00:00:41.000His 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.
00:00:50.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:02:32.000We're seeing Western civilization basically be stolen from us by some really, really bad people.
00:02:40.000But you're going to be able to say for the rest of your life that you took your college and high school years and you decided to stand for truth to save the greatest nation ever to exist in the history of the world.
00:02:54.000And not only that, you give millions of people hope.
00:03:02.000Being part of Turning Point USA, we are the largest organization in the country of its kind.
00:03:08.000Whether it be on social media, on campus, what we're doing with TPUSA Faith, you are all on the front lines and making a huge difference of that.
00:03:16.000And we have now over 270,000 people that donate to Turning Point USA that help make this possible, that you guys get to stay in hotels, that you guys get to travel here, that you guys get to have meals.
00:03:39.000It's because they know that the great hope to defeat these godless Marxists is joyful, strong conservatives on high school and college campuses pushing back against this Marxist garbage.
00:06:16.000And before I go any further, I refuse to take credit for it.
00:06:21.000You are blessed to have the best staff in the conservative movement that work their tail off to make what you do possible.
00:06:30.000From the events team, from your regional managers, to your directors, to the people that show up on campus that are relentlessly nagging you.
00:06:56.000Turning point has already played a massive role over the last decade, is now being this unexpected force that's bigger than all of us to defend the values of Western society and civilization.
00:07:08.000And we don't know how this story is going to end.
00:07:52.000And you're like, okay, hopefully you don't engage in that.
00:07:56.000But you're doing something here at the Turning Point USA Chapter Leadership Summit that is good for your soul.
00:08:06.000It's good for who you're going to be 20 or 30 years from now.
00:08:11.000And never before has it been as important as it is to then send all of you back to your high school and college campuses to say that's a bad idea.
00:09:08.000Even if the bad guys win, we're young and we're going to have to live in this country and we're going to build something beautiful.
00:09:14.000Whether it's now or in five years or 10 years or 20 years or in 30 years, I have no idea.
00:09:19.000I don't know what this country is going to look like in 10 years.
00:09:22.000I hope we can turn some things around.
00:09:23.000Some ways it looks like the country is just like so far apart and people don't want to work anymore and all this.
00:09:29.000But then I say, wait a second, there's a lot of goodness happening in the country.
00:09:33.000We have 600 people under the age of 22 that are super activists that are deciding you are all voluntarily doing something where you're saying, I want my life to be harder.
00:09:45.000It would be easier, any one of you, if you were here and, you know, instead of turning point USA, it was like transing the country USA.
00:10:17.000You would be on the front page of Suffolk.
00:10:19.000If you transitioned to a woman right now and wore a dress, you'd be on the front page of the Suffolk University website or whatever godless school you guys go to.
00:10:29.000But you're saying, no, I think that's bad because I know what's right and I know what's good.
00:10:37.000And so when you say, I want to start a turning point chapter leader, all of a sudden, I'm sure, raise your hands.
00:10:41.000If you've been graded differently called names, smear, slandered, lost friends, every single hand goes up.
00:12:34.000I think that if you lie little, you lie big, and you should never lie under any circumstances whatsoever when it comes to things that matter.
00:12:59.000The rest of your life, though, you'll be looking around the shoulder.
00:13:01.000I hope they don't find out that I like Trump.
00:13:03.000I hope they don't find out that I'm a conservative.
00:13:05.000I hope they don't find out I'm a Christian.
00:13:07.000The earlier you proclaim to the world what you believe in, you won't have to worry about them coming after you.
00:13:18.000But you say, well, my parents, this, make your own decisions, guys.
00:13:23.000I'm not telling you what to do, but I will tell you this.
00:13:26.000If you think that you're just going to kind of slow walk, no one's going to detect me, and I'm going to go become a partner at this law firm, and I'm going to go to Yale law and all this, fine.
00:13:37.000If you can live that double life, but that's exhausting.
00:13:40.000Why don't you use that energy to go fight these commies instead of having to like dodge their tyranny?
00:13:47.000Reject the terms on face value and be who you are and what you believe.
00:13:54.000So, and when I talk to our donors and I talk to the people that support us, they say, Charlie, what gives you hope?
00:14:03.000And some of these people are afraid to voice their opinions to their neighbors or to their friends.
00:14:09.000Gives me hope when thousands and hundreds of thousands of young people, the students of Turning Point USA, say, I will take the tough path, but I want a deep life.
