think that's something that as a nation can be pushed forward and financial literacy can be taught across all schools? [00:47:07] Yeah, I mean, it depends what the devil's in the details are. [00:47:10] What do they mean by financial literacy, right? [00:47:12] If the federal government is teaching us about financial literacy, certainly exactly. [00:47:17] Trust them on that. [00:47:18] Couldn't balance a budget to save their lives, right? [00:47:20] So, but no, I think financial literacy is super important. [00:47:23] But here's the thing is that, so if you go, if you take a financial literacy textbook from 2003 or whatever, right? [00:47:30] They'll say saving is good. [00:47:31] Save as much money as you can, right? [00:47:32] That's probably something you were taught in financial literacy. [00:47:35] That's actually really bad advice right now. [00:47:37] Like you shouldn't be saving money right now. [00:47:39] You're going to lose it. [00:47:41] You're like, what do you mean? [00:47:42] Inflation. [00:47:42] Like, you're getting poorer every day that money's in a bank account. [00:47:46] So, yeah, people need to know that. [00:47:48] That's really important. [00:47:49] Now, I hope and I wish for a set of economic circumstances that reward good behavior and don't reward bad behavior. [00:47:56] Saving is a good behavior. [00:47:58] We should have a society that does reward saving. [00:48:00] But right now we don't, right? [00:48:02] Now people get actively poor when they have cash sitting in their bank account. [00:48:05] And so to kind of piggyback on this, I do support financial literacy. [00:48:10] I think it's super important. [00:48:12] The lack thereof is unbelievable to me. [00:48:14] 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. [00:48:21] And the first thing is, this is why I can't believe this is not a law. [00:48:26] I want to start with financial literacy. [00:48:27] Like, okay, you want to go borrow $80,000 to go to some school to study some kind of super fringe degree? [00:48:32] Like, can we put some more checks and balances in for that? [00:48:35] Like, before you actually know what you're signing up for? [00:48:38] 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. [00:48:49] That's insane. [00:48:51] 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. [00:48:59] And you know what they would say? [00:49:00] Show me your grades. [00:49:01] What are you going to study? [00:49:02] And how are you going to pay our bank back? [00:49:04] And now you can go borrow $80,000 in your pajamas from your basement. [00:49:09] And your parents might not even know that. [00:49:12] And so, yeah, I'm a big supporter and an advocate of getting more people financially literate. [00:49:17] And finally, to be able to have young people own property is what we would call a conservatizing event. [00:49:25] Of people that own homes, they don't go burn Wendy's. [00:49:30] They don't. [00:49:31] When you have a mortgage, you don't go march in the streets against like systemic inequality, like you have responsibility. [00:49:36] We need to try to create a set of circumstances more young people have responsibility in their lives. [00:49:42] The first of which is, do you own property? [00:49:44] Like, do you own something that eventually could get more valuable and you have a reason to keep going to work? [00:49:49] When you're renting, that's not always the case. [00:49:52] And so, and then you might say, well, Charlie, I own a car. [00:49:54] Well, that's a depreciating asset. [00:49:56] Well, actually, not anymore. [00:49:57] Amazingly, used cars are not a depreciating asset. [00:49:59] Everything's upside down, right? [00:50:00] Remember the financial literacy stuff? [00:50:02] It's like the more you drive it, it's actually getting more value. [00:50:04] It's so strange. [00:50:06] It's not sustainable. [00:50:08] I'm just giving you a warning. [00:50:09] 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. [00:50:15] That's like a fire alarm. [00:50:16] Something ain't right. [00:50:17] I'm telling you. [00:50:18] Not sustainable. [00:50:19] Thank you for your question. [00:50:20] Appreciate it. [00:50:25] Hi, Charlie. [00:50:26] My name's Kiara, and I'm the president of the Turning Point USA chapter at San Diego State University. [00:50:32] Thank you. [00:50:35] 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 versus FEC ruling. [00:50:48] 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 doesn't need to be regulated? [00:51:04] Yes, so let me let me walk you through the great question, by the way. [00:51:06] And you do a wonderful job. [00:51:07] You gave one of the best school board speeches I've seen, by