Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - REPLAY ｜ My 2019 Interview with Charlie Kirk

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, what is up? Happy Friday. Today I am talking to my good friend Charlie Kirk of

00:00:06.440 Turning Point USA. He just got a new podcast that you guys should go subscribe to. He of course

00:00:11.740 travels the country all the time talking about conservative values and we are going to talk about

00:00:18.260 conservatism and what it looks like for us to be kind of on the front lines of that,

00:00:25.200 especially him and how we relate to these younger generations that seem to not really know what

00:00:30.280 conservatism is or why they should buy into it and why that work is really important. Now I am going

00:00:36.780 to bring in my friend, Charlie Kirk. Charlie, thank you so much for joining me. Yeah, of course. Thank

00:00:43.100 you. Big fan of the, your podcast. So thanks for having me. Yeah. Uh, okay. Tell everyone, well,

00:00:49.000 I'm sure most people listening right now know exactly who you are and what you do, but tell

00:00:53.440 everyone a little bit about your background, Turning Point, how you started this whole thing

00:00:58.580 that is now a massive movement. Well, thank you. I mean, I, um, I started Turning Point USA when I was

00:01:04.080 18 years old. Um, I had no connections, no money and no idea what I was doing, but I had this kind

00:01:11.220 of crazy idea that, uh, young people could be, uh, conservative and that we needed to do more,

00:01:16.240 um, that our generation didn't have to kind of fall in this radical leftist direction. Um,

00:01:22.680 the great irony is I never went to college and, um, to start a college movement, which

00:01:27.940 is kind of in the fun kind of twisted and, um, yeah, it's just grown now to 1400 high school

00:01:33.980 and college campuses. Yeah. We have amazing team, tons of spirit, lots of energy and, um,

00:01:40.300 just like really on, honestly, just really blessed and super thankful and lucky to have been able

00:01:45.620 to have the success we've been able to have. So you were 18 when you started it. How old are

00:01:49.500 you now? I'm 25 now, 25. So it's been about seven years. Could you have imagined that it would grow

00:01:57.220 this much in really this quickly relative to how long it typically takes these kinds of

00:02:02.680 organizations to grow? No, I didn't even know things could grow to be this big, meaning I was

00:02:08.980 just so, um, naive. I didn't not naive. It's not the wrong word. I was just, I didn't know. Yeah.

00:02:14.720 I wasn't worldly. I didn't know how organizations worked or budgets or staff or employees, but

00:02:20.020 what's so beautiful about our country and what I'm fighting for is a kid with a dream can still

00:02:25.920 succeed. And that's, that's a uniquely American concept. It really is that you have a vision and

00:02:33.520 you're going to make mistakes. You're going to have to take a risk, but large in part, if you,

00:02:38.980 if you have this good idea and you work really, really hard, you can show progress over a couple

00:02:43.820 of years. And that's a beautiful thing about our country that, you know, we're, you and I are both

00:02:49.060 working to preserve and protect because not every country has that kind of guarantee where a young

00:02:54.040 person can take a risk and then succeed. Yeah. Were you raised conservative? Mostly. Yeah. I mean,

00:03:00.780 I was raised center, right? I was raised with really conservative values, but they never use the word

00:03:05.820 conservative. And that's like a real, I think a lot of people have this kind of upbringing where

00:03:09.680 my dad would always just talk about how great of a country America is. My mom raised me as a

00:03:16.340 Christian, but they'd vote Republican. Don't get me wrong. But it was, wasn't, it wasn't part of their, 0.73

00:03:21.960 our conversation. It wasn't like now here's why you have to be a conservative. It was just Charlie,

00:03:26.380 you need to realize how great of a country we live in. Yeah. And those are all naturally

00:03:30.320 conservative things now. Now, of course my parents, like many other people, I think have become more

00:03:36.480 involved in politics as our country has become more in jeopardy, honestly. Yeah. Um, and they're

00:03:41.780 much more likely to say that they're conservatives today than they were 10 years ago. Um, but I think,

00:03:47.960 I think if even for any parents listening to this or, you know, new parents, like, you know,

00:03:52.300 to soon be parents like yourself, just teach the values, just teach the ideas, forget about the

00:03:57.620 political labels, talk about American exceptionalism and faith and reverence and all these things.

