The Charlie Kirk Show - Speeches From The Archive- Charlie at Hillsdale’s College National Leadership Seminar

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'll 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 The Charlie Kirk Show is proudly sponsored by Preserve Gold, the leading gold and silver experts and the only precious metals company I recommend to my family, friends, and viewers.

00:01:11.000 Thank you, everybody.

00:01:12.000 And thank you, Dr. Arne.

00:01:14.000 It's very kind.

00:01:15.000 I think I might be the first speaker at a national leadership seminar not to go to college.

00:01:20.000 Is that right?

00:01:21.000 Maybe, maybe not.

00:01:23.000 But I'm on pace to complete every single Hillsdale online course.

00:01:27.000 So I think I'm making up for it.

00:01:29.000 And I visit college campuses, so you don't have to.

00:01:34.000 And I could tell you that if every kid who's currently in college took the Hillsdale online courses instead of going to that four-year college, America would be in a much better place, much better place.

00:01:45.000 We might have some ideas now for this new administration.

00:01:48.000 I just want to brag on Hillsdale.

00:01:50.000 So I wrote a book called The College Scam, and I sent a copy to Dr. Arne.

00:01:57.000 I speak extensively about how great Hillsdale is and how it's the exception of what I talk about in the book.

00:02:03.000 And I can tell you from firsthand experience, having visited and spoken at and intimately involved with organizing students on over, well, we're on over 1,000 campuses.

00:02:13.000 I have visited well over 175 of them personally, that there is no place like Hillsdale College.

00:02:19.000 The students are different.

00:02:22.000 They're focused on the right things.

00:02:23.000 They are looking up.

00:02:25.000 They're asking questions that are deeper in nature.

00:02:28.000 They could tell you why they're there.

00:02:30.000 So I'm visiting, we have our campus tour that's restarting on Thursday.

00:02:34.000 Really, I'm excited to kind of go back out there.

00:02:37.000 And when I ask these students, I say, why are you here?

00:02:40.000 They'll immediately give you an answer that is industrial in nature.

00:02:44.000 I'm here to be able to get prepared to get a job.

00:02:47.000 I say, okay, I ask a Hillsdale college student, why are you here?

00:02:51.000 They say, well, I'm here to learn how to be a good citizen.

00:02:55.000 I'm here to learn what it means to be a good person, to grow in character and faith and duty.

00:03:02.000 And I ask an average college student at Arizona State University, Harvard of the West, down the street here.

00:03:08.000 And let's just be honest, it pales in comparison to Hillsdale.

00:03:13.000 For many reasons, let's just be honest.

00:03:15.000 And I asked them, I said, what are you reading?

00:03:17.000 And they could maybe recite one or two books.

00:03:19.000 At Hillsdale College, they know the texts intimately.

00:03:23.000 And it's not a mistake because it all starts from Dr. Larry Arne.

00:03:28.000 Hillsdale was a good college when Dr. Arne took over.

00:03:32.000 Now it is the best college in America after what Dr. Arne has done over the last couple of decades.

00:03:38.000 And it has turned into a cultural powerhouse because, as you well know, Hillsdale, there's a waiting line to get in.

00:03:46.000 The standards keep on getting higher and harder to get in.

00:03:49.000 But the millions of people like myself that are taking these online courses is dramatically improving our chances of restoring a free society.

00:03:58.000 The Constitution 101 course, that alone should be taught mandatorily to every police officer, firefighter, Marine person in the military that has to take an oath for the Constitution.

00:04:10.000 They should learn what they're taking an oath towards, and no better course does that than the Hillsdale Constitution 101 course.

00:04:17.000 And the impact is beyond just what is happening in Michigan.

00:04:22.000 It is digital, it is online, and I think it's even deeper than some of you guys that are on the board even recognize or realize.

00:04:30.000 Because it's not just how many people are taking these courses, it's the state legislature, it's the senators, it's the congresspeople.

00:04:37.000 And I'm going to build out that argument in a second because the philosophical basis of this new administration is largely an outgrowth from the hard work that Hillsdale has been doing over the last couple decades.

00:04:52.000 So it's impacted my life.

00:04:55.000 I have a, as Dr. Arn said, I've completed over 30 of them.

00:04:59.000 My goal is to take all of them.

00:05:00.000 Yes, even the Euclidean geometry one.

00:05:04.000 And I haven't done the Jane Austen novels one.

00:05:07.000 Sorry.

00:05:09.000 Have done the Churchill one.

00:05:11.000 It's good.

00:05:11.000 Okay, thanks.

00:05:14.000 The new totalitarian novels is terrific.

00:05:16.000 By the way, I highly recommend for any of you that have kids or grandkids to tell them that if they want special privileges to go on a trip or they want phone time or video games, tell them, okay, you have to take a Hillsdale online course.

00:05:28.000 I'm telling you what we're doing at Turning Point USA because they have all these ridiculous federal holidays off.

00:05:32.000 We're totally restructuring on Juneteenth.

00:05:34.000 We're not getting those days off.

00:05:35.000 I'll say, however, we will give you Constitution Day off if you take the Hillsdale online course on Constitution 101.

00:05:40.000 So that is now practice at Turning Point USA.

00:05:43.000 But I'll tell you this, that as you take these courses, you realize how little our own elected leaders know about the country that they're supposed to be protecting and they're defending.

00:05:56.000 How little the people that go on TV and start yammering about, you know, we're all about freedom and liberty, and they can't tell you anything about the structure or the form of the U.S. Constitution or what we're fighting for.

00:06:09.000 And I think we're finding our way back as a country.

00:06:12.000 I think that we are finding our way back to foundational roots.

00:06:16.000 And part of that, by the way, is being driven by one of the most unusual forces, which is that this is a bottom-up youth-led political movement.

00:06:25.000 That if you look at every single demographic in the 2024 election, the one that moved most dramatically and surprisingly were voters under the age of 30.