the way. [00:51:10] You did a phenomenal job. [00:51:11] You really did. [00:51:12] So it's a great question. [00:51:15] So let's go through the lawsuit. [00:51:17] The lawsuit was an organization called Citizens United, run by David Bossey, and it was about a movie, actually. [00:51:22] 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. [00:51:31] Okay? [00:51:31] So it goes all the way up to the Supreme Court. [00:51:34] And there was a couple of questions I want you to think about before I get to the opinion. [00:51:39] And a lot of the, even left-wingers will agree that there might be some problems here. [00:51:42] Where there was a question in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. === Protecting Political Speech (03:51) === [00:51:46] 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? [00:51:58] And they said yes. [00:52:00] So I think that's incredibly dangerous. [00:52:02] I think that if all of a sudden my podcast, my radio program, my articles, and my books will start regulated as if it's a campaign ad on television, I think there's something very wrong with that. [00:52:14] In fact, that's what would have been the standard. [00:52:16] 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. [00:52:24] That's the equivalent of running a 30-second ad. [00:52:27] That is an attack on journalism, on commentary, and speech. [00:52:30] 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 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, [00:52:54] 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. [00:53:06] Now, this is an important point. [00:53:08] The left, they're always trying to repeal Citizens United. [00:53:12] So basically, the decision of Cities United was: you can spend as much money as you want, no matter what, there'll be no restriction on it. [00:53:18] Okay? [00:53:18] Now, because of that, believe it or not, the left has always been trying to get rid of that. [00:53:23] In 2020, left-wing groups spent $1.5 billion. [00:53:28] Conservative groups spent $900 million. [00:53:31] 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 persuasion and outcomes and all this. [00:53:42] Let me just talk about from like a health of society standpoint. [00:53:45] I don't like it. [00:53:47] 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. [00:53:57] So what is the conservative approach? [00:53:59] I think the conservative approach should be the following: that you make sure that political speech by individuals, commentators, podcasts, authors, and movies are protected no matter what. [00:54:08] That is not political speech. [00:54:09] 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. [00:54:20] We must know where it's coming from. [00:54:22] No more like giving through shell stuff or dark money. [00:54:24] We want to be able to see it. [00:54:26] And I do think that a reasonable cap on money and racist is something that I think would actually de-radicalize our politics. [00:54:32] When all of a sudden we're starting to say that the Pennsylvania Senate race is going to be an $185 million Senate race and Wisconsin's going to be a $110 million Senate race, what then ends up happening? [00:54:43] 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. [00:54:50] 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. [00:54:58] And I don't think that's a good thing. [00:54:59] In fact, I think we can have common cause on the left. [00:55:02] 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. [00:55:09] But I do think that a common sense middle ground could be found where all of a sudden we try to make it seem, where we say there has to be some form of transparency and regulation with the amount of money pouring into some of these races. [00:55:20] And I don't know about you. [00:55:21] I'm so sick and tired of seeing these political ads already. [00:55:23] It is exhausting. [00:55:25] I don't think it's good to constantly see negative political ads about how awful things are on this person. [00:55:30] And I don't think it's healthy or good. [00:55:31] Thank you for your question. [00:55:32] You're doing a great job. [00:55:33] Thank you. === Strengthen Your Resolve (14:06) === [00:55:37] Have you ever heard of American Wagu? [00:55:40] No, it's not a superfood that will make you live forever or the name of a newest TikTok dance, terrible app. [00:55:46] It's some of the sought-after best beef in the world. [00:55:50] And I can get you two free pounds of it. [00:55:52] Look, I had the wagu here. [00:55:54] It is unbelievable. [00:55:57] For a limited time, Good Ranchers is giving you two pounds of American Wagoo burgers for free with my code Kirk. [00:56:03] I'm telling you, these burgers, if you have anyone mad at you, just give them one of these burgers. [00:56:09] It's what I call reconciliation. [00:56:11] That's how good these burgers are. [00:56:13] Let me tell you, this stuff is incredible. 