00:04:01.620 Yeah. And that will make such a bigger difference in someone's upbringing than just like, Oh,

00:04:08.080 this side is good. And this side is bad. Yeah. Because the fact of the matter is these are

00:04:12.660 conservative, almost partisan values nowadays. It used to be that patriotism and thinking of these

00:04:18.600 things like America first and America is the greatest country in the world. A lot of people thought

00:04:23.920 that on both sides of the aisle, but now it seems like that's almost strictly a conservative idea.

00:04:29.080 And I really have, yeah, I really have the same story. My parents never really talked about

00:04:34.840 being a Republican. I knew that they were, I knew that we liked George W. Bush. I knew after 9-11,

00:04:39.920 we really revered him and, and all of this stuff, but they were entrepreneurs. They came from nothing.

00:04:45.720 They always told me you can do anything that you want to do. Kind of like what your parents told you,

00:04:49.640 it sounds like. And that just always appealed to me. It never made sense that you would want

00:04:55.040 bureaucrats controlling your life or that you would want a limit or a cap on your success. 1.00

00:05:00.200 And I think that's what I want to communicate to young people is that is a huge part of what

00:05:06.120 conservatism is. And young people do like freedom and flexibility and independence. So why do you think

00:05:12.900 there has been among so many people around our age? I'm a little older than you. Why do you think

00:05:18.140 that they can't connect the values of freedom and independence and flexibility, the things that

00:05:23.040 they really like with conservatism? Well, I think, first of all, there's a massive misinformation

00:05:30.120 campaign against conservatives starting for, you know, in the education system and media.

00:05:35.140 But Allie, I'm going to kind of just say a lot of students, I think they want to change the world.

00:05:41.080 I think they want to do what's right. A lot of students, I think most students do, at least the

00:05:44.800 ones in politics. And the ones on the left, they've been told the best way that they can change the

00:05:49.380 world is by giving government all this power and giving government all this authority over

00:05:53.580 everyone and, you know, other people's lives. And first of all, that's just not true. But it's also

00:05:58.420 just not logical when you think about it. And it's also not correct in the sense that if you,

00:06:04.700 the best way to improve anything is to first improve yourself, is to act more ethically, act more

00:06:09.620 honestly, do the correct things. I fall short of this. Everyone does, right? We as Christians

00:06:14.100 believe you're always going to fall short of it. But you also believe you can be a better person

00:06:18.120 over time. And if you do that, you'll actually make the world a better place. But it's so easy,

00:06:24.160 Allie. It's so easy to sell utopianism to a generation that doesn't know any different,

00:06:30.260 but also wants to change the world. And so I'm careful not to do this whole like,

00:06:34.840 oh, our generation is so stupid type thing. I don't think that does and does any good. Yeah, 0.99

00:06:39.760 I think these students are misinformed. But that's different. I think a lot of students mean well,

00:06:44.820 I think they really think they're on the right side of history, when they're arguing for socialism,

00:06:50.060 or they found some like new idea. Well, it's not you didn't find anything. Yeah. Not any sort of,

00:06:55.760 you know, you didn't discover plutonium. Okay. And, and, but if I can connect with them, I say,

00:07:01.380 listen, do you want to make the world a better place? Believe it or not, I actually want to make

00:07:05.520 the world a better place too. So they, they attack my emotives immediately. Right. I'm a horrible

00:07:09.980 person. I want polluting. I want billionaires running around with machine guns. Yeah. Engaged

00:07:15.180 communities. And they only go to private schools. And you know, like all these like ridiculous

00:07:19.440 stereotypes, right? They only, they fly, they fly private jets to work, right? Whatever. Right. Some 0.83

00:07:24.260 crazy thing. Yeah. Listen, I actually, the first thing that's most important to me

00:07:28.900 is the matrix of maximizing human freedom while also ensuring that our natural rights are protected

00:07:36.900 while also having some sort of compromise that the least of these are taken care of in some form

00:07:42.340 of equitable, charitable way, whether that be charity, churches, government finance. So that's

00:07:47.820 the first thing, right? But I want to be able to help people without having to sacrifice human freedom.