00:06:36.000 These are people that traditionally would be card-carrying members of the American left.

00:06:42.000 Now, Donald Trump did not win the youth vote in every single state.

00:06:45.000 And I will tell you one state he won the youth vote in, and I give Dr. Arn all the credit.

00:06:49.000 He did win the youth vote in Michigan.

00:06:51.000 It's true.

00:06:51.000 It's 100% real.

00:06:52.000 Donald Trump won the youth vote in Michigan.

00:06:55.000 But all kidding aside, this movement of young people is largely driven by them being raised in the excesses of what we call wokeism, the kind of political correctness of the totalitarian impulses of political correctness, and a resurgence, some of what the work we've done at Turning Point, but talking to the next generation about what kind of country do you actually want to live in?

00:07:20.000 Do you want to be able to own a home, get married, and have kids?

00:07:23.000 Or do you want to just stare at a screen all day long and be an indentured Russian serf and never own anything for the rest of your life? 0.81

00:07:30.000 And President Trump, to his great credit, ran an asymmetrical political operation that defied every single norm and custom of the political consultant elite over the last 30 years.

00:07:42.000 He did podcasting instead of 60-minute interviews.

00:07:45.000 He went and did TikTok videos instead of New York Times editorial sit-down meetings.

00:07:50.000 He said, no one reads the New York Times, but people do watch TikTok videos.

00:07:54.000 In an amazing way, President Donald Trump performed the best that a Republican president has performed with younger voters in over 50 years.

00:08:02.000 50 years.

00:08:03.000 And this is a bottom-up resurgence where now, of every demographic, they say, do you approve or disapprove of Donald Trump?

00:08:09.000 Baby boomers, no offense, they're not really crazy about what's happening in D.C. Do you know who is the most supportive of what's happening right now in Washington, D.C.?

00:08:17.000 Voters under 30.

00:08:19.000 And I'll tell you, it makes perfect sense, by the way.

00:08:22.000 It's because they think the entire system, top to bottom, is wretched to the core and is a tumor that must be removed.

00:08:29.000 And we must start from the beginning because it's not working for them.

00:08:33.000 Because they can't afford homes and they're seeing themselves involved in the most suicidal, depressed, anxious, and alcohol-addicted generation in history.

00:08:40.000 And they want the same American dream that their parents and grandparents had.

00:08:44.000 And so we saw this in this last election.

00:08:46.000 I personally was able to witness it.

00:08:48.000 Our videos did billions of views.

00:08:50.000 We registered tens of thousands of voters here in Arizona where we had over a thousand full-time people on the ground.

00:08:56.000 We chased well over 200,000 ballots for President Donald Trump.

00:09:00.000 And I just have to brag, Arizona, best performing swing state, won by five and a half points.

00:09:06.000 So thank you for all the Arizona faithful that worked so hard.

00:09:09.000 Pretty awesome.

00:09:11.000 But all of that has now led to the ultimate question, which of course we all see what President Trump has done in just the last couple of weeks.

00:09:20.000 President Trump is doing so much, the Democrats can't remember why they're mad at him.

00:09:27.000 Wait, I'm mad.

00:09:28.000 Why?

00:09:28.000 I don't know.

00:09:29.000 He's getting rid of this thing and signing this thing.

00:09:31.000 Full court offense.

00:09:32.000 Shock and awe.

00:09:33.000 It is time for us to overwhelm the left.

00:09:35.000 You see, President Trump had a decision to make.

00:09:37.000 He could do the kind of typical second term thing and wait for his legislative priorities and sign a couple proclamations to rename some post offices.

00:09:46.000 President Donald Trump is going after one of the most ambitious reclamations of a republic in the history of the species.

00:09:54.000 We've never seen anything like it.

00:09:55.000 Now, of course, we know the executive order saying there'll be no more DEI in federal agencies, no more DEI in our military.

00:10:02.000 We know that he's doing drill, baby, drill.

00:10:04.000 We know that he's closing the southern border.

00:10:06.000 And by the way, did you see the recent numbers in just the last couple of days?

00:10:09.000 So it's worth repeating if you haven't.

00:10:12.000 In the last couple of days of Joe Biden being president, 11,000 people were crossing a day into our country.

00:10:20.000 Like yesterday?

00:10:21.000 142 people.

00:10:23.000 That's too many.

00:10:24.000 Stop applauding.

00:10:25.000 It's too many.

00:10:25.000 We've got to go to zero.

00:10:26.000 But yes, that's a 98% decrease, which, by the way, goes to show that open borders is a choice.

00:10:33.000 You didn't need a Senate bipartisan bill.

00:10:36.000 You didn't need some sort of committee.

00:10:37.000 Joe Biden wanted the borders to be open, and he wanted us to have this flow of people from another country.

00:10:43.000 President Donald Trump made a decision that, no, actually, a nation is defined by its borders.

00:10:47.000 We're going to have sovereignty.

00:10:48.000 And if you want to come to this country, come the right way. 0.99

00:10:51.000 But we're not going to allow you to just waltz across the Rio Grande Valley and get the same benefits as someone who's a U.S. passport holder.

00:10:56.000 We're not going to put up with that anymore.

00:10:57.000 And that is a moral argument at its core.

00:11:00.000 Now, we know about Bobby Kennedy, who's now HHS Secretary, Kash Patel, who's about to be FBI director, Tulsi Gabbard.

00:11:10.000 My favorite executive order, by the way, is President Trump putting an end to the gender transitions called chemical castration for our kids, preventing the medical butchery that has been happening. 0.87

00:11:23.000 All the incredible pardons of pro-life warriors, the recommission of the 1776 Commission that Dr. Arne chaired last time, ending the wars.

00:11:32.000 And how amazing is his team from Marco Rubio today in Saudi Arabia, JD Vance in Munich, that was a 10 out of 10 speech.

00:11:39.000 We got Scott Besson in Ukraine.