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[00:56:57] Everything is delicious and high quality. [00:56:59] With meat prices soaring, I love that when you subscribe, you lock in the price and get $25 off every box. [00:57:05] So as long as you're subscribed, your price will not change. [00:57:08] Two pounds of free wagu burgers and zero inflation. [00:57:11] Just go get both with my promo code Kirk. [00:57:14] If you don't buy the meat in your house, then tell the person who does to grab two free pounds of wagu burgers today before they're gone. [00:57:20] Goodranchers.com, promo code Kirk. [00:57:22] That's goodranchers.com, promo code Kirk. [00:57:27] 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. [00:57:37] He consistently refused to fire Dr. Fauci. [00:57:40] On March 20th, 2020, he gave a press conference where he said that Gavin Newsom and Andrew Cuomo locking down their states. [00:57:47] He said they're taking bold, strong steps, and I applaud them. [00:57:50] On April 22nd, he criticized Brian Kemp for reopening Georgia. [00:57:54] And he also attacked Thomas Massey for criticizing the $2 trillion CARES Act, which has contributed at least as much to this inflationary crisis as anything Biden's done. [00:58:02] So when Trump did not stand up for our liberties, why should we stand for him as opposed to, say, Ron DeSantis in 2024? [00:58:09] Okay. [00:58:10] Fair question. [00:58:11] So let me just first take my opinion. [00:58:14] Let's just so you know where I stand. [00:58:15] So I wrote a book that was published in February 2020 called The MAGA Doctrine, defending Trump and his policies and all that. [00:58:22] You're right. [00:58:23] And then, with all of that, I came out in March and April saying that this Fauci guy's got to go. [00:58:29] I was against lockdowns, federal spending. [00:58:30] So, I've been consistent all the way through, even publicly disagreeing with the Trump administration. [00:58:36] I think Trump's instincts were right. [00:58:37] I will push back a little bit. [00:58:38] I think his instincts were right. [00:58:40] And I think he was suffocated and unfortunately overwhelmed by a deep state medical bureaucracy that scared the living daylights out of him. [00:58:49] And I believe that he probably has some form of regret that he would have handled things a little bit differently. [00:58:55] Now, I'm not defending it because I think the lockdowns were the worst mistake in American history. [00:58:59] I think they did more damage than we'll ever know. [00:59:01] And I think also the pushing of the vaccine on the American population is something that will be studied for years to come. [00:59:07] That I think in a lot of different ways, we still do not know the entire story behind that, especially from a mandatory perspective. [00:59:14] And in Trump's defense, he never supported mandatory vaccines. [00:59:17] Now, with the Fauci thing, firing Fauci, I think, would have been a mistake. [00:59:24] But that doesn't mean that I don't think he should have been handled. [00:59:26] You should have put Fauci on a 30-person committee and sent him off to the hinterlands and have him be on some form of bureaucracy where they just meet all year and issue a report. [00:59:35] 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. [00:59:43] I think it would have created a bigger liability. [00:59:45] But I agree. [00:59:46] He should have been sent off, you know, to like, you know, the CDC office in Fairbanks, Alaska, to, you know, investigate pathogens and polar bears. [00:59:55] So your question is, why should... [00:59:56] So, and finally, you asked a question, a hypothetical question in 2024. [01:00:02] So I'm going to talk personally on this, not on behalf of Turning Point USA, on the political side of this. [01:00:08] It's pretty clear Trump is going to run in 2024. [01:00:11] And people have mixed opinions on that. [01:00:13] Ron DeSantis may or may not run. [01:00:15] I am Ron DeSantis' biggest cheerleader. [01:00:17] I think he's phenomenal. [01:00:18] I think he's America's greatest governor. [01:00:20] I think he's terrific. [01:00:23] So I've said this before, and everyone will have their own opinions on this. [01:00:28] 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. [01:00:37] We definitely have to look at the totality of the presidency as a whole. [01:00:41] And he had our country. [01:00:42] We were experiencing a blue-collar boom. [01:00:44] We were