00:07:53.060 Yeah. That's a really, that conversation is one that Republicans and Democrats used to be able to

00:07:57.720 have while both respecting the country. Yeah. Now I feel as if you can't have a conversation about

00:08:03.180 healthcare until it, unless it descends into, oh, this is a horrible country. Like with Bernie Sanders.

00:08:08.300 Yeah. How dare we not have this as a country or a horrible place? Well, hold on. You can have this

00:08:13.620 conversation logically and ethically without having to say that this whole place has been a mistake.

00:08:18.380 Have we made mistakes? Yes. Is America a mistake? No. And so anyway, Ellie, to put it long and short,

00:08:24.760 students, they're, they're the prime audience for utopian values because they want to believe in

00:08:31.100 them. They really do. And what, I mean, you're 19, you have very little responsibility. You want to

00:08:36.560 lean in. You want to say, yes, we can change the world. Yes. Start with yourself, but it's not that

00:08:43.420 simple. Yeah. And it's not necessarily the government's job to do that. I think that there

00:08:47.880 is, like you said, not just a desire to change the world and utopianism for themselves, but to give

00:08:53.520 millennials the benefit of the doubt. I mean, a lot of times we are, and younger generation,

00:08:58.200 I guess generation Z is in college now. We're often talked about as selfish, self-centered,

00:09:02.400 self-absorbed. And I do think that's true in a, in a large way. We've all been raised with personal

00:09:07.760 technology. Every price position that we have starts with the letter I. We are all kind of focused on

00:09:14.740 ourselves and how we present ourselves on the internet. But I also think that a characteristic

00:09:18.680 of young people is empathy, that they truly do care about people that are different than them.

00:09:23.360 They don't want people to be ostracized. They want people to be taken care of. And so

00:09:27.580 they hear these grand ideas from someone like Bernie Sanders. So like, you know, the very blanket

00:09:32.500 statement, well, I believe that everyone should have enough, everyone working 40 hours a week should

00:09:38.680 have enough dignity to live or to have enough to live on. You hear that and you're like, well,

00:09:44.120 I don't want to argue with that. Like, I don't want to say that someone who works at McDonald's

00:09:49.680 doesn't have enough dignity, but like you said, that's a bad faith argument. And so what I'm

00:09:54.940 hearing is that when you approach these students, you try to kind of go in and say, here's what we

00:10:00.000 agree on. Like, here's the baseline, whether you believe it or not. We both want people to be

00:10:05.340 taken care of in a way. We both want people to succeed in a way. We both want to make the world a

00:10:11.720 better place. But look, we just have different strategies to get there. So let's have a

00:10:15.660 conversation about what's better. Do you think that that has been effective or have you received

00:10:21.280 a bunch of pushback or both? Yeah. I mean, it's definitely become, it's becoming very effective

00:10:27.400 and I never attack students' motives or anything like that. I am critical of some Democrat leaders'

00:10:34.020 motives because I don't think they actually want people to get off of food stamps. That's different,

00:10:39.120 right? But when I talk to students, I'm like, listen, what, what, what, no matter if you're

00:10:43.680 a Republican or Democrat, Marxist or libertarian, you should think it's a good thing. In fact,

00:10:49.440 you should think it's a great thing that 5 million people are no longer on food stamps

00:10:53.860 and they're now getting jobs. That's a huge success. Like right now, let's just talk about

00:10:58.500 that success story of the Trump presidency. Because under Obama, there is nothing but food stamp

00:11:03.900 increase. It almost never went down. All of a sudden under Trump, 5 million people no longer have

00:11:08.120 to look to government. They can now provide for themselves and their family without government.

00:11:12.620 Amazing thing. Why do I talk about that? This is self-reliance. There's more dignity in that,

00:11:18.520 right? So we're talking about the dignity of work, right? Like Bernie Sanders. I want everyone to have

00:11:22.080 dignity. Well, of course I do. I mean, yes, of course I want dignity. Like, I mean, is the insinuation

00:11:28.360 I don't or something? It's like, are you trying to use it as like a wedge issue? It's kind of saying

00:11:32.720 like, I want everyone to live forever. Yeah. Yeah. I'd love that. I mean, you know what I'm

00:11:37.500 saying? So they use these things as if they position them as if the opposition doesn't want

00:11:41.880 dignity, right? Like, okay. But you know what my idea of dignity is, is maximizing the worker's