00:11:41.000 We got Pete Hegseth doing PT with the Marines at 5 a.m., where we had that slob Mark Milley who couldn't even walk up a flight of stairs or Lloyd Austin that would get out of breath just for standing out of his chair. 1.00

00:11:53.000 We got Pete Hegseth, who's literally running miles with Marines and Navy SEALs before the sun gets up in Poland.

00:11:59.000 A new administration is here, and all of this is worthy of celebration, but it does not get down to the core of the matter.

00:12:06.000 It does not get down to what is the big and the looming fight.

00:12:10.000 And I'm only able to articulate this because of Hillsdale College.

00:12:13.000 Because most people on TV are missing what's really going on here.

00:12:18.000 They're missing what is going to be the republic-determining element of this entire thing.

00:12:25.000 And it comes down to three major questions, big questions, that are being debated in the media, but they're not getting down to the meat of the matter.

00:12:36.000 The first of which is so simple, and you can ask my daughter, who's two and a half years old, and she knows the answer to this question, how many branches of government are there?

00:12:45.000 Pretty simple.

00:12:46.000 We all know three.

00:12:47.000 That's right.

00:12:47.000 Yes, thank you.

00:12:48.000 Good answer.

00:12:49.000 And yes, there are seven articles of the Constitution.

00:12:51.000 Yes, we can go through all that.

00:12:52.000 But yes, there's three branches of government.

00:12:53.000 Oh, easy answer.

00:12:54.000 Is it really that easy?

00:12:56.000 Are there three branches of the government?

00:12:59.000 What Dr. Arne has been saying for longer than I have been alive and has been trying to get the American public to realize and recognize that there has been an invisible, unelected, unknown branch of government that has been operating unconstitutionally post-Woodrow Wilson, and no one has had the moral clarity, the mandate, or the gusto to even mention it, let alone challenge it, let alone deconstruct it.

00:13:29.000 And we can call that the administrative state, we can call that the shadow government, the deep state.

00:13:34.000 All of those are correct answers, by the way.

00:13:36.000 But understand the profundity of President Donald Trump saying, okay, JFK started USAID by an executive order.

00:13:44.000 I can end USAID by an executive order.

00:13:48.000 You serve at the pleasure of the president.

00:13:50.000 And then they say, well, no, you can't do that.

00:13:52.000 Hold on.

00:13:53.000 Which branch of the three does that fall under?

00:13:56.000 It falls under Article 2, which goes into one of the other more fundamental questions.

00:14:00.000 You see, what's been grown like a cancer over the last hundred years is this fourth branch of government.

00:14:08.000 And you can see this in some of the reporting on the Department of Justice and the FBI in particular.

00:14:15.000 Anytime you hear this, you should press pause and tell your friend, nope, nope, and you should cancel this out of your thought when they say, oh, that's an independent agency.

00:14:25.000 No, it's not, actually.

00:14:26.000 There's no such thing as an independent agency.

00:14:29.000 Answers to the pleasure of the president, period.

00:14:31.000 End of story.

00:14:33.000 The FBI is not independent.

00:14:34.000 Now, the president could be as provocative.

00:14:36.000 He'd get impeached if he does this, but it would be perfectly constitutional if he asked the FBI director to look at every pending case the FBI is looking into.

00:14:44.000 Perfectly constitutional.

00:14:46.000 If he looked at everything the DOJ is doing, it's perfectly constitutional.

00:14:49.000 The DOJ does not operate on a special island.

00:14:51.000 I must have missed that in the Hillsdale Online Course Federalist Papers course where Alexander Hamilton was going on talking about, well, the Attorney General is kind of its own president, and the FBI kind of does its own thing.

00:15:02.000 President Trump does not know this.

00:15:02.000 And guess what?

00:15:05.000 He knows this philosophically, but he knows it personally.

00:15:08.000 Because that fourth branch of government destroyed his first term, was the reason he did not get re-elected in 2020, and is the reason why he faced 700 years in federal prison.

00:15:21.000 President Donald Trump is counterattacking the fourth branch of government that tried to stop him over the last decade.

00:15:28.000 This is the fourth branch that waged war on the sovereign.

00:15:35.000 We're honored to be partnering with Alan Jackson Ministries.

00:15:37.000 And today, I want to point you to their podcast.

00:15:40.000 It's called Culture and Christianity, the Allen Jackson Podcast.

00:15:44.000 What makes it unique is Pastor Allen's biblical perspective.

00:15:47.000 He takes the truth from the Bible and applies it to issues we're facing today: gender confusion, abortion, immigration, Doge, Trump in the White House, issues in the church.

00:15:56.000 He doesn't just discuss the problems.

00:15:58.000 In every episode, he gives practical things we can do to make a difference.

00:16:01.000 His guests have incredible expertise and powerful testimonies.

00:16:05.000 They've been great friends.

00:16:06.000 And now you can hear from Charlie in his own words.

00:16:08.000 Each episode will make you recognize the power of your faith and how God can use your life to impact our world today.

00:16:15.000 The Culture and Christianity podcast is informative and encouraging.

00:16:18.000 You could find it on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:16:22.000 Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes.

00:16:24.000 Alan Jackson Ministries is working hard to bring biblical truth back into our culture.

00:16:29.000 You can find out more about Pastor Allen and the ministry at alanjackson.com forward slash Charlie.

00:16:37.000 And that is the key.

00:16:38.000 So the next, the big question, that's a big question.

00:16:40.000 How many branches of government are?

00:16:41.000 The next big question, though, is, well, who is the sovereign exactly?

00:16:41.000 Okay, that's fine.

00:16:45.000 Who's in charge of this place?

00:16:48.000 Do you notice that when we fire a federal worker, it's like we're going to fire like the Archbishop of Phoenix or something?

00:16:56.000 Like, it's like unbelievable.

00:16:58.000 Like, they're totally untouchable.

00:17:00.000 Like, you can't do that.