00:14:22.000Here's one of the things I want to share with you today.
00:14:23.000You have a choice, and you've all made the right choice, but I hope you go even further in this direction.
00:14:29.000I encourage for you to make a conscious decision to pursue depth over shallowness and to pursue things that matter over things that are easier comfortable.
00:15:02.000Should I even care about how my fellow citizens are created?
00:15:05.000Or should I just kind of just go through the motions and try to get the most stuff and kind of keep my head down?
00:15:10.000A deep life means you're going to have to work for things.
00:15:14.000But I think we all understand that your generation is the most suicidal, depressed, alcohol-addicted, drug-addicted, and pornography-addicted generation in history.
00:16:13.000You have an opportunity to say, you know what, I want to pursue what is good, true, and beautiful in the world.
00:16:17.000I want to pursue what things that make my soul activated, not just that give me immediate pleasure or pursue licentiousness.
00:16:27.000The mission that is in front of you, the charge for all of you is to go through your life in the next couple years.
00:16:33.000And Turning Point will be a partner with you in this, is to say, you know what?
00:16:36.000I want to be a leader in my community, a leader in my life, but I'm not just going to do the thing that is the most immediate or that of ease.
00:16:45.000And so what does that look like practically?
00:16:50.000It looks like, first and foremost, understanding that if it makes you feel good immediately in a quick rush, it's probably bad for you.
00:16:57.000It's saying no to hookup culture and that trash that goes alongside of it.
00:17:05.000It's understanding that if you're staring at your screen for hours and hours a day, that you're nothing more than a product of people who hate you and they're programming your behaviors and manipulating your brain neurochemistry from their dopamine, the noreperephrine, to your hormonal reactions.
00:17:32.000And I want to just tell you my gratitude and how important you are to what we do for your grit, for your hustle, for your stamina, and for your commitment.
00:17:40.000Is one of the reasons that I'm not a big fan of college, and I know it's kind of weird because you guys are half in college, but just I'm honest, is because college does not, unless you go to anyone but Hillsdale?
00:20:56.000Name five people before the year 1900 that were heroic, brave, and courageous.
00:21:01.000Name a founding father that wrote something you can quote.
00:21:04.000If you can't say those things, you're not going to an institution that is instilling you in wisdom, going deep, but you could do that yourself.
00:21:10.000You don't have to go to college to do that.
00:21:12.000You could be self-motivated and autodidactic.
00:21:25.000To go find an answer to these questions, to dwell on the deeper things, where you stop in awe and wonder of things that are beautiful, that which is perfected in being.
00:21:33.000What I'm getting at is the rest of your life, commit yourself to wanting to pursue wisdom because we need you wise, everybody.
00:23:02.000You should all yearn to wonder and to know and to dive deep in the things that capture your imagination.
00:23:07.000Because when you do that, that will only intensify your resolve to fight to win this battle, to start a turning point group, to recruit more kids.
00:23:17.000And then you'll find something that your counterparts on the left will never find.
00:23:21.000I believe the scriptures will lead you to this.
00:23:56.000How often does a college tell you, hey, you're young and somebody 2,000 years ago might have been able to write something down so that you don't have to suffer as much?
00:24:03.000No, instead, they'll say they're white, so don't read them.
00:24:30.000But you know the number one reason why these speakers want to come?
00:24:33.000When I talk to Tucker, when I talk to President Trump, when I talk to Bannon, when I talk to Bongino, when I talk to Megan Kelly, it's because they say, Charlie, there is a grittiness.
00:24:47.000There's an optimism with the turning point students that we don't see anywhere else.
00:24:52.000They said, we're coming out of our schedule in the summer to Palm Beach because we want to speak to your students to tell them how important they are to save the civilization.
00:25:28.000So at my college campus, we have about five people in my turning point chapter.
00:25:36.000So what is your greatest advice to combat against people tearing down your table, breaking into your dorm room, and all this other crazy stuff?
00:27:36.000I think some of you want to ask questions, so I can't tell.
00:27:39.000You should all read Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl, Holocaust survivor.
00:27:43.000No one can say that I'm suffering and then read Victor Frankl's book.
00:27:47.000The guy lost his wife, concentration camp survivor.
00:27:50.000And he says, if you go through life with an attitude that this is a chance to improve and become a better person, you have the agency to do that.
00:28:27.000Mr. Kirk, how do we ascend to your level of basedom and also based on the that being based, essentially?