energy independent. [01:00:45] The southern border was under control. [01:00:46] Putin wasn't invading countries. [01:00:48] I could go on and on and on. [01:00:50] The question is, did he earn a chance to be able to run for a second term? [01:00:54] 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 he wants a second term and what he would do differently. [01:01:10] And I've already said he has my support if he runs again in 2024. [01:01:13] There's no mystery behind that. [01:01:14] With that being said, Ron DeSantis, I believe, very well could be a once-in-a-generation political statesman. [01:01:19] I believe Ron DeSantis could be in the mold of Churchill, Lincoln, and Washington. [01:01:23] But I said, I think, but here's what I know. [01:01:25] I know Donald Trump was a phenomenal president. [01:01:27] I know that he fulfilled his promises, and I know he would do it again. [01:01:30] Thank you for being here. [01:01:31] I appreciate it. [01:01:38] Hi, Charlie. [01:01:39] So my name is Max Mickelson. [01:01:40] I'm the chapter president of Orange County School of the Arts, Turning Point Chapter. [01:01:45] And that's like a radical right-wing university, right? [01:01:52] So earlier this year, as you may have heard from my friend Alex LaRusso, ALX, I started a chapter there. [01:02:00] We were egged, harassed, vandalized, had basically threatened attacks from administration, all kinds of things. [01:02:08] So I kind of have a two-part question. [01:02:11] First question is, do you think Elon Musk will free Alex? [01:02:16] So yeah, ALX is banned from Twitter. [01:02:18] I think so. [01:02:18] If Elon sorts this out, I support that. [01:02:21] And hopefully, he'll free me too. [01:02:23] Thank you. [01:02:24] 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. [01:02:33] I don't want to lose friends. [01:02:33] I don't want to be egged, basically. [01:02:37] 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? [01:02:46] Yeah, that's, I mean, it kind of goes to the first question, right? [01:02:49] Which is, you're going to get it. [01:02:50] It's worth it. [01:02:50] Hold the line and strengthen your resolve. [01:02:54] I would love to go speak at one of these art schools. [01:02:57] And I'll tell you why. [01:02:59] The left has destroyed art in our country in a way that I don't think we can actually appreciate. [01:03:05] And this is kind of like one of my kind of, you would say, kind of like unexpected kind of focuses. [01:03:13] 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 television at night. [01:03:29] And so I believe art should try to strive towards the divine, the beautiful, the good, and the true. [01:03:36] There's two rules in architecture that used to exist in Western society. [01:03:40] 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. [01:03:48] Very two simple rules. [01:03:49] We get away. [01:03:50] You just look at Western architecture now. [01:03:52] It's just an amalgamation of like the very same deconstruction, the deconstruction ideology that we're seeing right now. [01:03:59] And so there's one of my favorite people to follow. [01:04:01] He passed away recently, is Roger Scruton. [01:04:03] He was amazing. [01:04:03] He talked a lot about objective beauty. [01:04:05] And it also talks about more fundamental things, which is do we believe there are such things as objective standards? [01:04:10] You didn't ask anything about this. [01:04:12] I'm just, you know, kind of riffing on it. [01:04:14] But I'm sure you love it. [01:04:16] But that's what's so interesting is that actually where these discussions are the most robust is in the art school, right? [01:04:22] So the question is: do you believe like a signed urinal is art and beautiful? [01:04:26] This was a question in the 1920s. [01:04:28] I can't remember. [01:04:29] Yeah, that's exactly right. [01:04:30] Duchamp, that's right. [01:04:31] Marshall Duchamp, where he signed a urinal. [01:04:33] I don't think that's art. [01:04:34] I think that's a place to relieve yourself. [01:04:39] But that was considered to be art. [01:04:40] And I think that's actually directly connected to a lot of the philosophical deconstruction that we're living through right now, right? [01:04:46] 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? [01:04:58] So, okay, so what do you say to friends that don't want to get involved? [01:05:02] Look, you can only push them so far, but it's all about leadership. [01:05:05] It really is. [01:05:06] And so if you're the leader, you know, you're going to have to say, hey, I'll take the hits for you. [01:05:10] Just help me out. [01:05:11] Try to be part of it. [01:05:12] And so there's two types of