00:17:03.000 Why?

00:17:04.000 Who made them that they are in some sort of holy realm that we can't ask the question, well, what do you do here?

00:17:13.000 Why do you exist?

00:17:16.000 What is your job?

00:17:17.000 You can't say that.

00:17:18.000 No, instead, we have to act as if they're the untouchables, literally.

00:17:24.000 And if you listen to the media coverage carefully, it's like we work for them.

00:17:31.000 No, it's not done that way.

00:17:33.000 They work for us because our document starts morally clear.

00:17:38.000 We the people of the United States.

00:17:40.000 Not the we, the USAID, you know, purple-haired jihadis that are sending money to Kazakhstan to trans the kids, right? 0.63

00:17:48.000 That's not how it works, actually.

00:17:50.000 And these sound like such fundamental, basic questions, but we're about to get down to the root of the matter.

00:17:55.000 You know why?

00:17:56.000 Because our leaders have prolonged the inevitable for decades.

00:18:01.000 George W. Bush did not have the moral clarity or the gusto to pick this fight.

00:18:07.000 In fact, he grew the Leviathan and grew the administrative state.

00:18:10.000 We have new agencies because of Republican presidents.

00:18:13.000 So this has been a fight that has been delayed for far too long, and this is where it is all heading.

00:18:18.000 And so when it comes down to who is the sovereign, it comes down to, well, we, the American people, elected a president to be able to do the job.

00:18:28.000 And it still baffles the mind where I hear in some of these meetings when I'm in D.C., well, you can't fire these federal workers.

00:18:35.000 You could put them on administrative leave.

00:18:38.000 And how many of you guys in your corporate career or you run a business, what could ever operate that way?

00:18:46.000 Nothing.

00:18:47.000 And yet we put the federal government in a completely different bucket for no good constitutional reason.

00:18:53.000 And then that goes to the final question and really the big question that ties to the other two, which is, is the president in charge of the executive branch?

00:19:01.000 And this is known as the vesting clause of Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution, which is all authority is invested in a president.

00:19:08.000 That's it.

00:19:10.000 Pretty simple.

00:19:11.000 One sentence, a lot there.

00:19:13.000 And so, yes, the president has the authority to say, USAID, you don't go anymore.

00:19:18.000 He has the authority to just send Elon Musk like a tomahawk missile into every single federal agency.

00:19:23.000 By the way, how entertaining is this?

00:19:24.000 It's like one of the greatest things ever.

00:19:28.000 I want you to understand what's going on here is that you have Elon, who I just have grown to just adore.

00:19:35.000 He's become a friend.

00:19:36.000 I think that when the history books are written, he's going to go down as one of the most interesting, consequential, business titan political figures ever to exist.

00:19:47.000 So here's a guy who has more money than you could ever imagine.

00:19:49.000 He could buy Spain.

00:19:50.000 Literally, you look it up, he could buy Spain, okay?

00:19:53.000 Like, I think the GDP of Spain is like $150 billion.

00:19:53.000 Not a joke.

00:19:56.000 You could just, you know, buy it.

00:19:58.000 And that's like a portion of his wealth.

00:20:01.000 And he's literally sleeping on the floor of the Eisenhower executive office building.

00:20:07.000 And it's not just him.

00:20:08.000 Here's the best part.

00:20:10.000 He has this platoon of these super geniuses.

00:20:13.000 And I mean like super geniuses.

00:20:15.000 I mean, these guys look, make Mensa look like, you know, they don't know what they're talking about.

00:20:20.000 And he'll walk into these federal agencies and he'll be like, where are the passwords?

00:20:24.000 How do you send an email?

00:20:26.000 How do you do the accounting?

00:20:27.000 Has anyone ever looked at the books here?

00:20:29.000 Just one example, he did the social security kind of peripheral audit.

00:20:33.000 There's like 140-year-olds still getting social security checks.

00:20:37.000 I can just see the New York Times headline.

00:20:39.000 Elon Musk, so cruel, cuts off payments to 140-year-olds.

00:20:42.000 You know, just see the headline right now.

00:20:45.000 How dare he?

00:20:47.000 Now, if any of you guys are 140, I want to meet you and you can come on my show for the record.

00:20:52.000 So, by the way, if you think our social security roles are messed up, how bad do you think our voter roles are?

00:20:57.000 It just makes you think.

00:21:00.000 So, but Elon Musk is getting down to the heart of the matter.

00:21:02.000 Why?

00:21:03.000 It's so simple.

00:21:04.000 Elon Musk sees the world very clearly because Elon Musk has actually built things.

00:21:09.000 And so for him, it does not compute.

00:21:11.000 It's like a failure to launch in his mind.

00:21:14.000 Where if at Tesla, if he wants to get rid of 10,000 people, he can get rid of 10,000 people.

00:21:18.000 At SpaceX, if he wants to get rid of a bad employee, he can get rid of a bad employee.

00:21:20.000 In DC, you get rid of bad employees by putting them in charge of the CDC and running all of your public health guidelines.

00:21:25.000 You fail upwards.

00:21:26.000 That's what you do.

00:21:27.000 You actually ascend by failure.

00:21:29.000 It's a gravitational pull in the wrong direction.

00:21:33.000 And so it is a cultural sea change top to bottom that we are experiencing.

00:21:38.000 And they're going to fight with everything they possibly can.

00:21:41.000 If you think they fought hard to prevent President Trump from reobtaining office, this is way worse than they actually thought this was going to go.

00:21:50.000 They thought it would be like mass deportations.

00:21:52.000 Notice that no one's talking about that anymore.

00:21:54.000 Yeah, sure, take him, go away.

00:21:56.000 But this Doge thing.

00:21:58.000 It's like all the controversial stuff that we thought was going to be big fights kind of gets go on the extras.

00:22:04.000 By the way, it's a brilliant strategy by President Trump, might I add, because everyone's talking more about Elon than President Trump, and President Trump's able to kind of not be attacked for the first time in a decade.

