The Charlie Kirk Show - From the Archive: What Set Our Founders Apart: Charlie at 2019 YWLS

00:00:03.000 My name is Charlie Kirk.

00:00:05.000 I run the largest pro American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic.

00:00:11.000 My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth.

00:00:14.000 If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable.

00:00:19.000 But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful.

00:00:24.000 College is a scam, everybody.

00:00:26.000 You got to stop sending your kids to college.

00:00:27.000 You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible.

00:00:31.000 Go start a Turning Point USA College chapter.

00:00:33.000 Go start a turning point USA high school chapter.

00:00:35.000 Go find out how your church can get involved.

00:00:37.000 Sign up and become an activist.

00:00:39.000 I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade.

00:00:41.000 Most important decision I ever made in my life.

00:00:43.000 And I encourage you to do the same.

00:00:45.000 Here I am.

00:00:46.000 Lord, use me.

00:00:48.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:49.000 Here we go.

00:00:56.000 Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of The Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals.

00:01:06.000 Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at Noble Gold Investments.com.

00:01:13.000 That is Noble Gold Investments.com.

00:01:14.000 Thank you so much.

00:01:18.000 It is such a pleasure to see how this Young Women's Leadership Summit grows year after year.

00:01:26.000 And I said this last night, I want to say it again now to the entire audience.

00:01:30.000 Just the people that make this possible, our donors and our supporters and our board members, those of which we honored last night, and those of which That wish to remain not on the forefront of that.

00:01:45.000 Thank you.

00:01:46.000 Thank you so much for thinking of us and supporting us.

00:01:49.000 You make all of this possible.

00:01:50.000 So, thank you.

00:01:53.000 So, I want to take this time today to kind of break down the three big things we believe at Turning Point USA.

00:02:00.000 And then I want to open up for questions and we can have some good back and forth.

00:02:04.000 And no questions are off limits, but we're going to do questions, not speeches, for three minutes and then a question after that.

00:02:10.000 Okay?

00:02:11.000 Right?

00:02:11.000 We like that?

00:02:12.000 Good.

00:02:13.000 So, At Turning Point USA, we believe in three big things.

00:02:18.000 First thing we believe is that America is the greatest country ever to exist in the history of the world.

00:02:27.000 That America is the most benevolent, the most generous, the most accepting, the most creative, the most entrepreneurial country ever to exist in the history of the world.

00:02:39.000 So you should applaud that, by the way.

00:02:42.000 And what's so concerning to us at Turning Point USA is the rise of anti Americanism on college campuses.

00:02:49.000 Does anyone in the audience feel as if it's almost now the predominant viewpoint to be anti American on your campus?

00:02:56.000 Raise your hand.

00:02:57.000 This is in our own country.

00:03:00.000 And the media will refuse to cover this, of course, that in our own country, we have people that want to deconstruct the prosperity and the excellence and the success that we're enjoying today.

00:03:12.000 But why is America the greatest country ever to exist in the history of the world?

00:03:15.000 It's not because we have the most people.

00:03:18.000 China and India have more people than us, a lot more people.

00:03:20.000 In fact, China has almost four times as many people as we do.

00:03:24.000 India, almost three times as many people as we do.

00:03:26.000 It's not because we have the most land.

00:03:28.000 Russia has almost triple the amount of land that we have.

00:03:32.000 It's not that we have the most natural resources.

00:03:34.000 I mean, the Middle East, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, they have natural gas, they have oil.

00:03:41.000 So, why is, of course, we have all those things, but that doesn't make a country excellent.

00:03:47.000 What makes a country excellent is the ideas of which that country is founded upon and the ideas that are embedded in that culture.

00:03:55.000 That we all accept.

00:03:56.000 And there's a difference between the American culture and the culture of Europe and the culture of almost all the rest of the world.

00:04:03.000 Something that we take for granted, that all of you have heard throughout your whole life, which is if you don't succeed at first, try, try, try again.

00:04:12.000 This is a uniquely American value.

00:04:15.000 We are more forgiving of failure in this country than any other country in the world.

00:04:19.000 There's almost an expectation of perseverance.

00:04:22.000 There's almost an expectation that you're going to push through difficult times and that you're going to be better tomorrow than you were today and you're going to be better today than you were yesterday.

00:04:30.000 If I were to describe what it means to be an American, the first thing I think of is meritocracy.

00:04:37.000 That's a big word.

00:04:38.000 What does that mean?

00:04:39.000 That means that we reward hard work and we reward people who play by the rules.

00:04:44.000 So simple.

00:04:45.000 Those two things.

00:04:47.000 That if you work really hard and you make a series of good choices for a long period of time, you'll be able to look five years, 10 years, 15 years later and see your life improved.

00:05:00.000 Most of the world does not have that guarantee. 0.99

00:05:03.000 Most of the world, unfortunately, let's use India. 0.52

00:05:07.000 In India, if you work really hard and play by the rules, for 600 million people in India, it means their life will be exactly the same 15 years from now that it is today. 0.96

00:05:17.000 That even if you go to the school that you're assigned to, even if you try really, really hard at your job, it doesn't mean much of anything.

00:05:24.000 Your life might have a slight improvement, unless there's some exception and there's an amazing thing that happens and someone takes a risk on you. 0.95

00:05:30.000 Because in India, there's a caste system.

00:05:33.000 And it's really hard to break out of that caste system.

00:05:35.000 Now, it's not as formal as it was 100 years ago, but it's culturally a caste system still in India.

00:05:41.000 And so that's the first thing.

00:05:43.000 The second thing is this really, really big word called intergenerational stratification.

00:05:48.000 Now, what does that mean?

00:05:49.000 Essentially, that means it's the guarantee, it's the promise that in America, your kids' life and definitely your grandkids' life will be better than your current life today.

00:06:01.000 And you should applaud that because, again, in a lot of countries across the world, That have amazing, beautiful people.

00:06:09.000 That's not a guarantee.

