In this episode of the Ask Me Anything podcast, I sit down with the President of Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk, to talk about his campaign for the White House, why he's running, and why he thinks you should not send your kids to government schools.
00:00:52.000His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:01:00.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:30.000Right now, we have not made the critical investments in key states, and I get angry when people say we're going to win, we're going to win, we're going to win.
00:01:58.000I'm a public school administrator for a long time.
00:02:03.000Been involved in public education for a long time.
00:02:05.000What are we going to do as a strategy to prevent this manufacturing of a very left-wing liberal perspective when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion?
00:02:18.000I can remember some times where I was an administrator and we bring in a speaker and even speaking about borders was a racist comment.
00:02:29.000You know, we're creating a group of students that are graduating that are fueling this left-wing feel.
00:02:37.000What are we going to do about school board elections?
00:02:39.000What are we going to do about making sure that we're teaching the things that value America versus teaching we hate America?
00:03:14.000I sent them to Greenpeace Catholic Central.
00:03:16.000Yeah, let me finish the thought, right?
00:03:18.000Which is, if you're willing to borrow money for your kid to go to college, why wouldn't you be willing to borrow money for your kid to go to a more important K through 8, K through 12 experience?
00:03:29.000I think K through 12 is a lot more important than four years of college.
00:03:34.000And so I have not, I quite honestly have not seen a good argument to keep kids in government schools.
00:03:40.000If you decide to do that, you're playing Russian roulette with their values.
00:03:44.000With that being said, we should still get involved in school boards and try to take them over.
00:03:48.000But you're dealing with the teacher unions.
00:04:35.000Well, you have to be, I mean, you know, having built something that from nothing and getting it out there, you have to be a relentless advocate for your cause and for your efforts.
00:04:44.000So you just have to get as many stakeholders involved.
00:04:46.000And then if you do good work, people will find that good work and it will get rewarded.
00:06:20.000We have a very strong grassroots group here.
00:06:23.000We're very involved with our school board, our commissioners.
00:06:26.000I don't know if anybody mentioned, but we passed a medical freedom ordinance and resolution about a month ago so that our county, Collier County, will be free of medical mandates the next thing that comes across to us.
00:07:09.000You know, Caitlin, I don't want to say a mistake, but I think we really need to remember next time we're confronted with this, that when you have a situation where there's doubt in the minds of some people about whether something works or not, we better try to reach out and be a better explainer of why we feel these things are important.
00:07:30.000Because whenever, particularly in our country with our free spirit, which we all embrace, that people being told what to do very often has the opposite effect.
00:07:40.000That's what I was referring to in that interview.
00:07:44.000Everything the founding fathers designed was to prevent people like Anthony Fauci from having power.
00:07:50.000He is at direct odds with the American founding fathers' promise of checks and balances, separation of powers, consent to the governor.
00:07:58.000No one ever elected Anthony Fauci, yet he had complete control over all of society.
00:08:03.000Hi, my biggest concern is the misuse of language, starting with the redefinition of a pandemic and a vaccine by the CDC, as well as the use of the word democracy instead of constitutional republic, the use of the word constitutional rights instead of rights protected by the Constitution.
00:11:15.000That if you have 50 plus one votes, then you're able to do whatever you want.
00:11:19.000A republic does acknowledge, of course, the consent of the governed and majoritarian rule, but it has a pre-written, eternal document or truths that govern the ambitions or the emotions of the majority.
00:11:37.000So, for example, the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are intertwined.
00:11:45.000When we have life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, or life, liberty, and property, these are eternally applicable to human beings, including in the preamble of the Constitution.
00:11:54.000So, therefore, we enumerate these in the Bill of Rights, which was originally really drafted by George Mason in the Virginia Declaration of Rights, where the government has rules.
00:12:05.000In a democracy, you would never have the government have direct rules.
00:12:09.000In a republic, there are barriers for the government to go after human liberty, human flourishing, and human freedoms.
00:12:18.000A republic also acknowledges that rights come from God.
00:12:23.000A democracy does not outright acknowledge that.
00:12:27.000And so, a constitution, a constitutional republic, has separation of powers, checks, and balances.
00:12:37.000A democracy, by definition, is that you get to vote yourself more rights and more stuff.
00:12:43.000A republic has a preference on limited government.
00:12:47.000A democracy has a preference on the demands of people.