00:22:15.000 It's pretty smart, right?

00:22:17.000 And Elon, I think, feeds off of it.

00:22:18.000 It's like a life force thing to him.

00:22:20.000 The whole thing is just phenomenal.

00:22:22.000 And so, but the reason they're fighting so hard on Doge and on what we are experiencing is we actually have a chance to do the thing that people thought that could never get done, which is we actually have a chance to reorient the ship back to the founders' intent, to restore the three branches of government, to articulate what Article II actually is.

00:22:48.000 And I think we have a shot at doing it.

00:22:50.000 Article 1 is the hardest because Congress is a disaster.

00:22:53.000 But I think the Supreme Court is actually willing to hear this out for the first time in a generation.

00:22:58.000 I think the Supreme Court is now willing to hear the arguments.

00:23:01.000 What do you mean you're an independent agency?

00:23:03.000 No, no, you're not an independent agency.

00:23:05.000 You serve under Article II.

00:23:07.000 And we've seen with some decisions, the Chevron deference decision, the EPA decision, the courts are signaling that they're ready for these monumental type cases.

00:23:16.000 And what that means, everybody, is that the administrative state leviathan, this regime that has been swallowing our freedom and liberty post-Woodrow Wilson, for the first time, we can reverse it.

00:23:29.000 We can go back to where we came from.

00:23:33.000 But it's not just going to happen because of one election.

00:23:35.000 It will only happen with a free citizenry demanding it out of your leaders with vocal support on a daily basis, educating the masses of what's really going on.

00:23:44.000 And I believe we have a shot at doing it because we're able to communicate to millions of people in a moment's notice without having to go through the Washington Post.

00:23:51.000 I'm able to open my phone right now.

00:23:53.000 I could tweet to millions of people or post something on Instagram or Facebook on any of the Guardians or the censors.

00:23:58.000 Elon Musk is able to do these X spaces at midnight where he's just rambling for a couple hours about all the things.

00:24:05.000 He's like going through documents, talking about all the waste that he found.

00:24:08.000 And literally, like 5 million people are listening to these things.

00:24:12.000 That's more than the CNN airport audiences for a decade.

00:24:22.000 And he just goes through this stuff because now we can go direct to consumer.

00:24:26.000 But let me clarify that.

00:24:27.000 We can go direct to citizen.

00:24:31.000 And that's the true revolution that's occurring, is that we are taking the bold and courageous move that is going to put a lot of people's lives and fortunes and sacred honors at risk to say, subject no more, citizen.

00:24:46.000 Because we have lived as subjects for the last couple of years.

00:24:50.000 Whether we realize that or not, we have not been citizens, which is co-rulers or co-authorities of our own nation.

00:24:57.000 And that's where the Trump thing gets way bigger than Trump.

00:25:00.000 And honestly, God bless this guy for being the man in the arena that Teddy Roosevelt has always talked about.

00:25:05.000 Having the courage and the stamina.

00:25:07.000 God bless him for not taking the deal where they said, you know, don't run for president, just being kingmaker, and doubling down, getting shot, his whole business empire nearly taken from him, and now getting into what is the most high-stakes fight constitutionally, morally, and civilizationally.

00:25:22.000 And you guys know this.

00:25:24.000 Europe is not going to save a free society.

00:25:25.000 Europe is gone.

00:25:26.000 It's a husk of its former self.

00:25:27.000 We've got the Chinese Communist Party rising up.

00:25:29.000 If it's not us, it's nobody.

00:25:31.000 As Dr. Arnett said, it is the last best hope.

00:25:34.000 And it's only us if we can actually win the domestic war first, if we can restrain this beast that has been slowly taking over every one of our ways of life over the last couple decades and especially the last 100 years.

00:25:50.000 And then I want to talk about one other thing about this, and then we could do, I think they said questions at some point, I don't know the format, is this, which is that I'm a big believer in God's providence over our nation.

00:26:02.000 I believe that God had his hand on Donald Trump, and I believe that God had his hand on this country.

00:26:06.000 I really believe that.

00:26:07.000 And I believe that, as the founders did, that there is a providential element to all of this.

00:26:15.000 And I remember after Donald Trump was displaced from office in the 2020 election, we were all like, is the country over?

00:26:24.000 And we believed through faith, as it says in Romans 8, 28, that God will use all things for good for those who love him, that maybe there is a plan here that we don't understand.

00:26:37.000 And I know a lot of you know this and few people say it publicly, but I think it's worthy of a teaching to our kids, especially, because we thought it was the worst thing.

00:26:45.000 But now we look back, we say, honestly, exile might have been really good for us.

00:26:49.000 Those four years off might have actually been grace, not judgment.

00:26:56.000 Like those four years where we weren't in control of everything actually made us stronger and tougher, made us have more resolve, made us find out what we're really made out of, made us shrink our ranks away from the people that were summer soldiers, that were sunshine patriots.

00:27:15.000 We told those people, go away, we'll call you back when everything's fixed.

00:27:19.000 I think President Trump in exile, when he faced the entire power of the federal government, became a stronger person.

00:27:28.000 And not just him, but his senior staff that was around him.

00:27:32.000 From Stephen Miller to Susie Wiles, this whole team.

00:27:36.000 They were around the table in Bedminster, New Jersey.

00:27:39.000 I was not there, but I know about it very, very intimately.

00:27:41.000 When President Donald Trump was joking and playing Phantom of the Opera, drinking Diet Coke, when all of a sudden his phone rang and they said, you're indicted.

00:27:51.000 And in that moment, I mean, it's never happened before in American history.

00:27:54.000 And then this avalanche of indictments came after that. 0.52

00:27:58.000 And Jack Smith launched, you know, the lunatic thing.

00:28:01.000 And his staff had a choice.

00:28:03.000 Do you jump ship or do you lean in?