00:06:11.000 There's a reason why the waiting list to come into this country is tens of millions of people long.

00:06:16.000 That people dream and they go to bed every single day.

00:06:19.000 This one thing they think about is I hope I get a letter in the mail from my embassy or the US embassy allowing me to be a legal immigrant to the United States.

00:06:26.000 That's what's on the minds of hundreds of millions of people every day.

00:06:31.000 And so the guarantee that if you do the first thing, you work hard and play by the rules.

00:06:38.000 That your life and your kids' life and definitely your grandkids' life will improve.

00:06:42.000 I ask this question almost all the time, and I guarantee very few people in this room can say that you have it worse than your grandparents.

00:06:51.000 Very few people in this room can say that.

00:06:53.000 Unless your grandparents were John D. Rockefeller or the Mellon family, I almost guarantee everyone in this room has a higher standard of living, has more opportunity, and is more liberated than their grandparents were.

00:07:07.000 That's a sign of an excellent country.

00:07:13.000 So, we go behind the values of America.

00:07:16.000 Just like the Christian Trinity, now I'm a Christian first, an American second, a conservative third, in that order, okay?

00:07:24.000 Just like the Christian Trinity, there is an American Trinity.

00:07:27.000 And this is from my very good friend, Dennis Prager.

00:07:30.000 We love Dennis Prager, don't we?

00:07:31.000 It's fantastic.

00:07:35.000 The American Trinity is three big things, the first of which is the phrase e pluribus unum.

00:07:42.000 Which is a Latin phrase which means out of many one.

00:07:45.000 When America was founded almost on the presidential seal and many of our founding documents, this phrase kept on popping up e pluribus unum.

00:07:53.000 It was the first country ever to be founded on unity and not division.

00:07:58.000 It was the first country that was trying to bring people together.

00:08:01.000 It was a country that, of course, we failed in that at first in a lot of different ways, but our ability to correct from our mistakes over time is a sign of excellence.

00:08:09.000 It's not who you were, but it's how far you've come.

00:08:12.000 It's not where you were 100 years ago, but it's the choices that you've made to be able to correct any mistakes that you once had.

00:08:19.000 Now, that phrase, e pluribus unum, is so important because it's not about pitting people against each other.

00:08:25.000 It's recognizing first and foremost there is only one race, the human race, and that we have more in common than ever will divide us.

00:08:35.000 The second part of the American Trinity is one word, and the word is liberty.

00:08:40.000 And we'd love, a lot of people on the left love to talk about liberty.

00:08:44.000 They love to say, oh, yeah, we're all into liberty, and for maybe two issues, if that.

00:08:51.000 But liberty is great, and we all should support it.

00:08:54.000 But you should be able to do what you want to do as long as it doesn't harm somebody else.

00:08:58.000 You have to take responsibility for your actions if things don't go the way you want them to go.

00:09:04.000 You should be able to start a business.

00:09:06.000 You should be able to go to the school you want to.

00:09:09.000 But if for whatever reason that doesn't work out, who's responsible?

00:09:12.000 You're responsible.

00:09:13.000 It's not your teacher's fault.

00:09:14.000 It's not your professor's fault.

00:09:16.000 It's not the patriarchy's fault.

00:09:20.000 It's none of those people's fault.

00:09:21.000 Instead, you have to look inwardly as the best, as the only way to actually change things as you see fit.

00:09:30.000 The third part of the American Trinity is the phrase, In God we trust.

00:09:39.000 It is on all of our currency, and it is a phrase that we should never forget.

00:09:45.000 At the American founding, on the principles of our country, we recognize our rights come from God, not from government.

00:09:52.000 That we recognize we have natural rights when we are born.

00:09:55.000 This is so important because, therefore, we, as the citizens here, we created the government.

00:10:02.000 The government did not give us permission to exist.

00:10:05.000 This is juxtaposed so differently than the Rousseauian view or the leftist view that for whatever reason, government has to grant us permission to do certain things.

00:10:14.000 Instead, it's the exact opposite that we all gave.

00:10:17.000 We give our designation and we give our contract towards the government, and the government is accountable to us.

00:10:22.000 We're the shareholders of the United States government.

00:10:25.000 And you put all this together, what do the results look like?

00:10:32.000 Well, America, despite the mistakes that we've made, Never forget this.

00:10:37.000 America has made mistakes, but America is not a mistake.

00:10:44.000 And we are one of the only countries ever to exist in the history of the world to voluntarily send our own citizens to go die for the freedoms of others.

00:10:55.000 We are a country that, when there is world conflict, when things break out, they don't call the Belgians.

00:11:03.000 They definitely don't call the French.

00:11:07.000 When there's conflict, people say, Where are the Americans?

00:11:10.000 Bring in the Americans.

00:11:14.000 And whether it be a natural disaster, a tsunami, a flood, an earthquake, it is American leadership.

00:11:21.000 And that goes to the other point I talked about.

00:11:23.000 We are the most generous country, the most benevolent country ever to exist in the history of the world.

00:11:31.000 America gave away, we as a country gave away $500 billion to charity last year that we know of.

00:11:40.000 That we know of.

00:11:42.000 That means, and that doesn't count the meals that you paid for a friend who needed it or an Uber for a friend that was a little short of money.

00:11:48.000 That's not even a count of this, it is just money that the IRS was able to designate that went to charities.

00:11:54.000 500 billion dollars is the combined GDP, gross domestic product, of almost all of Eastern Europe.

00:12:01.000 So we voluntarily gave away money so much money, it's essentially the entire wealth of entire countries.

00:12:09.000 I believe firmly that the best way to help the least of these, to help people that are struggling, is not through big government bureaucracies, it's through churches, it's through synagogues.

00:12:20.000 Through mosques, through local community centers.

00:12:22.000 And when we lose that, when we lose looking out for other people, when we lose that as a country, we look to government to solve our problems, all of a sudden we become worse ourselves.