00:13:30.000But my question is: is there a coalition or somewhere advertised that's with the Daily Wire or a turning point where a 34-year-old like me can go be like, that church is going to be lit?
00:13:41.000Yeah, so I think there's some really good churches around here.
00:14:30.000I have been told that there's some wonderful and courageous and bold churches here.
00:14:34.000I could tell you if you live in Phoenix, I got recommendations or California, but find the bold and the courageous churches because it is amazing how apathetic and how uninterested.
00:15:43.000I'll say, Rick, you know, if you would like to prove that you are one of us, take out your phone right now and tweet that the trans agenda is from the pit of hell.
00:17:35.000It's voices like yours that are helping America to get the truth out.
00:17:39.000And I was just wondering if you have any advice.
00:17:41.000It seems like when the mask mandate started and everything from voting, people would show up to vote and they'd be turned away and they would comply.
00:17:50.000And there's so much people, especially in the youth who have been taught to obey authority, complying right now.
00:17:56.000Do you have any advice for how to get the word to many people using and exercising their free will?
00:18:16.000But, you know, when God delivered his chosen people out of Egypt into the desert, within days, he blew coil off course, manna came from heaven, and they said, We want to go back to Egypt.
00:18:36.000How many people do you know that have desired comfort over liberty?
00:18:43.000You have to teach the value of liberty to young people.
00:18:47.000I would much rather live a full and unpredictable life than a boring and a safe life.
00:18:54.000And the vast majority of young people, I actually think the new national motto in America has been informally relabeled as better safe than sorry.
00:19:06.000I think that's okay to say at times, but I'd rather say live freely and boldly and courageously.
00:19:15.000And the kind of pathological religion of safetyism makes the mask issue popular.
00:19:23.000And here's what's so interesting: is that, you know, I talk about this with guns and I get attacked: is that if you have any form of liberty, you're going to have a cost to that liberty.
00:19:32.000We could get 50,000 less deaths a year right now.
00:19:38.000There's a cost to almost anything that we consider to be important.
00:19:43.000But here's what I fear more than anything else on this topic, is that people are so willingly giving up hard-earned freedom and liberty given to them by God for a false sense of security.
00:20:00.000It's not even that they'll actually be secure.
00:20:14.000And what happened in the lockdowns was a form of them imprisoning the entire American population, especially our young people that now have the highest suicide rates, that have high alcohol addiction, drug addiction, self-harm.
00:20:30.000All the negative indicators go up dramatically.
00:20:32.000And so it's not an easy answer, but it goes back to what I said earlier.
00:20:37.000We need churches to teach the value of liberty.
00:20:42.000I believe God wants his people to be free.
00:20:52.000And right now, a secular society will end up being an unfree society.
00:20:58.000The American founding started with the revival, started with Jonathan Edwards talking about in the black robe regimen, sinners in the hands of an angry God.
00:22:17.000It's a technically more accurate term.
00:22:19.000A neoliberal is someone who believes in three main things.
00:22:23.000They believe we should invade the world, invite the world, and import a bunch of products that we do not need.
00:22:29.000Those three things are why Tucker Carlson got fired.
00:22:33.000Tucker Carlson was willing to say the Ukraine war is a mistake and we should try to broker peace.
00:22:38.000Tucker Carlson was willing to say it's a mistake that we have 5,000 people a day coming across our southern border.
00:22:43.000Tucker Carlson was willing to say, you know what?
00:22:45.000Our trade deals have hurt the American worker.
00:22:48.000Those three things hurt the bottom line of transnational corporations and neoliberals.
00:22:53.000But if I could add a fourth one of neoliberals, neoliberals are afraid to fight for the most important issues directly affecting our children and our culture.
00:23:05.000Neoliberals will say, why do we talk about the trans things so much?
00:23:09.000Why do we talk about the social stuff?
00:23:12.000Well, first of all, we didn't force the issue.
00:23:16.000And even more important than that, this is why politics is not as important to me as philosophy or getting our morals and our ethics right.
00:23:24.000Bad politics comes from not being able to define what is reality and what is true.
00:23:30.000The neoliberals think we could go back to an old America with the snap of our fingers.
00:23:35.000That's not going to happen unless we take America back from them.
00:23:39.000And so I would stop calling them rhinos.