00:28:05.000 I think that's a lesser appreciated element of all this, is the people that stood by him, his inner team.

00:28:10.000 Because people say, Charlie, how are they so well prepared for all of this?

00:28:14.000 Who is doing all this work?

00:28:16.000 Who's really in charge?

00:28:17.000 Trump's in charge, okay?

00:28:19.000 But he's empowered the people, his lieutenants, that were around him when he got that phone call in Benmerster, New Jersey.

00:28:25.000 He's empowered the people that were around him when his arraignment was read to him.

00:28:29.000 And he said, if we ever get power back, you know what to do.

00:28:34.000 You're going to listen to the voters, and we're going to go 10 out of 10 velocity right out of the gate.

00:28:38.000 What you are seeing is the pent up of an entire community of people, about a couple dozen people, that saw their boss get shot, that saw the president and our entire country, in my personal opinion, literally come millimeters away from the country disintegrating into chaos, oblivion, and discord.

00:28:56.000 I hate to say civil war, but I think we all know that it might have gone to that.

00:29:00.000 And it makes us really consider, as the history books are written, that, boy, the Democrats should have let us win in 2020.

00:29:12.000 That them doing what they did in the 2020 election, zucker boxes, mail-in ballots, might go down as one of the dumbest things the Democrat Party has ever done.

00:29:22.000 Because what they have to reap right now is a completely different conservative movement. 0.63

00:29:29.000 It is completely different.

00:29:30.000 It is 3.0.

00:29:32.000 It is one that plays to win.

00:29:34.000 It is one that is well staffed.

00:29:36.000 It is one that understands the odds and the stakes.

00:29:38.000 And we saw what we were up against.

00:29:40.000 We saw it intimately.

00:29:42.000 And we looked over the abyss and we said, no, thanks.

00:29:44.000 We're going to go back to restore this beautiful country that we love.

00:29:48.000 And that's where all of this comes together.

00:29:50.000 And I believe you guys have an obligation to continue to support Hillsdale College, to fight for a free society, because that's really where this is all going to be connected.

00:29:57.000 My role these next couple of years, I'm not going in government.

00:29:59.000 I have no role in the government.

00:30:01.000 I'm an advisor.

00:30:02.000 I'm a friend.

00:30:02.000 I'm a fighter.

00:30:03.000 I'm a warrior.

00:30:04.000 I'm going to keep on doing the grassroots movement with young people.

00:30:06.000 Most importantly, I'm going to keep on trying to keep people informed what's happening here so this thrust, this moment does not get lost.

00:30:13.000 Because this is a once-in-many lifetimes opportunity.

00:30:15.000 A moment to reclaim what has been given to us, that we did not earn, that we do not deserve, to get us back on the path of the divine providence that the founders talked about in our birth certificate, the Declaration of Independence.

00:30:29.000 And it's only possible, in my opinion, thanks to Hillsdale College and all the work that you guys do here.

00:30:36.000 We're honored to be partnering with Alan Jackson Ministries.

00:30:39.000 And today, I want to point you to their podcast.

00:30:42.000 It's called Culture in Christianity, the Allen Jackson Podcast.

00:30:46.000 What makes it unique is Pastor Allen's biblical perspective.

00:30:49.000 He takes the truth from the Bible and applies it to issues we're facing today: gender confusion, abortion, immigration, Doge, Trump in the White House, issues in the church.

00:30:58.000 He doesn't just discuss the problems.

00:31:00.000 In every episode, he gives practical things we can do to make a difference.

00:31:03.000 His guests have incredible expertise and powerful testimonies.

00:31:07.000 They've been great friends.

00:31:08.000 And now you can hear from Charlie in his own words.

00:31:10.000 Each episode will make you recognize the power of your faith and how God can use your life to impact our world today.

00:31:16.000 The Culture and Christianity podcast is informative and encouraging.

00:31:20.000 You could find it on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:31:23.000 Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes.

00:31:26.000 Alan Jackson Ministries is working hard to bring biblical truth back into our culture.

00:31:31.000 You can find out more about Pastor Allen and the ministry at alanjackson.com forward slash Charlie.

00:31:40.000 Thank you.

00:31:40.000 Thank you, everybody.

00:31:41.000 Okay, is the question's okay?

00:31:43.000 We have a format for that.

00:31:44.000 Great.

00:31:45.000 Thank you, Mr. Kirk.

00:31:46.000 We now have time for Q ⁇ A. If you have a question, please raise your hand and wait for a microphone to be brought to you.

00:31:54.000 Hi, Charlie.

00:31:55.000 My name is Owen Anderson.

00:31:56.000 I'm a professor at ASU, which you mentioned is the Harvard of the West.

00:32:00.000 Yeah.

00:32:02.000 I'd like to add the idea that these state universities are also part of that bureaucratic state.

00:32:08.000 And I'd like to ask for your help with ASU.

00:32:11.000 You've already done a great job.

00:32:13.000 By coming out and talking to our students, I think you changed the election.

00:32:16.000 But there's a lot more work to do.

00:32:18.000 Yes, there is.

00:32:19.000 And let's just kind of go in some of the details of what President Trump's going to try to do from the top down.

00:32:24.000 Number one, eliminate the Department of Education and get completely rid of it.

00:32:29.000 And it never should have existed.

00:32:33.000 It should not exist right now.

00:32:34.000 The second of which is you have to stop the flow of money.

00:32:37.000 This is where enforcement's going to come in.

00:32:39.000 Right now, I bet ASU is already in violation of President Trump's executive order.

00:32:44.000 Would you agree with that?

00:32:46.000 100%.

00:32:47.000 So now it's going to come down to an enforcement question where President Trump signed an executive order saying no taxpayer money is going to go to any school that teaches critical race theory, DEI, transgender ideology, which obviously ASU does, right? 0.90

00:32:59.000 They have entire departments dedicated to this.