00:12:35.000 You become more bitter and you become more selfish.

00:12:38.000 Government will take care of that for me.

00:12:40.000 I don't need to give to charity.

00:12:42.000 I don't need to help the person on the side of the street.

00:12:44.000 We become hardened to the world around us because it's somebody else's responsibility.

00:12:50.000 When in reality, it should be everyone in this room's responsibility to lend a helping hand to somebody who needs it.

00:12:59.000 How much are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness worth to you?

00:13:03.000 This is the question America's founders had to answer.

00:13:06.000 You see, for more than 150 years, America's 13 colonies governed themselves until Britain declared they had no right to self rule.

00:13:15.000 So, ordinary people had to make extraordinary choices and risk their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to fight for independence.

00:13:22.000 And against all odds, They won, and in victory, they built one of the most stable and lasting republics in human history.

00:13:29.000 Now, experience the American Revolution like never before, thanks to our friends at Hillsdale College.

00:13:34.000 Revolutionary America, a new documentary from Hillsdale Studios and narrated by Tom Selleck, brings the founding of our nation to life through the voices of those who lived it, alongside insights from leading scholars and commentators.

00:13:48.000 I'm telling you, Hillsdale has outdone themselves with this.

00:13:50.000 It's amazing.

00:13:52.000 You've got to check this out.

00:13:54.000 You've got to, frankly, buy tickets to see this film.

00:13:58.000 So, Please, please, please.

00:13:59.000 It's something you could take the whole family to.

00:14:01.000 You could take your friends.

00:14:03.000 I mean, listen, at a time when history is often distorted in schools and classes, immediate, this is your chance to see the story as it really happened and ask yourself, what would you risk for freedom?

00:14:14.000 Face the decisions our founders grappled with in Revolutionary American, a Hillsdale Studios film, only in theaters May 31st through June 2nd.

00:14:21.000 So get your tickets now by going to hillsdale.edu/slash revolution.

00:14:26.000 You do not want to miss this opportunity to see this on the big screen.

00:14:31.000 Slash Revolution to locate a theater near you and buy tickets for Revolutionary American.

00:14:37.000 One more time, that's hillsdale.edu slash revolution.

00:14:43.000 The second thing we believe at Turning Point USA is that the Constitution is the greatest political document ever written in the history of the world.

00:14:55.000 The Constitution was not written for the times, it was written to stand the test of time.

00:15:02.000 The Constitution, the brilliance of the Founding Fathers.

00:15:06.000 The Founding Fathers were the first victors and winners of a conflict and a war that voluntarily gave up political power.

00:15:15.000 The Founding Fathers could have created the Washingtonian, Franklin, Jeffersonian ruling class that would have ruled like kings over Virginia, the Northeast, and the Southeast.

00:15:26.000 They're the first winners of a war that won power and then gave it back and made themselves less powerful after the war.

00:15:34.000 Than they were before.

00:15:36.000 Think about that.

00:15:38.000 Could you imagine Napoleon, Alexander the Great, or Genghis Khan winning a huge military victory and then giving up that power afterwards?

00:15:47.000 Or Julius Caesar, any of these conquerors, these military leaders that we study, and there was one common denominator about Alexander the Great and Napoleon and Julius Caesar and Genghis Khan, the empires that they built that was around their savagery and their conquests fell because it was around them and it was around force.

00:16:07.000 So the founding fathers studied history.

00:16:09.000 They studied Socrates and Plato and Aristotle.

00:16:12.000 They studied their thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment.

00:16:14.000 They studied the Bible.

00:16:16.000 That's right.

00:16:17.000 The Bible had a huge impact on the American founding.

00:16:22.000 And they created a document, the Constitution, that was not an analysis of the times, but instead an analysis of human beings.

00:16:33.000 As much as we like to convince ourselves that people change over a period of time, we're exactly the same today as we were 5,000 years ago in Babylonia and in the Indus River Valley and all across the world.

00:16:48.000 Human beings are very predictable creatures and especially predictable when it comes to government.

00:16:54.000 When it comes to government, human beings do the same thing time and time again.

00:16:59.000 They start with saying good things.

00:17:02.000 They put someone that they trust into power, or that person forcibly puts themselves into power through conquest or war.

00:17:09.000 They do some good things for a short period of time, and then that power starts to corrupt them, and it corrupts them for a longer period of time.

00:17:15.000 And you might get lucky.

00:17:16.000 You might win the lottery and get a good king.

00:17:19.000 You might get a good king.

00:17:21.000 Good king, right?

00:17:23.000 That means he's not killing people.

00:17:24.000 That's the definition of a good king.

00:17:27.000 But then you know what the problem with a good king is?

00:17:30.000 Usually a good king has really, really bad kids.

00:17:34.000 And then you have a really big problem.

00:17:37.000 And there's no way to correct that.

00:17:39.000 And so the founders studied even the problems with just flat out democracy.

00:17:45.000 Big myth we are not a democracy in this country.

00:17:48.000 We're not a democracy.

00:17:51.000 We should never be a democracy.

00:17:53.000 We are a constitutional republic.

00:17:55.000 With a democratic means of putting individuals in positions of power.

00:18:00.000 What's the difference?

00:18:01.000 Well, a republic has certain truths, certain inalienable rights, if you will, that are enshrined in the foundational pillars of that country.

00:18:11.000 A democracy is if 51% of this room decides that no one needs to own guns, it becomes that way.

00:18:19.000 That's a democracy.

00:18:21.000 If 51% of this room says we need to get rid of free speech, a democracy, it becomes that way.

00:18:26.000 In a constitutional republic, 80% of this room could say, well, let's get rid of the Second Amendment, and we'll say, well, look, actually, it says very clearly in our republic that these rights are enshrined upon our founding.

00:18:39.000 A constitutional republic is the greatest preventative measure from tyranny.

00:18:46.000 So the founding fathers did not do what Plato tried to do.