people. [01:05:13] You could be a George Washington or you could be a John Hancock. [01:05:16] George Washington went right into battle, stared the bullets in the eye, and went straight into there. [01:05:20] John Hancock, of course, we know he signed the Declaration. [01:05:23] No mystery he was involved, but he never wore a uniform of the Continental Army and was the number one financier of the effort. [01:05:29] There's people that are the fighters and the people that help the fighters. [01:05:32] And both are equally important. [01:05:34] So if people are afraid to get involved, be like, hey, can you be a covert graphic designer for our Turning Point USA chapter? [01:05:40] Something would tell me you guys would probably come up with some of the coolest memes in the world at your school. [01:05:46] So there's a lot of different ways to get people involved, but you as a leader are the most important thing. [01:05:51] We have a crisis of leadership right now in our country. [01:05:53] George S. Patton had a great quote, which is lead, follower, get out of the way. [01:05:58] 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? [01:06:04] They want the corner office, the Instagram followers, the chauffeur car, but they don't really want to work till 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning to go reach a deadline, make payroll, borrow money, fire, hire people. [01:06:15] They don't want to have to do that. [01:06:17] Leadership is hard, but it's necessary because it requires you to take responsibility. [01:06:22] A leader is someone who does not point any fingers except themselves when things go wrong. [01:06:27] And that's what you're doing as a turning point USA chapter leader. [01:06:29] So, God bless you, man. [01:06:30] Thank you so much. [01:06:31] I appreciate it. [01:06:39] Hello, Charlie Kirk. [01:06:40] My name is Michael, a student here at CSU Fortin and a member of the TPUSA Club at Foreton. [01:06:46] Thank you very much for coming. [01:06:47] I greatly enjoyed the speech. [01:06:49] 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? [01:07:11] Because four to eight years compared to a lifetime is a drop in the bucket. [01:07:14] Sure, that's a good question. [01:07:15] So there's benefits and there's disadvantages to having term limits. [01:07:19] I think the benefits far outweigh the negatives. [01:07:22] Let me kind of give you a very obvious one. [01:07:25] If you have a really bad leader, you should have a way to get rid of that leader, right? [01:07:28] That's a pretty obvious one, right? [01:07:30] We believe in checks and balances. [01:07:32] That's a fundamental moral good, we believe. [01:07:34] 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. [01:07:40] But you bring up a point, right? [01:07:41] Which is, you know, how do you fight back against Iran or Russia or China that can just wait it out? [01:07:48] The answer to your question is exactly why the deep state was built and how they justified it, and it was used against us. [01:07:57] 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? [01:08:03] 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. [01:08:07] They said, listen, we're up against foreign adversaries that are there forever. [01:08:10] We need to create a permanent bureaucracy in Langley, Virginia that runs the Central Intelligence Agency, formerly OSS, and they'll always be there. [01:08:17] Therefore, they'll be the ones that will actually be able to be sustained. [01:08:21] 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, right? [01:08:29] So I would only push back to your question in one regard. [01:08:32] We kind of do have a permanent bureaucracy in our country, right? [01:08:36] We just have kind of different people that come in to try to manage it. [01:08:39] Does that make sense? [01:08:40] Where it's like, we have, yeah, we have a new president, but the FBI doesn't change. [01:08:44] Like, DOJ doesn't change. [01:08:45] The IRS doesn't change. [01:08:47] And look, I will say this: that, you know, there's a temptation to be like, oh, yeah, a dictator could just fix these problems. [01:08:55] They can wave a one. [01:08:56] 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. [01:09:02] 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 Potempkin village of the Chinese Communist Party. [01:09:19] 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. [01:09:36] I don't. [01:09:36] 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. === Dictatorships Are Unsustainable (08:18) === [01:09:44] So thank you. [01:09:44] I appreciate it. [01:09:52] Hi, how are you? [01:09:53] I'm a huge fan. [01:09:54] My name is Gabby, and I am here to ask