00:11:47.920 freedom, maximizing their capacity to get a raise, to keep all their money, to be able to provide for

00:11:54.140 their family. So that's dignity to me is the sovereignty of the individual. And it's hot. By the way,

00:12:00.660 this is, this, what's really interesting is you cannot have both liberty. You cannot have

00:12:07.640 both liberty and assuredness. You can't. So let's use this extreme example, right? And Bernie Sanders

00:12:13.860 loves talking about prisoners to vote. It's like one of the stupidest things. And I could break that 1.00

00:12:18.060 down to you if you want. It's so beyond, it's, and I could, it's so silly, but so in the most extreme 0.90

00:12:25.000 example, if you want to just be taken care of, isn't that's what prison is, right? You think about it

00:12:30.460 and a really extreme example, get three meals a day. You're, you have a house, you have a place to

00:12:36.020 sleep, you have a shower, but there's no freedom, right? There's really no freedom because people 1.00

00:12:41.000 want to get out, right? So that's the extreme example. I'm not saying that's what the left

00:12:44.940 wants. Media matters. If you're watching this, that's not what I'm saying. But I will say the

00:12:49.860 other extreme example is liberty. You can do whatever you want to do, however you want to do it. But what

00:12:53.920 does liberty take? It takes responsibility. Why do the people, why are people in prison? Because they

00:12:59.380 didn't take responsibility. They made a mistake, right? So, you know, Bernie and all these people

00:13:05.120 were the freedom people were all this. Well, you could say that, but you also have to tell the

00:13:10.160 audience, and this is, this is like being brutally true in politics and no one wants to be brutally

00:13:14.520 true in politics. I'm going to give you freedom. I'm going to give you liberty. But if you screw up,

00:13:19.140 you got to take, you got to take responsibility for yourself. Yeah. And everyone's going to kind of

00:13:23.580 clap like, wait a second, I have to do what? Yeah. I have to wake up earlier. Yeah. You see

00:13:29.460 what I'm saying? But here's the thing is, and this is why we as conservatives are always going to be

00:13:34.160 punching up Allie. Always. This is why talk radio is so successful. This is why your podcast works,

00:13:38.540 because it takes effort to explain conservative values. Yeah. They are natural. They are embedded,

00:13:45.200 but it takes maturity. It takes work because it's so much easier to sell everything with no

00:13:51.400 responsibility. Yeah. I, by the way, I wish my job was to go to college campuses and say free

00:13:56.740 education, student loan debt, climate change, renewal. My job would be so easy. I'd be done in

00:14:01.320 10 minutes. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. And so anyway, I'm the long and short of it is this takes

00:14:06.820 explanation. It takes theory. It takes observation, takes maturity, but it also demonstrates we're on

00:14:13.560 the right side of history to use Ben Shapiro quote, who we love or to use the right side of the argument.

00:14:20.400 Yeah. And I don't think that's talked about. I don't know. Yeah. I always say that it's so much

00:14:25.680 easier to be a progressive millennial or a progressive Gen Z-er than it is to be a conservative

00:14:29.980 millennial. Not because like you said, the ideas are complicated. They are very natural and I think

00:14:34.720 embedded in the human spirit, but because they are being indoctrinated by every megaphone that's out

00:14:42.940 there, by their professors, by social media, by the mainstream media, by all of these outlets.

00:14:49.500 And so we are swimming upstream. We are like the voices in the wilderness saying, hang on just

00:14:54.560 one second. Hang on a second. I have something to say to that. And if anyone wants to listen to me,

00:14:59.660 great. But we have to kind of put our voices out there knowing that we're going to be criticized and

00:15:04.220 lambasted by the mainstream and hope that there are some people out there who are thinking, wait,

00:15:10.420 I'm listening to this progressive stuff too. And I'm not so sure that it's right.

00:15:15.180 Like I'm not, I'm not so sure that I'm on board with, you know, with abortion. I'm not so sure

00:15:20.780 that I'm on board with socialism. And so they start listening to people like you, like Candace,

00:15:24.660 like me, like Ben. And they say, okay, someone please make sense of this for me and give me

00:15:29.340 another alternative. And they hear it. And the hope is anyway, that they're like, oh, okay. Okay.