00:18:50.000 Plato tried to create utopia, he tried to create perfection.

00:18:56.000 This is what the left is trying to sell everyone in this room today.

00:18:59.000 And I got a harsh piece of reality.

00:19:03.000 Life is suffering.

00:19:04.000 You're not going to be able to create utopia.

00:19:08.000 It's never going to happen.

00:19:10.000 But you can create better.

00:19:13.000 You can create not as bad as today.

00:19:15.000 Because why is this?

00:19:17.000 This is very, this is drawing straight from Hobbes.

00:19:21.000 We as human beings tend to put ourselves in positions and put in patterns of behavior where we act very selfishly.

00:19:31.000 Especially when it comes to government, so we need a government that is not perfect because that will never happen.

00:19:38.000 But one, as the founding fathers, that said, You see this system of government?

00:19:43.000 This will work.

00:19:45.000 It's not going to be perfect, but it will work.

00:19:48.000 Don't screw it up.

00:19:50.000 That's what the founding fathers gave us they never promised perfection, they never promised that you will be able to eradicate the ills of prejudice, the things that the left tries to say that they'll be able to get rid of.

00:20:05.000 We just need another $93 trillion for a Green New Deal, and that alone will be it.

00:20:10.000 How many more programs have they been trying to sell us for the last hundred years? 0.55

00:20:15.000 And by the way, the funny thing is, every one of these programs actually makes us less free, less competitive, and further away from our founding roots.

00:20:23.000 And yet, the promise that the left always tries to do is we're just one more government program away to perfection.

00:20:31.000 We're just one government program away to getting us in charge.

00:20:35.000 And what makes us as conservatives or libertarians or free thinkers so different than the left is we admit at the beginning we will never achieve perfection.

00:20:44.000 It's just not going to happen because human beings are going to act selfishly.

00:20:48.000 People are going to commit crimes.

00:20:50.000 You will have corrupt politicians.

00:20:52.000 But do you know what the founding fathers realized?

00:20:55.000 All right, you will have corrupt politicians.

00:20:57.000 You can get rid of congresspeople through a vote by other members of Congress. 0.95

00:21:00.000 You are going to have corrupt members of the courts.

00:21:03.000 You can impeach a Supreme Court justice.

00:21:05.000 You will have presidents that should be impeached.

00:21:08.000 This president is not one of those presidents that should be impeached, by the way.

00:21:15.000 And here's the method that other parts of government Can check itself because the government is nothing more than an expression of the citizens.

00:21:24.000 And here's the other important thing to remember about the Constitution that the states created the federal government, the federal government did not create the states.

00:21:32.000 That we were a collection of states that came together in a federalized system.

00:21:38.000 And because of that, we should have what's called these laboratories of democracy.

00:21:42.000 I love the fact that Florida is able to experiment with charter schools and no income tax.

00:21:49.000 Unlike California, which is bankrupt and broken and busting at the seams.

00:21:56.000 And you can see the differences between Florida, a state that is creating jobs, balancing budgets, expanding opportunity for minority kids, and California, which has an increasing homeless population like you wouldn't believe, that has more wealth inequality than any other state, that has businesses leaving it daily, that loses people with wealth that And there's this attack on wealth all the time in our culture and our society.

00:22:23.000 You cannot get rich in this society without making other people rich along the way.

00:22:28.000 Just because someone got rich does not mean somebody else got poor.

00:22:31.000 Got poor.

00:22:34.000 Getting wealthy in a free market system means you had to create wealth for other people along the way.

00:22:39.000 So, what the United States Constitution did and what it has done has allowed this prosperity to exist.

00:22:46.000 If you look at the differences between the French founding, which is rooted in Rousseau, which believes not in the individual, See, that's what's so important is that we as Americans and we as believers in the U.S. Constitution recognize the sovereignty of the individual.

00:23:00.000 You have a right to free speech.

00:23:02.000 You have a right to own a firearm.

00:23:04.000 You have a right to privacy.

00:23:05.000 I'm not going to tell you how to live your life. 0.82

00:23:08.000 The French founding is completely different.

00:23:11.000 It's we're a collective body.

00:23:14.000 That the individual comes second or third or even further down there.

00:23:18.000 That there is a social contract that we all exist to, and it's the government that really is the one that is going to be the most important thing in our life.

00:23:26.000 Now, what's the byproduct of that?

00:23:28.000 Well, you've seen France not be as successful as America over the last hundred years. 0.99

00:23:33.000 I think that's a pretty fair thing to say.

00:23:35.000 And I love some parts of France.

00:23:38.000 I'm not trying to be like, it's not like an anti French speech, don't get me wrong.

00:23:41.000 But it's unmistakable that whether it be the entrepreneurs, the companies, the benevolency, the charity, the Ford thinkers, the authors, the writers, the cultural influence, which founding was better for human flourishing?

00:23:57.000 Which founding was better for the individual to attain their dreams?

00:24:01.000 One that dives in mediocrity, like the French, where they basically take the entire month of August off? 0.68

00:24:07.000 Where every time anything goes wrong, they go in the streets and protest it because things cost a little bit more because they want to blame other people.

00:24:15.000 And instead in America, we're like, well, just work harder, like get another job.

00:24:19.000 That's an American value. 0.90

00:24:21.000 And the French value is to get in the streets and blame somebody else for it. 0.97

00:24:28.000 I want to talk to you about an issue so many Americans face, and that's health insurance.

00:24:33.000 There's an organization I really, really appreciate called Christian Healthcare Ministries.

00:24:39.000 CHM is a faith based alternative to health insurance.

00:24:43.000 And this is real stuff, folks.

00:24:44.000 Like, you got to listen in.

00:24:46.000 With CHM, you're not paying into a company's profit margin.

00:24:49.000 You're investing in a community with less overhead than the competition.

00:24:53.000 You get reliable support through the giving and prayer of fellow members.

