Turning Point USA CEO Erica Kirk delivers the Hillsdale College Class of 2026 commencement address, honoring her late husband Charlie by recounting their unique "disconnected" honeymoon and his pursuit of truth through figures like Benjamin Franklin. She urges graduates to reject worldly comfort in favor of God-centered virtue, emphasizing distinct roles for men and women while calling students to love their imperfect country for its preservation of liberty. Ultimately, Kirk challenges the graduating class to build carefully and aim high without compromise, asserting that their responsibility is to pursue the beautiful and true rather than merely reflect a distorted world. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Defending Truth in a Hard World00:14:11
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To Michigan now for remarks from Turning Point USA CEO Erica Kirk.
She gave the commencement address to graduates of Hillsdale College.
Here's a look at her speech.
Thank you.
First, I want to say thank you to Dr. Arne, your beautiful wife, Penny.
You guys have been there for me during the darkest moments of my life.
So thank you for that.
To all of you here, parents, class of 2026, faculty and staff, it's an honor to be here.
It's an honor to accept the degrees that I'll be receiving later on behalf of myself and Charlie.
On a lighter note, yesterday was my wedding anniversary, and I couldn't help but think of a funny story to share with you through obviously a lot of pain,
but when we got married and we went to our honeymoon the next day, we decided for our honeymoon that it would be a disconnected honeymoon, meaning no computers, no cell phones, just being able to pour into each other, plan out what our family life would look like, what type of parents we want to be, what type of spouse we want to be.
So really just pour into each other.
And so, again, no phones, but at the time, Charlie's assistant gave Charlie a bat phone for emergencies.
So there was only emergency phone numbers on this phone.
Nothing else.
So when we arrive, we go straight to the gym, because that's what we did.
And I'm on one side of the gym, Charlie's on the other.
And then all of a sudden, I was thinking, he pulled out the bat phone.
And I was like, okay, maybe he's going to put on some music.
He loved classic rock.
I was like, maybe he's going to put on some music.
So I'm on the treadmill.
He's over in the weights.
And all of a sudden, I hear Dr. Arne's voice coming from the side of the room.
And so I walk over to him.
And I was like, baby, what are you listening to?
He goes, I know.
He was like, I'm almost done.
He's like, I have to finish just a few more lectures from Dr. Arne.
I have a few more certificates I have to get for my online courses at Hillsdale.
We're almost there.
I can't skip them.
I was like, baby, you do what you got to do.
I'm here for it.
But I enjoyed it because I was learning about Church Hill too when he was working out.
I was working out.
It was a great little bonding moment.
But every time Charlie finished a Hillsdale program, he would online, he would screenshot the certificate of completion and he would send them to me every time.
I know he would send them to the team as well.
I believe he also sent them to you every time he did them.
He was very proud of them and he had every right to be.
And Charlie blessed myself and our children with Dozens and dozens of journals.
He loved to journal.
And a lot of them at the top, he would write the topic on the journal and what he was going to be writing about.
And my goodness, does he have a ton that say Hillsdale and Dr. Arne?
And so those are the ones that I really look forward going through as time goes on because he really understood that this institution wasn't normal.
It was something that elevated his thinking to be a thought leader and really become a serious person, not just a political talking head, but someone who truly sought out the beautiful things in life, the good, the true.
And he really took that seriously because he loved learning and that's what set him apart, just as all of you.
You guys love learning.
And I would tell him, and he would like to hear it, but I love telling him because it was honest.
I would say, I love learning from you.
And so whenever we would have date nights, I would just be like, tell me something that I don't know about the founding fathers, or tell me something about Benjamin Franklin, because he loved learning about Benjamin Franklin, or tell me something about Churchill.
He just loved being able to share what he had learned in those moments.
And it's more than, and you guys know this, it's more than just memorizing statistics and facts.
It's how you are able to absorb such knowledge that elevates your thinking above the noise of this world.
And through his learning, Charlie was better able to recognize his duty to pursue truth and to defend liberty.
And this responsibility he felt to God, he felt it to our family, to our country, and that was born from what he learned.
And Charlie was able to see things on a multi-dimensional level, which was really powerful to witness.
He sought to order what was disordered and came to the table with solutions instead of more problems.
He was very solution-oriented.
That's the prime characteristic of an entrepreneur.
But he had solutions, whether that be for the government or for the culture.
And that's what all of you are called to do, also.
All of you students here that are graduating.
You have learned about the permanent things and you share in that responsibility to be a part of the solution for this nation and this world.
And just to inspire you a little bit more, when Charlie loved to tell the story of how Turning Point USA started, like all great startups, it started in a garage in Lamont, Illinois.
He was fresh out of high school and he would say he had no money, no connections, and no idea what he was doing.
But to the world, that might seem relevant, but to God, it's not.
He knew that what the Lord had put on his heart, that was his calling, and that's what he was going to pursue.
And God really put a hedge of protection around him as he built and he strived to build something that would outlast him.
He founded Turning Point USA to show our lost nation back to its original principles.
And he saw the problems in our country.