you a question. [01:10:00] How many believe that California needs help in saving California? [01:10:05] Well, I believe that we need help in getting Newsom out. [01:10:09] And so my question to you is: I obviously support this candidate right here. [01:10:14] So I was wondering, and I wanted to ask you, what are your thoughts on Anthony Tromino? [01:10:20] And if you were still living in California, what are your thoughts on him? [01:10:26] And I met Anthony. [01:10:28] So I'll answer this personally, not on behalf of Turning Point. [01:10:30] I have to separate the two because we want to keep the event educational in nature. [01:10:34] So I'll just give you my own personal belief. [01:10:37] So yeah, I think High Leave Anthony. [01:10:39] I had a chance to pray with him up in Rockland. [01:10:41] Don't know enough about the other candidates to endorse yet, but pretty impressive guy, I got to say. [01:10:45] Awesome family, very articulate, very charismatic. [01:10:48] But yeah, haven't made my mind up yet. [01:10:52] But in the recall, I was a big elder guy. [01:10:54] I'm a big fan of Larry Elder. [01:10:55] I know he's not running again, but I made my allegiance there. [01:10:59] But I will say that to Anthony's credit, he is some of the most passionate and dedicated grassroots volunteers I've seen in a candidacy in quite some time. [01:11:08] They were up at Berkeley tabling yesterday. [01:11:10] Like, it's pretty amazing. [01:11:11] UC Berkeley campus. [01:11:13] Like, there's some resolve to that. [01:11:14] So, and I got to say, the one thing I am convicted by personally, spending time with Anthony, he really has a heart for this state and to turn it around. [01:11:22] So, you're supporting a good man. [01:11:24] Thank you. [01:11:24] I appreciate that. [01:11:30] Good evening, Charlie. [01:11:32] My name is Johnny, and I'm an MBA student at Cal State Fortune. [01:11:35] 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. [01:11:44] So, my question to you is this: What do you feel is the biggest problem in the collegiate education system? [01:11:49] And how do we fix this moving forward if we wish for our movement to continue to gain ground? [01:11:55] Yeah, man. [01:11:55] I mean, the biggest problem with the collegiate education system is the collegiate education system. [01:12:00] I mean, it's top to bottom, rotten to the core. [01:12:03] College is right for some people. [01:12:05] It's not right for most people. [01:12:06] It just isn't. [01:12:07] It's a racket and a cartel for a lot of people. [01:12:10] I have a book coming out called The College Scam, where I put forward a 10-count indictment against the current state of college that I think will blow you away. [01:12:18] 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? [01:12:26] It's 59%. [01:12:27] Raise your hand if you know someone that dropped out of college. [01:12:29] Every hand goes up. [01:12:31] 41% of people that go to college don't graduate. [01:12:33] That's demoralizing. [01:12:34] They leave with debt. [01:12:35] They leave with less direction. [01:12:37] They never should have gone to college in the first place. [01:12:39] Now, that's only one part of it, not to mention the student loan burdens, right? [01:12:43] 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. [01:12:52] 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. [01:12:59] But they're getting sociology degrees. [01:13:01] They're getting degrees that don't exactly have a highly, let's say, a very competitive kind of standpoint to what that degree would be, especially where people are looking to hire right now. [01:13:13] We need more people in the muscular class in America. [01:13:17] We need more plumbers, electricians, and welders, and police officers, and firefighters, and entrepreneurs. [01:13:24] And we need to not demean them or diminish them. [01:13:27] We need to elevate muscular labor in our country. [01:13:30] 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 this huge debt burden, and they don't really know where their place is. [01:13:45] So, look, top to bottom, college is doing a lot of damage to our country. [01:13:49] I wish that wasn't the case. [01:13:50] I don't think it has to be the case. [01:13:52] College can be awesome. [01:13:53] Hillsdale College is a great example of that. [01:13:55] If every college like Hillsdale College, I'd have a completely different opinion. [01:13:58] I've spent time at Hillsdale College. [01:14:00] I've got to know Dr. Larry Arm. [01:14:02] You know what they try to do from day one? [01:14:04] 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. [01:14:10] They also say this. [01:14:11] They say, we're going