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00:01:17.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:02:17.000So I remember I saw that you were a speak at an event in Des Moines.
00:02:21.000Now you actually had this idea that we're going to talk about today, the Run Gen Z.
00:02:25.000And I had this idea pop up in my head of we need to start this coalition of young conservatives mentoring the next generation of young conservatives.
00:02:34.000And so I saw that you're going to be at this event in Des Moines, knew the people throwing it.
00:02:38.000And so, you know, asked if I could come.
00:02:40.000And, you know, they let me come and they introduced me to you.
00:02:42.000And, you know, automatically we started clicking.
00:02:44.000And, you know, you're like, here's my number.
00:02:46.000I want you to come to SAS and speak at my conference or whatever else.
00:02:49.000So yeah, it was about a year and a half ago that we met each other and I came to SAS 2019 and spoke and was there again in 2020 and had a breakout session and spoke.
00:02:57.000So you got elected at 21 state rep. Yeah.
00:03:00.000How many state reps are there in Iowa?
00:03:32.000We watched Fox News, you know, things of that nature, but they'd never had given to a political candidate.
00:03:37.000They'd never been involved in the county party.
00:03:40.000My parents are small business people, right?
00:03:41.000My dad started a small business when I was, you know, five years old, started a manufacturing plant, you know, with nothing.
00:03:48.000And I'd seen him struggle, but, you know, ultimately achieved the American dream.
00:03:52.000And so, you know, that had always been the drive behind my aspirations in politics and, you know, wanting to be in there to make a change because I seen how the government could both help and hurt small business owners like my dad, right?
00:04:10.000And so, you know, the more successful he would get, they'd take more money away.
00:04:15.000And, you know, a personal thing to me is, you know, my folks have a 501c3 where we do missions all over the world.
00:04:22.000So they actually give 50% of their profits to their charity where, you know, we give, you know, help people all over the world with healthcare and education and all kinds of different stuff.
00:04:33.000And I saw how my parents could do more with their money than the government could, right?
00:04:38.000And so that started getting me intrigued in school and American history and government and whatever else.
00:04:44.000And so when I was 17, I was a senior in high school.
00:04:47.000I went up to the Capitol to be a page in the Iowa House.
00:04:50.000And so for those of you that don't know what the PAGE program is, it's like an internship for high school seniors.
00:07:14.000She just relied on her name ID and the signs they had up or whatever else.
00:07:18.000But what I did is I went straight to the voters and made the case why there needs to be new blood in the government in politics today, because as we've seen, the generation before us and the generations before us have put us in this mess.
00:07:31.000And so we need young people, particularly young conservatives, to be able to push forward and be the new voice for our country.
00:07:50.000So, you know, like I talked about, you know, about a year and a half ago, when I met you, I had started having this vision of, you know, we need more young conservatives in politics, right?
00:08:00.000We need more young conservatives getting elected, not only to the state legislators, but also to the municipal elected officials too, city councils, county commissioners, school boards, right?
00:08:11.000Because we've seen how important those municipal offices play now since the pandemic hit, right?
00:08:19.000I mean, school boards, city councils, mayors, they have so much control of our lives, and it's completely crazy.
00:08:26.000And so there's a lot of times, though, there's a rift where there's not a lot of conservatives that run for those offices, right?
00:08:34.000You know, a lot of people, you know, they're just doing other things.
00:08:36.000They don't think about why we need young, strong conservatives to be running for those offices.
00:08:41.000So what I created was Run Gen Z and stands for Run Generation Z.
00:08:46.000And the purpose of it is to get more young conservatives elected to office.
00:08:50.000But what we do at Run Generation Z is we train you, give you a mentor that's already an elected official, that's a young person, and we help you be successful, right?
00:09:00.000You know, when I was starting out, when our other, one of my other co-founders that are all conservatives under 25, elected to the state legislators, when we were starting out, we didn't have that moral support around us of young conservatives that are already elected to office.
00:09:22.000And so that's what we're doing is we're empowering, encouraging other young conservatives with our stories to say, hey, if we can do it, you can do it.
00:09:29.000And that's exactly what we did at SAS here a couple of weeks ago, right?
00:09:32.000So we went to SAS and it was our first conference that we went to.
00:09:37.000We had a booth there and we had almost 200, 200 young conservatives at SAS sign up and say, I want to run for office now because you guys did it.
00:09:44.000And we just stood by that booth and we just talked to every kid that came to us.
00:09:49.000We just said, you know, you need to be thinking about doing something, right?
00:09:54.000Like writing Facebook posts and ranting on Twitter doesn't help.
00:09:58.000I mean, like, sometimes it does, but it doesn't do anything compared to if you're actually running for office, instilling those conservative policies and your state legislators on your city councils.
00:10:08.000And so we at Turning Point Action are being supportive of what you guys are doing.
00:10:11.000We love it and we want to help support you.
00:10:36.000So what is your message to the people that are apathetic, cynical, pessimistic?
00:10:41.000My message to everyone listening right now is that we have a group of young patriots right now in this country that are ready to run for office.
00:10:50.000And that might be you right now listening.
00:10:52.000And we want you to check out what we're doing.
00:10:53.000We want you to go online to our website, rungenz.com, visit our Facebook.
00:11:31.000It's we want young conservatives to be running for office.
00:11:34.000And so, you know, every single person listening to this podcast, you can do it.
00:11:38.000That's my message is you can do it too.
00:11:41.000And so, you know, we just were not trained to think that way, but that's what we're trying to do at Run Gen Z is to let you guys know that, you know, if you are passionate about this country, you're passionate about what's going on right now, there is hope, and that's what we're here for.
00:12:38.000Two Republican senators, and Trump has won both in 16 and 20.
00:12:42.000A lot of it's because of grassroots patriots like you that rose up, started to knock on doors, make phone calls, tell the story of Iowa, which, by the way, no allegations of voter fraud.
00:12:51.000Pretty secure elections, I have to say, right?
00:12:53.000And no one really ever got into any of the funny business of Iowa, if I'm not mistaken, where there's other states that are just a catastrophe, right?
00:13:00.000Walk us through how Iowa has become this deep red state.
00:13:03.000And I think it's because of people like you that have just risen up and take, like, I'm going to change this state or at least change my neighborhood.
00:15:27.000So, I mean, the thing is, is that they don't learn from their mistakes.
00:15:30.000I mean, these people in Iowa, they want to hear about, you know, how we're going to help their family, how they're going to be able to pay their mortgage and their car payment and send their kids to college.
00:15:39.000They don't want to hear about, you know, these, these fringe ideas that the Democrats have been displaying.
00:15:45.000And so, you know, it works on the East and West Coast, right?
00:15:48.000And in these other places that, you know, they've been campaigning, but it doesn't work in the Midwest.
00:15:52.000And that's what they're starting to find out.
00:16:47.000And so we need to make sure that our generation is the generation of patriots that rises up and makes sure that we preserve what we have here and preserve the American dream.
00:16:56.000So talk about it, Run Gen Z. You have other young legislatures too you found.
00:17:38.000I said, hey, I have this vision of us founding this organization of being mentors for the next generation of conservatives that want to run for office.
00:19:31.000Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
00:19:33.000You want to get involved with Turning Point USA, where we play offense with a sense of urgency to win America's culture war, go to tpusa.com, tpusa.com.
00:19:40.000Email us your questions, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:19:43.000And if you want to support us, go to charliekirk.com/slash support.
00:19:47.000Thanks so much for listening, everybody.