00:24:58.000 Members contribute every month to help pay for each other's medical bills, allowing believers to afford the care they need.

00:25:04.000 Because they're not insurance, you get access to your preferred doctor or hospital without network restrictions.

00:25:09.000 You heard that right.

00:25:11.000 If you want to see massive savings in your healthcare budget, CHM has four low cost programs for every stage of life, starting at just $115 a month.

00:25:20.000 Plus, you can enroll or switch your program at any time. 0.94

00:25:24.000 See why so many believers are taking a leap of faith?

00:25:27.000 Start today by visiting chministries.orgslash Charlie and use promo code Charlie for a 50% credit towards your first month.

00:25:35.000 That's chministries.orgslash Charlie and use promo code Charlie.

00:25:43.000 The third thing we believe at Turning Point USA is that we believe that free enterprise capitalism is the most moral, proven, and effective economic system ever discovered.

00:25:56.000 Free enterprise, let's talk about what free enterprise isn't first, because I'm sure all of you on campus here have to deal with the misrepresentations around capitalism and free enterprise.

00:26:07.000 Let me tell you what free enterprise isn't it's not cronyism.

00:26:12.000 It's not being able to buy special access in DC.

00:26:15.000 It's not being able to have the correct lobbyists to get government contracts.

00:26:19.000 It's not having well positioned offices on K Street.

00:26:23.000 It's not having the right politicians on speed dial so that you can get your company treated correctly.

00:26:27.000 That is cronyism.

00:26:29.000 And as we like to say, and it's a saying from again Dennis Prager, the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.

00:26:35.000 And as free enterprise capitalism, let me tell you what it is now it's the ability for every individual, right?

00:26:42.000 We come from that idea of the individual.

00:26:44.000 To be able to buy what they want to buy, sell what they want to sell, keep what they earn, trade as they wish as long as it doesn't harm somebody else.

00:26:53.000 That's free enterprise capitalism.

00:26:55.000 And what's the byproduct of that?

00:26:57.000 Well, over time, three big things happen in free enterprise capitalism prices go down, the quality of goods go up, and more people get access to those goods.

00:27:08.000 What used to be considered luxury items in Western society, every single person has right now in this room.

00:27:15.000 In the 1980s, it was a luxury good to have a cellular phone.

00:27:19.000 It was a luxury good that most of it was this big, and some of them were only in cars.

00:27:25.000 And now every person in this room has a supercomputer.

00:27:29.000 I'm guessing most of them are Apple, and that has a supercomputer that the prices have been going down over time, the quality has gone up.

00:27:38.000 When I was in high school, any high schoolers out there, we love our high schoolers.

00:27:41.000 Thank you for being here.

00:27:42.000 Love our high schoolers.

00:27:43.000 When I was in high school, the iPhone was just getting released.

00:27:47.000 We had those old things called iTouches.

00:27:50.000 Anyone remember iTouch?

00:27:53.000 Do you remember the iPods where you used to have to go like this and you have to put.

00:27:57.000 The high schoolers right now are saying, what on earth are you talking about?

00:28:00.000 When you used to have to rotate your finger.

00:28:03.000 To be able to get to the next, but I was really good at that, by the way.

00:28:06.000 It was really good.

00:28:08.000 Back and forth.

00:28:09.000 There were no apps, there was no color.

00:28:13.000 It was nothing more than an iPod.

00:28:16.000 That's right, an iPod where you had a lit up screen.

00:28:21.000 This was 10 years ago.

00:28:24.000 And we laugh at it as if this was the Mesozoic era.

00:28:28.000 Only in a free market system with a keyword, competition, competing for all of your attention.

00:28:35.000 Competing for all of your money, competing for your time and your appreciation.

00:28:41.000 Could you have something that you're able to film this speech, that you're able to take pictures, that you're able to communicate with someone halfway around the world?

00:28:48.000 This is only possible in a free market system.

00:28:52.000 And we could prove it because, in countries such as, let's just use Venezuela, that embraces socialism and not so good ideas, the biggest concern for most people in this room, I'm sure, at times, Is my phone running out of battery, or my Uber is late, or, and I'm half kidding, of course, but I'm sure these are things that stress everyone out.

00:29:19.000 In Venezuela, they're worrying where am I going to get my next singular meal for the week?

00:29:25.000 Where am I going to get one shower for the month?

00:29:29.000 Where am I going to be able to have a place to sleep for just this one day, and then I'll worry about tomorrow?

00:29:38.000 And Venezuela, which is such an important example, Has the most oil and natural gas reserves of any country in the entire world.

00:29:48.000 More than Russia, more than even the United States, more than Saudi Arabia, more than Iran.

00:29:53.000 And only socialism could screw that up.

00:29:56.000 And they did something very important in the early 2000s.

00:30:00.000 They nationalized their oil assets.

00:30:02.000 The government took over all the oil and natural gas.

00:30:06.000 So when the government takes something over, there's no price system.

00:30:09.000 This is the argument for private property.

00:30:12.000 When there's no price system, things get really inefficient.

00:30:15.000 Cronyism takes over.

00:30:16.000 You think cronyism is bad now?

00:30:18.000 Just wait till government owns everything. 0.61

00:30:21.000 It would be like the TSA running our oil and gas industry.

00:30:26.000 Okay?

00:30:28.000 If you want to just make somebody a conservative, bring them to Atlanta's airport at 5 a.m. and say, You don't have TSA pre, you don't have clear, and you got to get to your plane in 45 minutes.

00:30:43.000 Go.

00:30:45.000 And at the end of that, say, Are you still going to be voting for Democrats after this?

00:30:48.000 Because there's no way.

00:30:50.000 That you could appreciate the government.

00:30:55.000 And I don't mean to mischaracterize TSA workers, but I think we would all agree that there is a lack of spirit, a lack of accountability, and a lack of energy amongst TSA workers versus the people that work at Chick fil A. Right?

00:31:13.000 And what's the difference?