And in a response, he sought to turn a doubting, godless, and defiant nation back to God, to remind a confused nation that our freedoms are not guaranteed and we must sustain them, and point a lost generation back to truth, virtue, and right living.
Charlie used every second he could pursuing the greater good and the greater things of life.
I witnessed it firsthand.
He was meticulous about his time.
Down to the second.
He knew his calendar so well.
And as a couple, we always understood the finitude of life.
Not in a depressing way, because if you do look at it too long, you can get depressed about it, but it's not depressing.
It's in a way that makes you appreciate life more.
Because we are all here on this earth for such a short amount of time.
Such a short amount of time.
And it's so humbling, the contrast between human limitation and God's infinity.
That's why our choices, even the smallest ones, matter.
They matter so much.
And through your time as a student at Hillsdale, you've spent years preparing, you spent years learning and being shaped in ways both seen and unseen.
And now you find yourselves standing at the threshold of a life that will no longer be structured for you, but entrusted to you.
And that's important, that's special, because what once felt guided will now require direction.
And what once felt theoretical will now become deeply, personally real.
And as you continue forward in life, I want you to kind of embrace the similar blueprint of my husband, where he loved to point out that God made us purposeful beings.
And continue forward in life with clarity and intention.
And you will come to understand that life is not defined by the abundance of options, but by the weight of the choices that you make within them.
And those choices more often than not are not dramatic or obvious, but quiet and compounding, forming the blueprint of your lifelong before anyone else can see what you are building.
Each of us must order his own house, live rightly and aim for high and beautiful things.
And if we do, we may save our souls and perhaps by the mercy of God contribute to the preservation of our country.
But what does that mean for you, for the students that are sitting here, for the graduates?
It means that responsibility has now settled upon you.
And that's very important.
Not as a burden meant to overwhelm you, but as a calling meant to ground you.
And starting tomorrow, you are now in a position where truth must be pursued and defended.
And that responsibility comes from your identity as Christians, as Americans, and as graduates of Hillsdale College.
Because to the world, they believe truth is something to be reshaped.
But to all of us in this room, it is something to be honored.
If you are going to live as a purposeful being, then aim high at worthy things, because purpose is not something that just drifts into your life.
It is formed through what you attend to, what you think about, what you return to when your thoughts start to wander over and over again.
And over time, your thoughts become your priorities, and your priorities become your direction, and your direction becomes unmistakably your life.
And what you seek in life, you will get.
If you're seeking the ugly, the conspiracy, the pain, you'll find it.
And if you're seeking the good and the true and the beautiful, you will find that as well.
For example, if what occupies your mind is comfort, you will with remarkable consistency build a life that avoids difficulty and seeks ease.
If it is pleasure, you will find ways to arrange your life around it.
And while you may succeed in achieving both comfort and pleasure, you may also find, perhaps to your own surprise, that they are incapable of sustaining the weight of a meaningful life.
Because you are not made for a life that asks nothing of you.
You are made for something higher, something that calls you upward rather than settles you downward.
At the center of that life, it must be Jesus Christ.
Always.
To love him and to serve him, because he is the axis upon which all other priorities turn.
That was our family's priority.
It still is, to serve the Lord.
And it's the lens by which everything else flows through.
Along with that, Charlie would often encourage people, like Dr. Arne said, to get married young, not rushed, not rushed, but young.
And congrats to those who have been married or are married in this room.
But it's special.
He'd also say have more kids than you can afford.
But I just want to encourage all of you to the men you are called to provide, you are called to lead, to anchor your families in strength and consistency.
To the women you are called to nurture, to build, to shape lives with wisdom and endurance.
These are not secondary callings.
They are among the most significant ways a life can be rightly ordered.
And so in closing, as you journey along, pursue truth and defend liberty, like I said before.
Love your country.
I've said this many times and I'll say it again.
Our country is not perfect, but my goodness, is she good?
And we live in the greatest nation ever.
Love her.
This country preserves life.
Love your country because we have the right to property and the freedom to speak and serve God.
Defend and preserve it for your children.
And pursue learning your whole life.
It's important.
Read great books.
Challenge yourself.
Build and maintain deep friendships.
The world you are entering will not always affirm what you know to be true.
In many ways it will challenge it.
It'll distort it.
And at times it will oppose it.
Bless America and Pursue Learning00:03:02
That's good.
Challenge is a good thing.
But please know this.
Your responsibility is not to reflect the world.
Quite honestly, if you want to make a difference in the world, it's very hard to do that when you look just like it.
As Christians, we are in the world, not of it.
It's a good reminder.
But my husband's life and how he lived was a fantastic blueprint for that.
And that's why our entire team as well at Turning Point USA is dedicated and determined to continue the work that my husband started.
But don't forget this moment, being in this room, parents and students alike.
This is a special moment.
Soak it all in.
You've worked hard for this.
You've earned it.
And as you start day one as a graduate, build carefully, choose wisely, and aim not at what is easy or immediate, but what is beautiful and true.
Knowing that a life lived this way without compromise is a life that matters not only for what it achieves, but for what it preserves.
God bless you, class of 2026, and God bless America.
Thank you.
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