00:23:41.000Are not even Republicans in name only.
00:23:43.000They are flat-out members of the American left, center-left, called neoliberals.
00:24:29.000Again, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., I think, is wrong on abortion, and he overdoes it on the environment.
00:24:33.000This is a question of is the promise of citizen government going to continue in America.
00:24:40.000And so, what gives me hope is if we can challenge this uniparty that is dominating our country, I think 90% of America agrees with us.
00:24:50.000It's going to be a challenge, though, because the corporate oligarchs and the leaders of the Uniparty want us to think that the divide is Republican-Democrat.
00:25:44.000My name is Michael Peters, member of the Lee Republican Executive Committee.
00:25:48.000Moved down here from North Florida, lived there for 15 years, owned a small business there, got to be real good friends with lots of other small business owners and farmers.
00:26:00.000And the farmers in North Florida are being bought out by Bill Gates.
00:26:30.000And they're like, I can't say no to this, right?
00:26:34.000So I believe there should be a law passed on a state-by-state level that billionaire oligarchs should not be able to buy millions of acres of farmland.
00:26:45.000You want to buy a couple hundred thousand acres?
00:28:02.000The American right, embracing these ideas, will be able to bring over 10 or 15% of Democrats, big time.
00:28:09.000And so if you are a family and you own a rental property, that's fine, or five or ten, that's not the problem.
00:28:15.000If you're a farmer and you want to buy an extra couple hundred acres, fine.
00:28:18.000The issue is people that use the backbone of America, property ownership and farms, as portfolio assets to remake America in their globalist neoliberal image.
00:28:30.000Teddy Roosevelt can and should serve as an example of how to challenge corporate power run amok.
00:28:36.000The founders, in fact, Alexander Hamilton would have agreed with this.
00:28:40.000Abraham Lincoln would have agreed with this.
00:28:58.000I just wanted to share a little something with you, and maybe you can shed some light on this.
00:29:03.000So based on all of our conversation here today, I hear you loud and clear about the fact that we need to take control over what's going on.
00:29:37.000So what does someone like me do when I can raise $70,000, but I don't have $400,000 and the Rhino establishment takes somebody that's qualified like me out of the race?
00:30:01.000What I have found is in pockets across the country is you have great grassroots people like you that all of a sudden the corporate types come in with a lot of money and they misrepresent.
00:30:12.000And that's why grassroots networks matter so much.
00:30:14.000That's why what we're trying to do on our program to support the good candidates and get the message out.
00:30:19.000We're all living through a big change, everybody.
00:30:24.000The positive change, though, is we're going to get to a place where Turning Point Action, for example, is able to tell the good guys from the bad guys.
00:30:33.000And that kind of corporate money won't mean as much.
00:30:44.000We need to have a series of grassroots groups, maybe Turning Point Action, maybe you're not, where it doesn't matter how much money they spend, but a step of a thumbs up or a green stamp of approval from Turning Point Action or whatever can cut through that.
00:30:58.000Because, you know, I'm doing this three hours a day.
00:31:56.000And it is my goal to raise my children in the admonition of the Lord.
00:32:00.000And I want to raise them with good, patriotic American values.
00:32:05.000I want them to really know our nation's history and I want to help them really learn discernment moving forward with how they should live as an American.
00:32:16.000And that can be really tough discerning, especially with the media.
00:32:21.000You know, there's a lot of mixed messages in the media.
00:32:23.000We've got horrible mainstream media anymore.
00:32:27.000There are voices like yours out there, but how do I start teaching them discernment with media and just what they can trust?
00:32:36.000Because I'm not going to always be here to direct them.
00:32:39.000Where do we start with our kids learning?
00:32:58.000And I think the Sabbath is one of the most ignored, beautiful gifts in the entire Bible that Christians.
00:33:05.000I turn off my phone completely from Friday night to Sunday night, and then I work like crazy every other day.
00:33:10.000And so you're able to get a lot done when you have a true day of rest.
00:33:14.000And then you need to have non-technology family dinners where you talk about things.
00:33:18.000But, you know, our program is good in one regard.
00:33:22.000We air a lot of the bad guys' stuff, and then we respond to it, and we talk about it, and we say, here's what they say, and here's why it's not so good.
00:33:29.000But then also, you know, don't be afraid of preparing your kids that they're going to be bombarded with lies and deceit.