00:31:14.000 Is that the people that work at Chick fil A are instilled with values, it's private enterprise.

00:31:21.000 They have to turn a profit.

00:31:23.000 And if you don't do your job at Chick fil A, you're not going to have that job anymore.

00:31:27.000 At TSA, if you don't do your job, you get promoted.

00:31:32.000 That's government versus free enterprise.

00:31:35.000 And we see that kind of tension time and time again.

00:31:38.000 And so we at Turning Point USA believe in these three big things.

00:31:41.000 And that's it.

00:31:42.000 Now, I have personal opinions about all sorts of different stuff, and you guys can ask me about those things.

00:31:46.000 And we always want our speakers to talk about any issue they want to talk about, whether it be abortion and guns, and you guys have heard from all of that.

00:31:52.000 But as an organization, these are the three things that we believe.

00:31:55.000 We don't consider these to be political at all.

00:31:58.000 These are not things that should be Republican or Democrat or even conservative or liberal.

00:32:02.000 These should be inherently agreed upon things as a country that we all accept.

00:32:11.000 And so I will juxtapose the American Trinity with the leftist Trinity, and then I would love to open it up for questions because I want you all to understand what we're up against.

00:32:20.000 And I think a lot of you do understand because you're on college campuses today.

00:32:24.000 We at Turning Point USA believe whatever happens on college campuses.

00:32:28.000 Will soon happen in the halls of Congress and will soon happen in corporate boardrooms.

00:32:32.000 College campuses are the canary in the cold mine.

00:32:35.000 They're the leading indicator.

00:32:36.000 They are the cultural war of things to come.

00:32:40.000 Alexandria Ocasio Cortez did not come out of nowhere. 0.97

00:32:47.000 She was created in the university system. 0.91

00:32:50.000 She is a prototype of the professors.

00:32:53.000 Does anyone know someone like AOC who's constantly wrong but never in doubt?

00:32:57.000 Anyone know her?

00:33:00.000 You see a lot like her, and I'm not trying to attack her personally.

00:33:02.000 I'm not.

00:33:04.000 I am going to critique her ideas, and I am going to put some criticism towards how committed she is to believing she's correct and everyone before her was wrong.

00:33:15.000 It's a really dangerous thing to believe that everyone before me was incorrect.

00:33:18.000 What is the word that comes to mind?

00:33:20.000 And boy, that takes a lot of hubris and pride to think that everyone before you was incorrect and you and you alone are now the standard bearer of what is righteous and true.

00:33:28.000 That takes a lot of hubris and a lot of pride, doesn't it?

00:33:31.000 So, what is the leftist trinity?

00:33:33.000 Let's go through the American trinity again, as Dennis Prager talks about it.

00:33:37.000 E pluribus unum, which means out of many one, that there's more that unites us than divides us.

00:33:41.000 Second, liberty, that you can do what you want to do as you see fit, as long as it doesn't harm somebody else.

00:33:46.000 But you have to do what?

00:33:48.000 Take responsibility for your actions, a belief in the individual.

00:33:51.000 The third thing, in God we trust, that our rights come from God, not from government.

00:33:56.000 That is the American trinity.

00:33:59.000 Now, what is the leftist trinity?

00:34:03.000 Not e pluribus unum, definitely not.

00:34:06.000 It would be divide and conquer.

00:34:09.000 Men versus women, rich versus poor, police versus citizens.

00:34:16.000 They want to pit people against each other at all times.

00:34:19.000 It's not about unity, it's about bosses versus employees.

00:34:25.000 It's not about finding common ground or compromise or having differences but still understanding those differences.

00:34:31.000 Instead, it's what they did in the Kavanaugh hearing.

00:34:35.000 Interruption, chaos, demagoguery, misrepresentation, character assassination.

00:34:42.000 That is what they want.

00:34:44.000 What happens when you're able to divide?

00:34:46.000 The second part, you're able to conquer.

00:34:48.000 When you keep an entire portion of the American population in permanent fear, when you keep an entire portion of the American population that begins to hate the other part of the American population, they call us deplorables.

00:35:00.000 They call us irredeemables.

00:35:02.000 They call us clinging to our God, guns, and religion.

00:35:05.000 They call us slow petted.

00:35:07.000 They call us the smelly Walmart people.

00:35:09.000 They call us flyover country.

00:35:11.000 They have contempt for us, but they don't know us.

00:35:15.000 They don't.

00:35:17.000 And because as soon as they're forced to talk to us, as soon as they're forced to have a conversation with us, as soon as they realize that we care about this country, then all of a sudden they might hate us less.

00:35:31.000 But the hate is what drives them.

00:35:34.000 And they need that to be able to divide and conquer and attain power.

00:35:37.000 Because within chaos, it makes it really easy to get power.

00:35:40.000 The second part of the American Trinity we talk about is liberty.

00:35:42.000 It's definitely not liberty for the left, it's control.

00:35:46.000 How can we control people?

00:35:49.000 We don't want, for example, they don't want black students to be able to go to better schools.

00:35:54.000 They want to control them in failing public schools. 0.88

00:35:58.000 They don't want to be able to have women have firearms to defend themselves against predators. 0.74

00:36:05.000 Instead, they want to have young women living in a place of fear so that they can control them.

00:36:11.000 They don't want to actually have economic opportunity for disenfranchised communities all across the Midwest. 1.00

00:36:16.000 Instead, they'd rather give them a bunch of government stuff so they can what? 0.54

00:36:20.000 Control them.

00:36:21.000 That is a huge pillar of the American left.

00:36:24.000 And the final thing in God we trust?

00:36:27.000 No, no, no, the left does not believe in that.

00:36:29.000 It's in government we trust.

00:36:31.000 That's what the left believes.

00:36:33.000 At every turn, at every issue, it's not what the individual can do, it's not what people can do, instead, it's what government can do.