00:15:35.180 That makes more sense now. But you're right in that it is difficult because what you're presenting

00:15:41.440 to them is not a guarantee. You're presenting to them risk. And you know, it's, it's difficult.

00:15:47.100 It's just like selling any kind of investment. It's like, okay, there's a huge, there's a risk in

00:15:51.620 this. There's a big risk in this, but the reward is so much greater than collectivism. So much greater

00:15:58.360 and convincing someone of that without any kind of guarantee is difficult.

00:16:02.740 And so here's a couple of thought exercises. You're totally right, Ellie. It's difficult and

00:16:07.420 it takes effort and it takes a mature society. And so what I tell people is for any benefit that

00:16:12.900 you want to receive from the government, be ready to be ready to pay for the equivalent of it at any

00:16:18.320 time. Right. So, okay. I want free education. Okay. What does that cost? Uh, I don't know. It's

00:16:23.540 free. No, it's not. Whatever it is. $21,000 a year. Be ready to write that check because you might have

00:16:28.380 to. Well, no, that's not how it works. No, sure. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Don't try to make

00:16:32.720 other people pay for what you think is a good idea. By the way, most times you will end up paying for

00:16:36.840 it. That's actually, the data shows that is that the, the people that advocate for these free

00:16:41.380 handouts actually end up paying for it. Right. They actually end up, you know, they, they end up

00:16:46.400 having to carry that burden. And you said it, you said it best is there is risk in this, but there's

00:16:51.460 also fulfillment. And this is what really upsets me is that these students are like, well, I just want

00:16:56.700 to live a happy life and get taken care of. And they don't say it that, you know, flippantly some

00:17:01.760 do. Yeah. You know, like, well, hold on a second. You just, your idea of happiness is just getting a

00:17:06.960 bunch of stuff from the government. Yeah. Like I'm sure you had like dreams, right? I mean,

00:17:10.660 you must do want to do something in your life. You might want to start a business, start a family

00:17:14.960 travel. I say you maximize freedom to the greatest extent you can without encroaching on other people's

00:17:22.280 rights. Right. And still protecting the least of these in a very compromised, you know, in a, in a,

00:17:27.140 in a position that we can come to a consensus with, right. Through where it's a safety net,

00:17:31.200 not a hammock, right. Not anarchist people, whatever gets crazy idea, but maximizing freedom,

00:17:38.240 right. Then at that moment, you will have a more functioning, productive, healthy society.

00:17:45.800 And this is hard. It's just, it's just not easy because as soon as there's some sort of,

00:17:50.780 some form of just not dysfunction, but you have some form of irregularity, people immediately say,

00:17:57.840 oh, the government should fix that. Yeah. You know, government should do this. The government

00:18:01.180 should come in and have, you know, free education or bail out the banks. And it's so tempting to turn

00:18:06.960 to government to try to fix all these problems. When in reality, government is actually the root

00:18:10.880 cause of most of them. Um, and so look, this message that you and I are bringing to young people

00:18:16.380 is resonating. It's going to take more effort. And this is why the work we're doing at Turning

00:18:21.440 Point USA, you know, is so important. And you chairing our young women's leadership summit,

00:18:26.580 anyone listening to this should come to our young women's leadership summit in early June,

00:18:31.160 tpusa.com slash YWLS. And, um, I just started my new podcast, which is so much fun. I love it.

00:18:37.460 I love it. Yeah. Wait, tell everyone, tell everyone about your, about your podcast, where

00:18:40.720 they can find it, what it's called, all that, what you'll be doing, how long, how long it is,

00:18:45.180 all that. Yeah. It's going to be once a week. Um, kind of just like a culture war update from

00:18:49.940 the front lines. Every Wednesday, every Wednesday, every Wednesday, they go to Apple podcast and,

00:18:55.860 or iTunes, just type in a Charlie Kirk show, hit subscribe five-star rating. Um, if you want top

00:19:01.700 charts, it's, it's already, it's already soared in the charts, which is amazing. That tells you that

00:19:06.500 the first episode was awesome. Everyone needs to go listen to it. Yeah, we're, we're really happy.