00:33:02.000 And so it's now going to come into the enforcement of a couple test cases saying, no, you're not going to get federal money, Pell Grant money, research money, any subsidized student loans for that.

00:33:13.000 That's only going to solve it partially.

00:33:15.000 And this is why a free citizenry is so important, is we need to ask the question of these bloated state institutions, their financial model is actually completely corrupted if you take out subsidized student loans.

00:33:28.000 And the over-certification of what education has actually become, this is why Hillsdale is so important, is that Hillsdale refuses to scale to just be an ASU, 100,000 kids on campus, because then you lose what college actually is, which means partnership.

00:33:43.000 I can answer that question now, Dr. Ren, for the record.

00:33:45.000 It means partnership.

00:33:47.000 Because you lose that community.

00:33:49.000 And so, in my opinion, phase two and three needs to be an all-out campaign, understanding that these colleges have become massive, bloated bureaucracies in their own states, but also, even more importantly, they're training factories for the administrative state.

00:34:06.000 And two, they are Petri dishes for all the worst ideas that then metastasize into corporate America, law enforcement, military, so on and so forth.

00:34:17.000 And the other point I'll make is just, you go to Hillsdale College.

00:34:22.000 Do you notice how aesthetically beautiful it is?

00:34:25.000 It's a beautiful campus.

00:34:26.000 Did you know that in a lesser appreciated executive order, President Trump on day one signed an executive order saying build beautiful buildings again?

00:34:35.000 It was an executive order for all federal bureaucracies.

00:34:38.000 Now you can laugh, but I encourage you next time you're in DC to drive by the Department of Education.

00:34:46.000 It looks how it operates.

00:34:48.000 It looks like a drawer cabinet.

00:34:53.000 It looks like a file cabinet, I should say.

00:34:55.000 It doesn't point up.

00:34:57.000 There are no circles.

00:34:58.000 It's simply squares.

00:35:00.000 It looks like a place where widgets are made.

00:35:03.000 Because that's what they think education is.

00:35:06.000 They think you're just kind of a widget in a big system to serve the administrative machine.

00:35:10.000 Nothing to be glorified, nothing to wonder, nothing to pursue, no philosophy to contemplate.

00:35:18.000 But no, they look at themselves as carpenters.

00:35:22.000 Whereas Dr. Arnd would say, educators are more like gardeners, where you let the kid grow into what they can become.

00:35:28.000 Yes, next question.

00:35:32.000 Hi, Charlie.

00:35:33.000 I have a sophomore at Hillsdale.

00:35:36.000 And before I get to my question, I just have to tell you that we've been turning point supporters long before we were Hillsdale supporters.

00:35:46.000 About six or seven years ago, we saw you at University of Washington.

00:35:52.000 You were there with Anna Paulina Luna and Officer Tatum.

00:35:57.000 I remember that.

00:35:58.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:35:58.000 This was the part when they didn't shut you down, which I think they did recently.

00:36:03.000 Yes, that's right.

00:36:05.000 So I wanted to ask something about Trump's recent comments.

00:36:14.000 I mean, I totally understand the Gulf of America and where he's going with that.

00:36:19.000 And he's an incredible negotiator.

00:36:21.000 I mean, he's probably the most brilliant negotiator out there.

00:36:25.000 And I think a lot of things he does or says are negotiating tactics, but sometimes I get a little concerned.

00:36:32.000 So it's only been six weeks.

00:36:36.000 I know.

00:36:37.000 And so I just thought when it comes to like Canada being the 51st state.

00:36:43.000 Oh, no, he's definitely serious.

00:36:45.000 Okay.

00:36:46.000 And then I know you went to Greenland with Don Jr.

00:36:50.000 Even more serious.

00:36:51.000 Okay.

00:36:52.000 And my, yeah, I'll say my Danish relatives are not real happy about that.

00:36:58.000 And then this whole Gaza, like, take it. 0.95

00:37:02.000 I'm just saying, I trust him, but I'm getting some imperialistic.

00:37:10.000 You're super sweet.

00:37:12.000 Thank you.

00:37:12.000 So, no, no, I mean that.

00:37:13.000 That's great.

00:37:14.000 I hear that.

00:37:15.000 I'm not going to speak on behalf of the administration.

00:37:17.000 Canada, you know, we'll let that one be.

00:37:21.000 Gaza, I'm going to show my friend Josh Hammer.

00:37:23.000 Josh, you're speaking tomorrow about all this, right?

00:37:24.000 Israel and all that. 0.69

00:37:25.000 So I will yield to the expert.

00:37:27.000 Josh will handle that extensively.

00:37:29.000 Greenland, I will defend, actually, because I think Greenland makes a lot of sense for a lot of different reasons.

00:37:36.000 It has incredible rare earth natural mineral deposits.

00:37:41.000 It's geopolitically really situated.

00:37:42.000 China wants it.

00:37:43.000 Russia wants it.

00:37:44.000 And also, we've been trying to get Greenland for well over 100 years, actually 150 years.

00:37:49.000 And I could tell you, having visited Greenland with Don Jr., it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been in more ways than one.

00:37:57.000 I will just kind of caution any, if you're imperialistic, let me say this, is that President Trump is a deal maker.

00:38:03.000 He's a negotiator.

00:38:05.000 And you ask for the moon, and if you get Greenland in return, maybe the next national leadership seminar can be in Nook.

00:38:19.000 But go in July.

00:38:21.000 Don't go in January.

00:38:22.000 So, yes, ma'am.

00:38:24.000 Hi.

00:38:24.000 I'm another supporter from the slave state of Washington.

00:38:30.000 So what do you think the chances are that Trump will revoke the other earth-shaking executive order from JFK, the one that allowed government employees to unionize?

00:38:45.000 That is, so I actually don't have insight into that.

00:38:48.000 But let me first give Trump credit for revoking a separate executive order that I did not mention, which was verboten and untouchable.

00:38:57.000 My friend Jeremy Carl, who's written the best book on anti-white racism.