00:36:41.000 And I fear for a country where we, as a people, will not look inwardly to fix problems, but instead say, oh, the government will fix it for us, or the government will do it better than we can.

00:36:52.000 And that has never, ever been the case.

00:36:55.000 Instead, it's free people looking out for their fellow citizens, making good choices around a core common values that has always proven to create the greatest country ever to exist.

00:37:06.000 Here's what your financial advisor won't tell you.

00:37:09.000 By the time the news tells you to buy gold, it's too late.

00:37:13.000 You're waiting.

00:37:13.000 I get it.

00:37:14.000 Everybody's waiting, waiting to see if the ceasefire holds, waiting to see if the Strait of Hormuz reopens, waiting to see what happens next.

00:37:22.000 But gold isn't waiting for you.

00:37:24.000 It moves on fear, on instability, on the unknown, and it moves faster than you can react.

00:37:29.000 While you're waiting for certainty, the rest of the world is planning for what comes next.

00:37:33.000 You can wait or you can get prepared.

00:37:35.000 You can't do both.

00:37:36.000 Remember, the best time to put on a seatbelt is before the accident, not after.

00:37:41.000 If you're ready to act, reach out to my friends at Noble Gold Investments.

00:37:45.000 They help Americans protect their savings with precious, physical gold and silver shipped to your door or held in a tax advantage IRA.

00:37:53.000 No taxes, no penalties to roll over a 401k or existing IRA.

00:37:57.000 Give them a call at 877 646 5347.

00:38:02.000 That's eight seven six four six five three four seven, or visit noble gold investments.com slash Kirk.

00:38:10.000 That's noble gold investments.com slash Kirk for your free investor kit.

00:38:15.000 Five minutes today could protect decades of savings.

00:38:18.000 Noble gold investments.com slash Kirk.

00:38:24.000 And so, with that, I'd love to open up for some questions until they yank me off stage.

00:38:28.000 So Hey Charlie.

00:38:34.000 Hello.

00:38:34.000 So, what would your response be to someone who says or asks why you hate socialism if we have socialist programs within our country right now and we're a mixed economy?

00:38:44.000 Great.

00:38:45.000 I get this question all the time.

00:38:46.000 So, people say, oh Charlie, you know, you say you hate socialism, but what about the roads and what about the bridges and what about Medicare and what about Social Security and all these things?

00:38:57.000 So, let's break this down.

00:38:58.000 Who here has heard this argument before?

00:38:59.000 Has anyone heard this argument before?

00:39:00.000 Good.

00:39:01.000 Good.

00:39:02.000 So, let's define what socialism first and foremost is.

00:39:05.000 Socialism, and they can't escape this, and Bernie Sanders believes this.

00:39:09.000 Socialism is the constant march towards the eradication of private property and government control of production.

00:39:17.000 Okay?

00:39:17.000 It's that constant march towards that.

00:39:20.000 Now, we as conservatives and we as libertarians are freedom thinkers and freedom lovers.

00:39:25.000 We are not anarchists.

00:39:26.000 We do believe that there are some things that government should do police, fire, roads, bridges.

00:39:32.000 But we also recognize the best way to do that is what?

00:39:36.000 Local.

00:39:37.000 Local police.

00:39:38.000 We don't want to federalize our police force, right?

00:39:41.000 Local firefighters, where you have a local fire station, local schools, right?

00:39:46.000 We don't want Common Core. 0.98

00:39:47.000 We want localized control of education.

00:39:51.000 And with that, you're able to have accountability towards where that money is actually going.

00:39:58.000 And you're able to see what you're paying into.

00:40:00.000 Now, if you have a problem with that, then you can go to your school board meeting.

00:40:04.000 You can go to your local city council and say, I don't like the fact that it's taken three years to reconstruct this road.

00:40:10.000 This is not right.

00:40:11.000 And they're going to feel your pressure because then they're going to have to see you at football games.

00:40:14.000 And they're gonna have to see you at the grocery store, and they're gonna have to see you everywhere they go in the community.

00:40:18.000 You know what's the problem with DC?

00:40:20.000 There's no accountability.

00:40:22.000 In order to go see your elected officials, you gotta get in the plane, go to DC, and maybe they'll take a meeting with you.

00:40:27.000 Maybe.

00:40:28.000 And that's the beauty of localized control.

00:40:30.000 Bernie Sanders, for example, one of the big things that Bernie Sanders' pillar, just so you understand, is this thing, Medicare for All, which is the complete nationalization and government takeover of one sixth of the American economy, the healthcare industry.

00:40:44.000 One sixth.

00:40:46.000 That's the eradication of private property.

00:40:48.000 That's telling private doctors they can't practice anymore.

00:40:51.000 That's telling private chiropractic clinics.

00:40:54.000 I'm sure some of you go to chiropractors.

00:40:55.000 Chiropractors have been really great to me in some ways.

00:40:58.000 You can't do this anymore.

00:40:59.000 It has to all be run through government.

00:41:01.000 So it's the constant march towards the eradication of private property.

00:41:04.000 The final thing I'll say is this they use Social Security and Medicare all the time to say these are socialist programs.

00:41:10.000 Let me tell you why that's wrong, and then I'll give you a piece of kind of a little piece to think about in response to that.

00:41:16.000 Number one, people pay directly into Social Security.

00:41:19.000 As a proportion of the wages that they earn.

00:41:23.000 So they have a job throughout their life, and all of you see that in your paycheck right now actually think young people should be able to opt out of the Social Security tax, which would be a 7% raise for everybody.

00:41:35.000 They shouldn't forcibly take our 7% of our earnings every single paycheck, but you pay into it, and you're able to see hopefully that money actually doesn't go to a trust fund.

00:41:45.000 That's the other part of it.

00:41:46.000 And so here's the other criticism towards it.

00:41:49.000 If their idea of optimal socialism is really Social Security, which Has not been in a trust fund and is going to be bankrupt in five years and is going to run a deficit.