00:28:37.000How do we make time in our busy schedule, or how would one make time in their busy schedules for the pursuit of wisdom and that sort of thing?
00:29:25.000If you're busier than me, I'm going to meet you.
00:29:28.000You make time for what you care about: podcasting, wake up earlier, stop doing drugs, stop drinking, listen to podcasts that matter or Hillsdale online courses, whatever it is.
00:30:53.000Like, there's, I could give you 100 books, literally, 100 books to read that you guys could dive into, but you have to want it.
00:31:00.000It's going to take a thousand hours of study within a couple years.
00:31:06.000But here's the cool thing: once you go on this, there is no greater joy except getting married, having kids, and giving your life to Jesus.
00:31:14.000So, like, no, no greater, like, daily joy, like, no, no greater daily joy than learning.
00:31:22.000The first line of Aristotle's metaphysics: all men desire to know.
00:31:27.000Dive deep, challenge yourself, read the great books, you'll start to get to a level of joy and understanding of wisdom that I think our generation is missing.
00:31:39.000Thank you so much for being here with us today.
00:31:41.000So, you mentioned how it's maybe not a good idea to go into law, but I'm someone who really enjoys law and I want to go to law school and be a constitutional lawyer.
00:31:50.000And I think we owe a lot to conservative judges like Scalia, Alito, Thomas, even Rehnquist from the 70s.
00:31:56.000So, do you think it's better to not abandon these fields and instead try to take over them?
00:32:02.000As we see, the law has an effect on our daily lives, seen through recent Supreme Court decisions and even through COVID.
00:32:07.000And what advice would you give to someone who wants to go into law and is a super staunch conservative?
00:32:12.000No, I mean, look, if you have the temperament and the self-discipline, go do it.
00:32:16.000I wouldn't be able to go through forced diversity, equity, inclusion courses at a law school.
00:32:22.000That's what you're going to have to do, right?
00:32:24.000To go to a respectable law school, you're going to have to write paper after paper on why the Constitution is trash.
00:35:32.000We need you guys to go take risks and not just go work for people, but go employ people and go get very rich and then go give money to go defeat the maggots.
00:35:49.000Women, stop watching pornography because a lot of women are watching pornography.
00:35:53.000Stop doing drugs, get married and save yourself for marriage and then have Mormon levels of children and then get rich and donate them back to 21 USA.
00:36:28.000The general assertion is that being hopeful, being positive, being happy, being satisfied with things, being grateful are toxic and are undermining America in a variety of ways, as you went in the book, all to make the not very subtle assertion that it's Republicans, it's conservatives because of all the data out there that we're.
00:36:58.000But I think we demand a lot in like a higher standard, not in like handouts.
00:37:04.000I wanted to know like your thought on that assertion, that book that I had to read for class.
00:37:08.000So first of all, you should, before you ever, this is a good life lesson, before you ever demand anything from your society or your government or from others, you must demand excellence from yourself.
00:37:22.000Before you ever demand anything from society or others, you must demand excellence from yourself.
00:37:29.000If you are unshaven and like waking up at 5 a.m. and doing drugs and being like, the world is so unjust, give me free stuff.
00:37:37.000Like get your act together before you start to go tell other people to give up their liberty, freedom, and their stuff.
00:38:30.000We're the greatest nation ever to exist.
00:38:32.000And I'm made in the image of God who loved me enough to send his son so that I could live eternal life.
00:38:38.000Yeah, that would bring me a lot of joy, actually.
00:38:41.000And so, but I don't love that term positive thinking because people think of it as like delusional thinking, where, you know, as Tony Robbins would say, you don't go into your garden and say, there's no weeds, there's no weeds, there's no weeds.
00:38:56.000You go into your garden, you say, here's the weed, and let me pull it out so that you could live a better life and fix your thinking patterns.
00:39:21.000Yeah, again, I'm not an apologist of Andrew Tate, but I think he was right when he said this, which is that society in general wants you depressed and they don't want you happy.
00:39:32.000That if you're happy and joyful, people act as if there's something wrong with you.
00:39:36.000But if you're depressed and angry or bitter, they're like, everything's right with you.
00:39:44.000And totally understanding that depression is a real thing and that people can struggle with it and anxiety is a real thing, totally get it.
00:40:12.000Hey, Charlie, just want to start off by saying really big fan, but I'm trying to do a co-event with the student ministry I'm in, and the president is very adamant about not combining faith in politics.