to complete the whole human being, the mind, body, and soul. [01:14:15] 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. [01:14:21] That doesn't happen a lot at universities anymore. [01:14:23] Instead, it's, hey, you have your own opinion of truth. [01:14:26] Who's to say what is good and beautiful? [01:14:29] And kind of just go have fun along the way. [01:14:32] 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. [01:14:42] If you're pushing your child to go to college because of you, that's a bad reason. [01:14:46] Most kids going to college believe they don't want to be there. [01:14:50] Now, you might say, oh, they don't know what's good for them. [01:14:52] Okay, there might be an argument to that. [01:14:53] But it's also them that's borrowing the money. [01:14:56] Maybe it's not. [01:14:56] Maybe you're paying for it. [01:14:57] That's a different dynamic. [01:14:58] But at Berkeley yesterday, this one kid is $85,000 in student loan debt. [01:15:02] I said, you want to be here? [01:15:03] He said, oh, my parents are making me be here. [01:15:04] I said, that's quite an operation there, right? [01:15:06] Like, go borrow $85,000 in your name because your parents are making you do it. [01:15:11] Like, that's not good. [01:15:13] It's not sustainable. [01:15:14] So we need less people going to college. [01:15:16] We need more people to start businesses. [01:15:18] We need more entrepreneurs. [01:15:19] We need more people to do things. [01:15:21] And we need more people to be filled with integrity and courage and character. [01:15:24] And less people to be filled with postmodern secular atheistic ideas where they start questioning the most. [01:15:31] I had a woman yesterday at UC Berkeley came up to me at the table. [01:15:34] She said, Charlie, we don't know what human beings are. [01:15:37] We're just a collection of cells. [01:15:38] 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. [01:15:48] And she really was wrestling with it. [01:15:49] She said, there is no fundamental difference between a human, we call a human and a goldfish. [01:15:54] And I said, listen, I don't have a college degree. [01:15:56] I didn't go to college. [01:15:57] Goldfish, they don't write symphonies. [01:15:59] And she's like, you're right. [01:16:04] Thanks for your question. [01:16:05] I appreciate it. [01:16:11] So I have a question that might be a little bit different. [01:16:13] I wanted to ask why you're a Christian. [01:16:16] I am a Christian. [01:16:17] It's true. [01:16:19] Sunday is Easter. [01:16:21] And so, look, we're all made in the image of God. [01:16:25] The universe that we live in right now was created by someone who loves us. [01:16:30] And the Bible tells us this. [01:16:31] The Bible is one author, 66 books have telling the story. [01:16:34] And look, we're made in that image of God. [01:16:37] And the gospel can be summarized in four words, three words, two words, and one word. [01:16:41] Four words, Jesus took my place. [01:16:44] Three words, him for me. [01:16:46] Two words, substitutionary atonement, and one word, grace. [01:16:49] We didn't earn it. [01:16:50] We don't start to do a lot of good things to be able to have eternal life. [01:16:55] I'm a Christian because I had a collision course with Jesus Christ in fifth grade, changed my life, gave my life to the Lord. [01:17:01] And every single year, it started to mean more to me. [01:17:03] As I got older, I realized, like, wow, I'm broken. [01:17:06] I am, you know, there's something not right with me. [01:17:08] It's like, yeah, that's original sin. [01:17:10] 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. [01:17:19] And it's true. [01:17:21] You look at the archaeological evidence, the evidence for the resurrection, the evidence through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the book of Acts. [01:17:27] You look at how there's never been an archaeological discovery that disproves the Bible. [01:17:32] All that things can be done with reason, but there's one final reason why I'm a Christian. [01:17:35] 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. [01:17:49] 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. [01:17:54] And so celebrate that Easter. [01:17:56] And if you haven't given your life to the Lord, He sent his Son, Jesus Christ, for you today. === Lead Children Through Truth (04:44) === [01:18:02] Thank you. [01:18:06] Okay. [01:18:07] This will be the final question. [01:18:08] Is that right, Mackenzie? [01:18:09] Okay. [01:18:10] Yes. [01:18:11] Hi, Charlie. [01:18:12] I'm running for a local school board here in Orange County. [01:18:16] Thank you. [01:18:20] When I get elected, what is the most