00:41:59.000 If their optimal view of socialism is Medicare, where we have over $50 billion of documented waste every single year, that's their idea of optimal socialism.

00:42:09.000 I actually am not crazy about that.

00:42:12.000 And there's a lot of ways where it could be those benefits that people pay into could be a lot better.

00:42:16.000 And I'll say for us young people, we should not be forced to pay 7% of our wages every year annualized.

00:42:25.000 For the rest of our life, to something that we might see.

00:42:29.000 How many of you are so sick and tired of getting your paycheck and it's way less than you think?

00:42:35.000 The government is stealing your earnings, every single paycheck, for a promise that they're not going to fulfill.

00:42:41.000 And they say they will and they're not.

00:42:44.000 This would be the biggest tax cut for students and young people and middle class workers the country has ever seen.

00:42:51.000 But instead, corrupt politicians want to keep a bloated federal government going and they're taking the earnings of every single person in this room.

00:42:58.000 So, thank you for this question. 0.73

00:43:00.000 One or two more?

00:43:01.000 Okay, one more.

00:43:02.000 Last one.

00:43:03.000 Hi, Charlie.

00:43:04.000 My name is Lauren.

00:43:04.000 I'm from Las Vegas.

00:43:05.000 I'm a big fan.

00:43:07.000 I went to school in San Francisco and I was liberal my entire life, and now in the last year I've become kind of conservative.

00:43:13.000 Give it up.

00:43:16.000 A conversion story.

00:43:17.000 Thanks to you as well.

00:43:18.000 Thank you.

00:43:19.000 But I feel like, you know, when I was a liberal, I looked at people on the right like the bad guys, like they were evil.

00:43:26.000 And now as a conservative, I look at people like we're always talking about the left and like those people and the leftists and liberals.

00:43:32.000 And it just feels so divisive.

00:43:34.000 And I'm wondering is there a more productive way to.

00:43:38.000 Have a conversation?

00:43:39.000 Is there a way to humanize people?

00:43:41.000 Is there a way to look at people as Americans instead of looking at it like the left and the right and always like demonizing people?

00:43:47.000 Yeah, great, great point.

00:43:48.000 Thank you.

00:43:49.000 And so, and welcome to the conservative side, by the way.

00:43:52.000 Thank you.

00:43:55.000 And so, one of the great things I get to do every single year is go actually to college campuses and speak.

00:44:02.000 I see our NYU chapter leader, Asha, right here.

00:44:05.000 Who else had a campus clash on your campus?

00:44:07.000 Raise your hand.

00:44:08.000 That's awesome.

00:44:09.000 And Asha will tell you, she'll tell you.

00:44:13.000 What do we always do when we ask for questions?

00:44:17.000 We ask for the disagreements to go to the front of the line, right?

00:44:20.000 In fact, we demand it, right?

00:44:22.000 We like extract the disagreement.

00:44:25.000 And I think, and I'm not, and you guys can make your own assumption looking at the videos, we always treat everybody with respect and we listen to what they have to say.

00:44:34.000 In fact, we want it to be a forum of discussion and debate and dialogue and that collision of ideas.

00:44:41.000 And I totally agree because I think there's too much division and divisiveness.

00:44:44.000 Then we do the same thing at the end of every one of these events.

00:44:47.000 Is that I'll ask the audience, I'll say, how many of you have gone to see some liberal speak on campus at some point in your college career?

00:44:56.000 Many hands will go up.

00:44:57.000 Say, did any of them ever demand that conservatives go to the front of the line and ask questions?

00:45:03.000 Say, no.

00:45:04.000 And so we have a responsibility as free speech advocates to be the ambassadors of decency and respect.

00:45:12.000 We do.

00:45:14.000 To hear what other people have to say and to find common ground.

00:45:18.000 Now, some of you have seen my videos when people really start to go up and irritate and they just poke.

00:45:23.000 Well, then they're going to get the cross examination that I'm happy to deliver with facts and a deliberate approach.

00:45:32.000 And so, but first, I just want to say that's an amazing testimony because we are seeing thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people stop being liberals, leave the left, and come to a different side.

00:45:45.000 I think it's truly amazing.

00:45:46.000 So, thank you for that.

00:45:47.000 And so, in closing, let me just say this before we introduce our amazing next.

00:45:52.000 Speaker who's totally terrific.

00:45:54.000 If you're kind of on the fence and this is your first Turning Point USA event, you now get the three big things that we believe and you understand why we fight and why we're doing what we're doing.

00:46:05.000 We want to get a chapter started on your school if you're on the fence.

00:46:08.000 Raise your hand if you're starting in the process or run a Turning Point USA chapter.

00:46:11.000 Raise your hand.

00:46:12.000 It's amazing.

00:46:13.000 Look at that.

00:46:13.000 Look how cool that is.

00:46:15.000 Go find these individuals.

00:46:17.000 Talk to them.

00:46:17.000 We have our field staff all here.

00:46:19.000 We want to grow our influence on campus dramatically throughout, especially the next year and a half.

00:46:25.000 It's so, so critical.

00:46:27.000 And so, get engaged, get involved in that.

00:46:30.000 And then, I have one personal, shameless plug that I'm asking of everyone in this room.

00:46:34.000 Thank you.

00:46:35.000 If you guys could please subscribe and give five stars to the Charlie Kirk Show on Apple Podcasts, that would be amazing.

00:46:41.000 So, and in closing, guys, young ladies, you have such an amazing opportunity in front of you, and it's such a great honor to be able to host this kind of venue for all of you.

00:46:50.000 And we at Turning Point USA have your back through everything.

00:46:53.000 So, if you encounter campus bias, a professor that says something they shouldn't, Or anything.

00:46:59.000 We're here as an ally and as a support arm all along the way.

00:47:03.000 And that's why our staff exists and why we do what we do.

00:47:09.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - May 31, 2026

From the Archive: What Set Our Founders Apart: Charlie at 2019 YWLS

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