00:40:24.000He is conservative, but he, you know, he separation of church and state, he doesn't want to make it political, basically.
00:40:30.000So, like, what are some ideas that I can propose to him to where we can do a co-event?
00:40:36.000Yeah, I mean, you should ask him, where does it say separation of church and state in the Constitution?
00:40:40.000And that'll make him fluster a little bit.
00:40:46.000I'm pretty outspoken on this topic, as you can imagine.
00:42:06.000Unfortunately, not related to the notorious Tucker Carlson, but I come from a pretty conservative area, but my fellow high schoolers don't exactly have motivation for politics or getting involved at all.
00:42:20.000So as having the privilege of being the president of the first chapter at my high school, what would you recommend me do to have the largest impact that I can and encourage my peers to be leaders while simultaneously leading them to Christ?
00:42:36.000This is a question I get from people of all ages, which is someone who cares asking me, why do other people not care?
00:43:38.000Try to make it relevant, I should say.
00:43:40.000Try to make it engaging, informational.
00:43:43.000But more than anything else, people follow people.
00:43:48.000And so if you are a leader worth following, who's interesting, who studies, who understands their stuff, that's a great way to pierce through a lot of the cynicism and a lot of the lack of engagement.
00:44:12.000So I had a question similar to the question that was asked over here, but with GCU being like a Christian campus, pretty conservative campus, there are a lot of students that I talk to, especially friends of mine that are like, hey, I respect what you're doing.
00:44:36.000I hear that same thing from a lot of churches too.
00:44:38.000So how do you suggest I go about going into these friend circles, going into these churches, and be like, hey, you should care about America because we know Jesus is going to come back and those believers are going to be saved.
00:44:50.000But why should we care in the moment now?
00:46:49.000This is a luxury of modern Christians that are comfortable and cowards.
00:46:54.000You shouldn't say that, but I'm being honest, okay?
00:46:56.000These are modern Christians that have it so good, they don't understand that Christianity usually ends up in the gulag and the death camp and persecution.
00:47:05.000If we do not stand and fight for liberty, which is God's idea, not man's idea, we will be having theological disputes from prison, and we're all gonna be running prison ministries.
00:47:17.000But if we stand for self-government and the promise the founders handed down to us, there's a chance that we can continue to fight for righteousness, righteousness, and goodness.
00:47:26.000And think about how selfish it is, though.
00:49:51.000I prefer to go be a slave than to be in the desert, even though coil is blown off course and manna comes from heaven.
00:49:58.000It is in our soul and our broken spirit to want to be taken care of and live under tyranny.
00:50:05.000It takes effort, effort of you to want to live free, to want to remind people that liberty and freedom is a value, which is God's plan for his people.
00:50:16.000Our broken nature wants us to go live under a dictator.
00:50:19.000That is the spiritual tension in front of us right now.
00:50:36.000But so, what I want to know is: so I would argue that Turning Points rhetoric has gotten a lot better since the Culture War tour back in 2019.
00:50:45.000And a lot of the arguments that have gone on within my chapter have been about what is Turning Point's real goal.
00:50:51.000You know, people will tell me at least, they'll say, oh, this is all about economics, Gus.
00:50:57.000And obviously, I think this discussion is proving that wrong right now.
00:51:01.000I kind of want to, just because the rhetoric has shifted so much over the last few years, I want to know what is like Turning Point's definitive stance on social issues, both political, religious, and also how does that go into factoring in who can work at Turning Point USA?
00:51:16.000Like, what is the standard for what someone should be practicing in their personal life?
00:51:24.000I think I've just gone through it, right?
00:51:26.000Believe in marriage as one man, one woman, right?
00:51:28.000I don't believe in any of this trans stuff, all that crap.
00:51:30.000And so, but as far as where Turning Point stands, the most important way that I could address that is first and foremost, an understanding of the principles that allowed Western civilization to flourish and a commitment to the eternal natural law.
00:51:44.000We go back to the Declaration of the Constitution, first and foremost, the laws of nature and nature's God.
00:51:50.000How you read that and how I read that is there is a natural law and we should follow that.
00:51:54.000So, if I were to, because you could go through a million different issues, right?
00:51:58.000And then all of a sudden, you have like your mission statement ends up being 500,000 pages long.
00:52:05.000We believe in the promises of the Declaration of the Constitution, which does cover social issues, by the way.
00:52:11.000The Declaration, God has mentioned four times that there is a supreme judge of the world, right?