00:39:00.000 You're talking tomorrow, right, Jeremy?

00:39:02.000 He's amazing.

00:39:03.000 Which is that President Trump reversed the executive order requiring affirmative action for hiring practices in the federal government.

00:39:10.000 That one deserves incredible credit.

00:39:12.000 That took so much courage to do, and no one's talking about it because he's doing so much other stuff.

00:39:16.000 Understand that the affirmative action regime was never passed by Congress.

00:39:20.000 It was done by executive order saying that we're only going to hire in federal hiring practices based on skin color, not merit, because of executive order.

00:39:29.000 I can't speak on the unionization one.

00:39:31.000 I'd have to look more into that, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's being contemplated.

00:39:35.000 But if a president does it, a president can undo it, as you can see by USAID.

00:39:40.000 That was done by an executive order by JFK.

00:39:42.000 Why can't you just fold it into the State Department?

00:39:45.000 Okay, I think we have time for one or two more.

00:39:47.000 Charlie, I'm ready to run through a brick wall after the speech here.

00:39:51.000 So real quick, we're in Arizona, home to Intel, Microchip, some of the big tech companies.

00:39:58.000 What's your thought, if any, on onshore manufacturing?

00:40:02.000 What are some of the pain we're going to have to go through to bring some of this back?

00:40:06.000 Any thoughts or ideas on that?

00:40:08.000 Yeah, it's a good question.

00:40:09.000 I think that President Trump has alluded to this, and I think that the current economic nonsense that has been handed to us by the previous, let's just say, easy, cheap money regime, is that there might have to be a moment to take some cough syrup metaphorically, economically, before we can get to some wellness.

00:40:26.000 I mean, our economist friend doesn't think a soft landing is possible.

00:40:29.000 I'll let you guys debate that amongst yourselves.

00:40:33.000 However, I will say this, that President Trump using tariffs is getting a very, very bad rap in some financial circles or markets, but it's a forcing function to re-domicile labor and industry back to this country.

00:40:44.000 And in order to actually have a country, you have to make things, not just be a series of hedge funds in tech companies and import all your plastic from China.

00:40:55.000 And I'll give you just one example.

00:40:57.000 We don't make vitamin C in this country anymore.

00:41:00.000 We don't make our necessary pharmaceuticals in this country anymore.

00:41:03.000 You cease to be an independent, autonomous, sovereign country if you're dependent on a nation 5,000 miles away to be able to get basic goods and necessities.

00:41:12.000 So how much pain there will be, I don't know.

00:41:14.000 However, I will say there are a lot of major companies that are already talking about re-domiciling the production of their assets or their goods into the interior of the United States, which is then how you circumvent the tariff, is if you make it in the United States.

00:41:28.000 So, all right, last question.

00:41:31.000 Yes, ma'am.

00:41:31.000 We now have time for one more question.

00:41:34.000 Hi, Mr. Kirk.

00:41:35.000 Thank you for your speech tonight.

00:41:37.000 So I'm excited to hear about the youth, the 30 and under, and I'm glad we're playing offense.

00:41:45.000 What do you, if you could speak about the old guard, the Mitch McConnell's, the Paul Ryans?

00:41:52.000 I feel like they've gone quiet, and I'm a little worried about it.

00:41:56.000 Yeah. 0.61

00:41:57.000 You guys are a paranoid group. 0.84

00:41:59.000 Come on.

00:42:00.000 You're always looking for something.

00:42:01.000 I like it.

00:42:02.000 Look, there's a new generation that's rising in D.C.

00:42:05.000 And if that concerns you, I want to give you some comfort.

00:42:09.000 This next generation is the type of person that has the character of a Hillsdale College type student.

00:42:15.000 I want you to look at the type of person I'm talking about.

00:42:18.000 You have a press secretary that's 27 years old named Caroline Levitt, who's taking on the press every single day in an elegant and amazing way. 0.97

00:42:26.000 You got Stephen Miller, who's in his young 30s, running all the domestic policy and running the entire immigration department of the entire federal government.

00:42:34.000 You have a next generation of people.

00:42:37.000 JD Vance is the youngest vice president since Eisenhower and one of the youngest vice presidents in American history.

00:42:42.000 JD Vance is, I think, 40 or 41 years old.

00:42:45.000 I think he just turned 40, right?

00:42:47.000 He just turned 40.

00:42:48.000 And so this next generation of conservatives is operating with urgency and is taking over D.C. for the better.

00:42:56.000 The old guard is going to do everything they possibly can.

00:42:59.000 I mean, Mitch McConnell, I'll let you guys fill in the blanks.

00:43:02.000 I think it's very disappointing for this reason.

00:43:04.000 I have much stronger opinions on Mitch McConnell than what I'm about to say, but I'll give you one that is very agreeable.

00:43:12.000 It's very disappointing that Mitch McConnell for years would go around and preach to all of his Senate Republican colleagues, we must stick together.

00:43:24.000 We must stick together.

00:43:25.000 I need your vote.

00:43:27.000 We must stick together.

00:43:28.000 But now in circumstances where we need him to keep the conference the stick together, he's the odd mana.

00:43:37.000 And I think that tells us a lot about Mitch McConnell.

00:43:39.000 Okay, in closing, everybody, Hillsdale College is amazing.

00:43:43.000 You know that.

00:43:43.000 This is a fight for the most ultimate thing.

00:43:46.000 It's exciting.

00:43:47.000 We won in November.

00:43:49.000 We want to keep those victories going.

00:43:51.000 Thank you guys for your belief in our work at Turning Point and what we're doing at Hillsdale College.

00:43:56.000 Honor to be here.

00:43:57.000 Thank you guys so much.

00:43:58.000 God bless you.

00:43:58.000 Thank you.

The Charlie Kirk Show - March 01, 2026

Speeches From The Archive- Charlie at Hillsdale’s College National Leadership Seminar

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