impressionable? [01:18:27] What is the most pressing issue that I could focus on to make the biggest impact in our public schools? [01:18:34] Well, first of all, God bless you for running, and thank you for your courage and your conviction. [01:18:38] It's just awesome. [01:18:39] So first, you'll be demonized, slandered, smeared. [01:18:44] I just kind of went through all that, especially if you go on a school board. [01:18:46] 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. [01:18:52] So look, there's a lot of different things that I think that are incredibly important if you're on a school board. [01:18:56] Number one, you've got to 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. [01:19:06] 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 and right near Beverly Hills, all wearing masks outside. [01:19:16] And that's nothing short of child abuse. [01:19:18] It's child abuse to put a mask on a child. [01:19:20] It's bad for their development, it's bad for their spiritual development, bad for their linguistic development. [01:19:24] But the most important thing that you can get done as a school board is be a relentless hawk for transparency and accountability. [01:19:33] You need to be the public sector teacher union's worst nightmare. [01:19:36] You need to be asking questions they don't want asked. [01:19:38] You need to follow the money. [01:19:39] You need to find out whether or not they're teaching gender transition surgery nonsense to five, six, or seven-year-olds. [01:19:45] 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. [01:19:55] No, it's not. [01:19:55] It's not about equity. [01:19:56] It's not about teaching children. [01:19:58] You are grooming children to be something that they shouldn't be, and I'm not going to put up with it. [01:20:03] So the most important thing is you need to have courage, which look you do have, but then you need to have a mission. [01:20:08] Your mission is not to be liked. [01:20:09] Your mission is not going to be like voted the most popular person in the school board. [01:20:13] Your mission is to protect the innocence of children and lead them through truth and to create informed patriots. [01:20:19] God bless you. [01:20:24] Okay, so in closing, I love California. [01:20:28] I have a couple asks out of you. [01:20:30] Do not give up on this state. [01:20:31] And you might be cynical and all this. [01:20:33] Focus on Orange County. [01:20:34] It's a beautiful place. [01:20:35] People are waking up. [01:20:37] They really are desiring a change. [01:20:40] Get involved in local races. [01:20:42] Get involved in city council races. [01:20:43] Know who's running for state senate. [01:20:44] Know who's running for state house. [01:20:46] Help on the congressional side. [01:20:47] All up and down the ballot. [01:20:48] Get involved in voter registration. [01:20:50] I mean, people right now, I'm telling you, they're opening their eyes in record numbers, especially in the Latino community. [01:20:56] There's huge opportunities that otherwise would not be happening. [01:21:01] 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. [01:21:11] I believe it's some of the most important work to make sure that we pass down American values to future generations. [01:21:16] We're working really hard, traveling the country last year. [01:21:19] I traveled 330 days last year. [01:21:22] We're doing three podcasts a day, three hours of radio a day. [01:21:25] If you're not yet subscribed to our podcast, please consider subscribing and thank you for considering. [01:21:30] You guys can take out your phone really easily and subscribe to the Charlie Kirk Show podcast. [01:21:34] All of this content will be rebroadcasted there. [01:21:37] 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. [01:21:48] And isn't that the most American thing to do? [01:21:51] 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. [01:22:08] Instead, we're going to renew this idea of citizen government by and for the people. [01:22:13] And we've been given this gift by the American Founding Fathers, and it's up to us to conserve and preserve it. [01:22:18] And each one of you plays such an important and critical role in helping make that happen every single day. [01:22:24] God bless you guys. [01:22:24] God bless California. [01:22:25] God bless Orange County. [01:22:27] Talk to you soon. [01:22:31] Thank you so much for listening, everybody. [01:22:32] Email me directly, freedom at charliekirk.com or support the Charlie Kirk Show at charliekirk.com slash support. [01:22:38] Thank you so much for listening. [01:22:39] God bless. [01:22:42] For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk dot com.