00:52:17.000And so, if you stay to just those two documents, what is Turning Point's mission?
00:52:21.000To revive the promise of the American founding as articulated in the Declaration and the United States Constitution, aka get our country back from these people.
00:52:31.000Now, you might say, Charlie, oh, you know, you're ramping up the intensity.
00:52:50.000I think the world of them, and I'm happy to fight for liberty amongst people, even if I see differently on certain things that they might do in their personal life.
00:52:58.000So, to answer that final part of your question, thank you.
00:53:21.000Okay, so I have been canvassing because there is an election this November in Ohio for something called reproductive health, and it's very vague and nonspecific.
00:53:31.000But I was talking to somebody about how it is basically a bill that would allow children to get sex changes without telling their parents, and it would aid the people that helped them to do that.
00:53:43.000And I was having a wonderful conversation with somebody.
00:53:45.000He seemed like he really agreed with me.
00:53:48.000And also, he was a trans man, a man who was turning into a woman.
00:53:52.000But then, after he finished talking to me, he walked away and he told somebody that I initiated a conversation with him and that I was debating and arguing with him.
00:54:02.000So, my question for you is: how do you respond when somebody is lying about what you've told them?
00:54:09.000Because I didn't initiate a conversation, he started a conversation with me.
00:54:13.000Yeah, I mean, look, you just got to be really careful.
00:54:15.000Anytime you're dealing with activism or engagement with a trans group, they have deep-seated mental problems, and you got to be very careful, okay?
00:54:20.000It's not a joke, I'm not trivializing it.
00:54:25.000These people are not chemically balanced, they're on a cocktail of drugs.
00:54:29.000I hope they get care compassionately, but this, you just got to be careful, right?
00:54:33.000And so, I can't give you, you know, personal advice on that, except for the fact that I'm sorry that you were lied about.
00:54:39.000I'm glad you're doing that kind of activism.
00:54:41.000And if, look, if we cannot have a clear societal consensus that male and female, period, like you don't get to go after kids, especially in that regard, then like I don't even know what to tell you, right?
00:54:57.000But happy to dialogue with you more privately.
00:55:00.000But I will say I love that you go to Hillsdale, and I love that you're an activist simultaneously.
00:56:44.000Because you live in Massachusetts, man.
00:56:46.000Like, that's where you said you're, yeah, it's not good.
00:56:50.000Like that, especially on the gender stuff, it is completely out of control, especially in Boston, which is the most academic clustered town in the country.
00:57:23.000My family sent it to me, and they were like, whoa.
00:57:26.000But anyway, I have a bit of a different question.
00:57:28.000So at Pepperdine, there's a really big organization that's called the Global Justice Institute, and they're currently serving in Rwanda and Uganda, breaking people out of prison for crimes that they actually did not commit.
00:57:41.000However, I joined as an ambassador to only advocate for PAUMEA negotiations in foreign countries because that's something that I'm actually passionate about.
00:57:51.000I'm not necessarily passionate about the humanitarian acts.
00:57:53.000I don't really have anything to do with our country.
00:57:56.000So how, and there are many organizations at Pepperdine that are kind of conservative and also kind of liberal just because they have to swing both ways to have both sides of Christianity be service, like some of the students were saying.
00:58:11.000So how should we as conservatives, conservative students, support these organizations?
00:58:17.000Should we go all in and try to really maximize that conservative side or just not at all because they're not fully conservative?
00:58:34.000There's a lot of good people that do that work, but I also think it's driven a lot by upper middle class white guilt in this country, where they refuse to actually recognize our own country as quickly becoming a third world country.
00:58:45.000Like, get on a highway, any highway, and drive to the interior of the United States.
00:58:49.000We have 110,000 people drug overdosing every single year in this country.
00:58:53.000We have thousands of people being sex trafficked literally through our country every single day.
00:58:58.000We're like, oh, I need to go to Rwanda or Uganda.
01:02:05.000I want to encourage you to go meet other chapter leaders from across the country.
01:02:11.000What an amazing opportunity to go meet like-minded people, get to know them, and understand that you are in a fight for this republic with the highest possible stakes.
01:02:23.000You guys are the fulfillment of 11 years of a vision of saying we're going to scrap, we're going to work to save Western society and Western civilization.
01:02:51.000And when the bad guys surround you on campus and call you names and try to cancel you and try to kick you off campus, we will have your back 100%.
01:03:04.000That's what we do at Turning Point USA.