00:19:11.380 Um, we're going to have a live show next week in Phoenix. If anyone's interested to come by,

00:19:15.040 um, kind of as a cool second episode. Um, and look, we're just, we're going to see if I'm good

00:19:21.040 at it and all that sort of stuff. I think I'm going to really enjoy it. I love long form.

00:19:24.780 Your podcast is amazing. It's a top hundred podcast in the world. Um, from the charts I've seen,

00:19:30.220 which is awesome. And I think our generation is looking for this kind of longer form or intellectual,

00:19:34.600 deeper defense of these ideas. Yeah. I think they're looking for nuance. And I think a lot

00:19:39.380 of people don't realize they might only see you in a, in a 30 second clip to where you were just 0.96

00:19:44.700 destroying a stupid argument from someone on the left, or they see you on Fox. You're everywhere 0.80

00:19:49.980 doing all of these things. But I think they maybe don't know how much work you put into this and how

00:19:57.020 long you've been studying this stuff, how much you really know about all this. There's a million

00:20:02.740 things that I could talk to you about socialism, Venezuela, all of that, but you'll just have to

00:20:07.440 come back and we'll have another conversation. But everyone who does, I'm sure everyone who

00:20:11.780 listens to this already follows you. You've got, I think a million followers on it on Twitter,

00:20:15.880 a million. Yep. That's freaking crazy. That's crazy. Well, thank you so much for taking the time

00:20:22.480 to join me. Um, everyone go to tpusa.com slash YWLS. Correct. Yes. If you are a female between 1.00

00:20:30.420 ages 18 and 27, that's right. Correct. And we will, we're going to work on some kind of,

00:20:35.860 I've gotten a lot of messages from young moms in their thirties saying, Hey, we want something for

00:20:40.940 us. And so we'll have to think about that. Thank you so much, Allie, for having me. This is great.

00:20:44.980 Thank you. I'll see you soon. I hope that you enjoyed that conversation with Charlie. There were

00:20:50.240 so many other things that I wanted to talk to him about. I mean, the guy, well, he just speaks well,

00:20:55.060 first of all, but he also knows a lot. He just knows a lot. He knows a lot of facts. He's been

00:21:00.500 doing a lot of reading on capitalism and socialism and American exceptionalism for a really long time.

00:21:05.560 So he's just a good resource on all of this. If you go on social media and you look at the clips

00:21:12.520 in which he is engaging with these students, it's really incredible how he's able to just kind of

00:21:16.500 recall these facts, uh, so quickly. But, um, I just really appreciate the work that he is doing for

00:21:23.340 conservatism and how long he's been in this fight at such a young age. It's really crazy.

00:21:28.060 I wanted to talk to him about Venezuela and socialism and everything that's going on there.

00:21:33.520 And I also wanted to bring up the assault on the dignity of work. That's a reason why we're having

00:21:39.420 such a hard time. I think reasoning with people like AOC and Bernie Sanders is because they don't

00:21:45.760 believe there is an inherent dignity in someone working. They think it is just as dignified for someone

00:21:51.200 to live on the, off the government and, you know, watercolor paint all day, even though no one is

00:21:57.160 buying their pieces. Like that's what they think is just as dignified as someone working hard and

00:22:02.660 providing for their family. And so when you don't have the same idea of the dignity of work, that

00:22:07.940 there is inherent dignity in work, then that that's difficult. And part of that is because, uh,

00:22:15.000 the left has become so secular, they have become so not everyone on the left, but in general,

00:22:20.520 the left has become secular. The left has, um, abandoned this idea of the centrality of God,

00:22:27.180 the centrality of, uh, morality of biblical morality. And the Bible is what tells us that one personal

00:22:34.580 property is a thing. The 10th commandment is do not covet. And also, uh, that work is good work existed

00:22:41.660 before the fall of man. It existed before sin. So work is inherently good. It is what, uh, part of

00:22:47.580 what the human spirit runs on is productivity. And so when there's an assault on that, there's an

00:22:53.880 assault on the individual, there's an assault on the dignity of human beings, um, as image bearers of

00:23:00.320 God and as God created us to be. Okay. That's all I have for today and all I have for this week.

00:23:05.760 Love you guys.

00:23:11.660 Love you guys.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - September 12, 2025

REPLAY ｜ My 2019 Interview with Charlie Kirk

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript