The Charlie Kirk Show - Speeches From the Archive- Charlie’s 2017 Speech at The University of Illinois

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 I love it.

00:01:13.000 Hello, everyone.

00:01:14.000 Thank you for coming tonight.

00:01:16.000 I heard there were some characters outside, so that's always fun.

00:01:20.000 So we're going to have some fun tonight.

00:01:22.000 I would love to just talk a little bit about what our organization, Turning Point USA, is doing on college campuses across the country, the values that we hold near and dear, some things that I feel personally, and I'll disclaim those before I mention them.

00:01:36.000 But also, I want to hear questions.

00:01:38.000 I want to hear comments, disagreements.

00:01:40.000 Come ready with facts.

00:01:42.000 You've been warned.

00:01:43.000 But I want to have some dialogue.

00:01:44.000 I want to hear what's going on on campus right here at University of Illinois.

00:01:48.000 But these ideas that we're talking about, first and foremost, whether you agree or disagree, it's so important to be able to fight for free speech on campus today, which I've been a pretty vocal critic of college campuses, if you follow me closely enough.

00:02:02.000 If you look at what's happening at UC Berkeley, Middlebury College, speakers such as myself shouted down, stages being stormed.

00:02:11.000 Conservative ideas are really having a difficult time being heard on college campuses.

00:02:16.000 But that's why I'm glad to be here tonight in a hopefully very peaceful, respectful environment to discuss these ideas, why we believe them, and hear your thoughts and your opinions in return.

00:02:27.000 So I'm going to go through a series of these, and you can clap, you can boo, you can cheer, you can disagree.

00:02:32.000 There's about eight.

00:02:34.000 A couple I only have my personal opinion of, some that our organization holds near and dear.

00:02:39.000 So the first one, this is something that Turning Point USA talks a lot about, something that we believe near and dear to our heart.

00:02:45.000 America is the greatest country in the history of the world.

00:02:47.000 Right?

00:02:57.000 Very good.

00:02:58.000 So we talk a lot about this, and I'm going to detail why.

00:03:01.000 America is the greatest country in the history of the world.

00:03:03.000 First and foremost, it was the first country ever to be founded on an idea, not on a racial background, not on ethnocentrism, not on any sort of lineage, but an idea, an idea very simple.

00:03:14.000 An idea that we do not get our rights from government, but we get our rights naturally, whether it be from a creator or from God or from some super, supernatural being.

00:03:22.000 So America is the greatest country in the world for a couple reasons.

00:03:24.000 Number one, our diversity.

00:03:25.000 I'll talk about that.

00:03:26.000 Our economic power, our generosity, and our upward mobility.

00:03:29.000 Let's go one by one.

00:03:30.000 You know, I talk a lot about this, and people say, Charlie, America is an institutionally racist country.

00:03:30.000 Our diversity.

00:03:35.000 And I respond, yes, we absolutely have a history of racism in this country.

00:03:39.000 That's bitter.

00:03:40.000 We need to fight it every single term.

00:03:41.000 We need to fight it when we see it in the streets.

00:03:43.000 We need to find it, fight it when we see it on TV.

00:03:45.000 Totally agree with that.

00:03:46.000 But I would make a compelling argument that America is actually the least racist country in the world.

00:03:50.000 We're the most ethnically diverse, religiously diverse country in the world.

00:03:55.000 We take more immigrants into our country on a multiple than any other country around the world.

00:04:01.000 The next closest country that takes anywhere near as many immigrants just recently would be Germany, France, Spain, and some of the Western democracies in Europe.

00:04:10.000 Now, you talk some statistics about it.

00:04:12.000 America for the last 100, 150 years has been a country that has embraced not any sort of national state-run religion, not sort of any sort of central ideology, but an idea that you can come here with nothing and you can take risks and you can succeed.

00:04:31.000 So it's because of our diversity.

00:04:32.000 And only in this country, someone want to name another country where you have leaders in government, in culture, in business that are Asian Americans, African Americans, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, atheist.

00:04:44.000 No other country has that sort of viewpoint diversity.

00:04:47.000 No other country has that sort of religious diversity.

00:04:50.000 And that is something that should be applauded.

00:04:51.000 But it's not just racial diversity, that is ethnic diversity, but it's also ideological diversity.

00:04:56.000 In this country, we've always had very vocal debates over political differences, over differences of how to solve ideas.

00:05:04.000 We're an incredibly ideologically diverse country and a geographically diverse country too.

00:05:09.000 Whether people in Texas don't always agree with people in New York and California for some reasons, some bad reasons.

00:05:14.000 So the second one is our economic strength.

00:05:16.000 No other country in the history of the world has been able to deliver the economic output of the United States of America in such a short period of time.

00:05:23.000 And I would argue it's mostly because of our embracing of free enterprise principles and our rejection of socialist ideas.

00:05:29.000 So since our inception in 1776, the same year that Adam Smith wrote the inquiry into the wealth of nations, we have seen one of the greatest success stories of economics, the greatest success stories of economics in human history.

00:05:44.000 We have seen more people lifted out of poverty, the greatest standard of living increase known to man.

00:05:48.000 And basically every country that's ever succeeded, even marginally, has copied our policies of individual property rights, individual initiative, free enterprise, so on and so forth.

00:05:58.000 We have 5% of the world's population here in this country, 5% of the world's population, yet we create over 65% of the world's wealth.

00:06:05.000 We have 75 out of 100 of the world's most valuable companies, and we have the greatest economic output of any engine.

00:06:12.000 As the expression goes, the world goes as America goes, and that's because we have created the largest economic engine.

00:06:17.000 It's not because we have social programs or that we distribute the most amount of goods and services.

00:06:23.000 The reason, not because of our population either, India has a billion people, has 1.3 billion people.

00:06:28.000 China has a billion people.

00:06:29.000 We have double the GDP of China.

00:06:30.000 Russia has more natural resources than America.

00:06:32.000 The reason America's the greatest economic country in the history of the world is because still to this day, we're losing it a little bit.

00:06:38.000 We embrace free enterprise.

00:06:39.000 We embrace the idea that you can come here with nothing.

00:06:41.000 In a short period of time, you can work your way up the ladder, what is called the American dream.

00:06:46.000 Some people will disagree with that, but I believe the American dream should be protected.

00:06:51.000 You can come here with nothing, risk everything, and create an amazing amount of wealth for yourself and other people in return.

00:06:57.000 The third reason why America is the greatest country in the history of the world is generosity.

00:07:01.000 And I'm going to break generosity into two different components.

00:07:03.000 Generosity domestically and generosity internationally.

00:07:07.000 So America by far is the most generous country in the history of the world by how we give just donations to international relief organizations, how we give to churches, to synagogues, to mosques, to local hospitals.

00:07:19.000 Voluntarily last year, America gave over $580 billion voluntarily to charity.

00:07:24.000 To put that in perspective, that's the GDP of about 13 African countries combined that people gave voluntarily to charity last year.

00:07:32.000 We are by far per capita the most willing to give away our own resources, time, energy, and money away to causes that we believe in.

00:07:40.000 We're by far the most economically generous.

00:07:42.000 But we're also generous in another way that I think gets widely misrepresented on college campuses and gets widely misrepresented by the media.

00:07:48.000 We're also generous and we step up when the world is in need.

00:07:52.000 Great example is the Korean War. 0.68

00:07:54.000 The Korean War, you saw the march of totalitarian communism on the Korean Peninsula.

00:08:00.000 Only but the United States sent our own men and women to die.

00:08:04.000 50,000 Americans died for the creation of a free society known as South Korea.

00:08:08.000 If it wasn't for our ability to intervene on the Korean peninsula, we would not have seen a free society such as South Korea be created versus a totalitarian state of North Korea.

00:08:18.000 The final reason why America is the greatest country in the history of the world is upward mobility.

00:08:21.000 We still have what I believe is a meritocracy.

00:08:24.000 If you make good decisions in this country, you are almost guaranteed, almost statistically guaranteed to stay out of institutional and perpetual poverty.

00:08:31.000 Those three decisions are this.

00:08:32.000 To quote my favorite conservative thinker, Ben Shapiro, I see some people smiling right there.

00:08:36.000 You know, if you do these three things, you're almost assured to stay out of poverty in this country.

00:08:40.000 Not every country can brag this.

00:08:42.000 The three things are this: graduate from high school, get married before you have kids, and get a job.

00:08:47.000 You do those three things, you're almost assured to stay out of perpetual and institutional poverty in this country.

00:08:52.000 So essentially, we still are a country that embraces this idea of making good choices.

00:08:56.000 That also means that, yeah, if you make bad choices, you're going to live not as good a life.

00:09:00.000 But thankfully, thanks to what I mentioned earlier, being the most generous country in the history of the world, we have the most diverse and deep charitable network to help people that really are at need, whether it be churches, mosques, synagogues, and local community organizations.

00:09:14.000 We are still an upwardly mobile society.

00:09:16.000 I'm afraid we're losing part of that, but there is a reason why there are hundreds of millions of applications to come into this country.

00:09:23.000 There's a reason for that.

00:09:24.000 It's because people around the world still look to America as what Ronald Reagan called the city on the hill, as the last beacon, the last great hope for freedom in this world.

00:09:32.000 And you know what?

00:09:32.000 Some people don't embrace that.

00:09:33.000 Some people say, I think we should be more egalitarian.

00:09:36.000 We should be more equal.

00:09:37.000 We'll have a conversation about that.

00:09:38.000 If that's the most important thing in the world, there's other countries that embrace that model, I would say, rather unsuccessfully.

00:09:44.000 But this country is about being able to start with nothing, achieve your dreams, don't throw rocks at the top of the building, fix the elevator.

00:09:50.000 Being socially and economically mobile is what makes this country unique and great.

00:09:56.000 We're honored to be partnering with Alan Jackson Ministries.

00:09:59.000 And today, I want to point you to their podcast.

00:10:01.000 It's called Culture in Christianity, the Alan Jackson Podcast.

00:10:05.000 What makes it unique is Pastor Allen's biblical perspective.

00:10:09.000 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.

00:10:17.000 He doesn't just discuss the problems.

00:10:19.000 In every episode, he gives practical things we can do to make a difference.

00:10:23.000 His guests have incredible expertise and powerful testimonies.

00:10:26.000 They've been great friends.

00:10:28.000 And now you can hear from Charlie in his own words.

00:10:30.000 Each episode will make you recognize the power of your faith and how God can use your life to impact our world today.

00:10:36.000 The Culture and Christianity podcast is informative and encouraging.

00:10:40.000 You could find it on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:10:43.000 Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes.

00:10:45.000 Alan Jackson Ministries is working hard to bring biblical truth back into our culture.

00:10:50.000 You can find out more about Pastor Allen and the ministry at alanjackson.com forward slash Charlie.

00:10:58.000 So the second thing, the Constitution is the greatest political document ever written and met.

00:11:02.000 What do you think?

00:11:03.000 Bad?

00:11:03.000 Good?

00:11:04.000 Okay.

00:11:06.000 By men, I can say. 0.54

00:11:10.000 Without getting into too deep of a discussion about this, the Constitution was the first political document institutionalized in government that protected what we like to call natural rights.

00:11:20.000 So we can go through the amendments one by one, but the founders, in their absolute and total genius, studied human history.

00:11:27.000 They studied the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the successes of the British Empire.

00:11:30.000 They studied Metz, they studied Mesopotamia, they studied the Ottoman Empire, and they saw some commonalities.

00:11:35.000 They actually saw no matter where you are in the world, certain things do not change.

00:11:39.000 Absolute power corrupts absolutely, that the diffusion of power and representation in government is incredibly important to represent.

00:11:45.000 But also that if you give too much power to a centralized government without people having the ability to have a check and balance on that, then you're going to have a big problem.

00:11:54.000 So of course they designed the three branches of government that we know today, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial branch.

00:11:59.000 And each one of them have a check and balance on the other.

00:12:01.000 You can't get in the judicial unless you're originally nominated by the executive and approved by the legislative.

00:12:07.000 The people who are in the legislative were chosen by all of you in two different capacities, whether it be on the Senate side or the House side.

00:12:14.000 And of course, the executive is chosen through an electoral college vote.

00:12:18.000 The Constitution, if you look through the original Bill of Rights, why did the founders put every single one of those amendments in?

00:12:24.000 First Amendment, be able to say what you want to say when you want to say it, as long as it doesn't harm someone else.

00:12:28.000 An absolutely revolutionary concept when they drafted the Constitution.

00:12:31.000 No other civilization before that protected and enumerated in their political document the ability to express yourself.

00:12:37.000 The Second Amendment, we'll get into that in a second. 0.96

00:12:39.000 Under a lot of heat right now, a lot of misrepresentation.

00:12:41.000 Look forward to having a discussion on that.

00:12:43.000 But you have to be able to protect your rights.

00:12:44.000 Not only protect your rights on an individual basis, but protect your rights against a usurptatious government, which if you read history in the last 100 years, it's riddled with governments that get too much power and invade on our rights.

00:12:54.000 The Fourth Amendment, the ability to not have government invade your stuff without a warrant, essentially protect against a too powerful government.

00:13:00.000 Do you see a trend here?

00:13:01.000 Almost all the amendments that they enumerated in the original draft of the Constitution was to prevent government from being able to tell us how to live our life.

00:13:08.000 And that's, again, what makes America so unique.

00:13:10.000 Finally, you can go to the Fifth Amendment, the right to representation and the right to due process.

00:13:14.000 And the 10th Amendment, which is my favorite amendment, which is, we actually probably didn't figure out everything.

00:13:19.000 Times are going to change.

00:13:20.000 But we are going to leave the things not enumerated in the Constitution to the people and to the states.

00:13:25.000 It shows the humility and it shows the foresight of the founding fathers to be able to put that in the Constitution.

00:13:30.000 Here's the next one.

00:13:31.000 This will definitely get some response.

00:13:33.000 Free enterprise capitalism is the most moral, effective, and assured way to guarantee poverty, elimination, and prosperity for all.

00:13:45.000 I can start to see a couple people getting a little triggered.

00:13:50.000 I appreciate you silently and respectfully enduring this because I'm a big proponent of being able to hear something and disagree with.

00:13:57.000 So in short, let's define first what free enterprise capitalism is, because I think it gets a horrible misrepresentation both by academics and in the media.

00:14:07.000 So free enterprise capitalism at its core is the belief that I can sell what I want to sell, buy what I want to buy, not without government coercing itself into those transactions.

00:14:17.000 It's the belief that value is traded for value.

00:14:19.000 It's the belief that people get equally richer when trade happens, that trade is a good thing.

00:14:23.000 It's the belief in the price system.

00:14:25.000 It's the belief in profit.

00:14:26.000 And it's the belief in private property rights.

00:14:29.000 It's the three P's. 0.92

00:14:30.000 Price system, private property rights, and profit.

00:14:33.000 And you know what else is a belief in?

00:14:34.000 It's the belief in losses.

00:14:35.000 That when you take a risk and you lose, you should not be bailed out by government.

00:14:38.000 You should not be incentivized one way or the other.

00:14:40.000 Prices actually matter.

00:14:41.000 That prices indicate something to us.

00:14:43.000 If something costs too much or something costs too little, it's either the consumer or the buyer telling us something about that product, and people make appropriate choices as they see fit.

00:14:52.000 If you look at the World Economic Freedom Index, which I conveniently have with me, you look at the countries with the highest amount of economic freedom by total correlation, I would argue, and causation, would have the highest amount of economic freedom, also have the highest GDP per capita.

00:15:07.000 Even the countries that are the self-professed socialist experiments of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland are on the higher end of economic freedom.

00:15:15.000 As economic freedom continues to deteriorate, you start to see people have less ability to make choices, own property, and government make decisions for them.

00:15:23.000 Look no further than the failed socialist experiment of Venezuela just five years ago.

00:15:28.000 That country was being heralded by none other than Bernie Sanders and Michael Moore, by the wonderful ability to provide everyone health care.

00:15:35.000 Venezuela now has 700% inflation.

00:15:38.000 They're eating zoo animals because they're starving in the streets.

00:15:41.000 They're on the brink of civil war.

00:15:42.000 They're anything but democratic or equally represented.

00:15:45.000 That is democratic socialism in a nutshell.

00:15:47.000 They're just about last on the Economic Freedom Index.

00:15:50.000 As you get higher and higher on the ability to preserve people's ability, to preserve people's right, I would say, to buy what they want to buy and sell what they want to sell as long as I'm not harming someone else, the basic non-aggression principle that is embedded in free market capitalism.

00:16:04.000 It has shown right now, despite what you might think, world poverty is at an all-time low.

00:16:09.000 We have never seen world poverty as low as it is today.

00:16:12.000 Less than 10% of the world's population lives in extreme poverty.

00:16:15.000 Do we have a lot of work to do?

00:16:16.000 Absolutely yes.

00:16:17.000 There's 1.3 billion people that live in India.

00:16:20.000 600 million of them don't have toilets.

00:16:23.000 I'm not saying poverty is gone.

00:16:24.000 I'm not saying poverty is not an issue.

00:16:26.000 I'm saying the best way to address poverty is not give out a bunch of money, not to say we need to have block grants of billions of dollars of third world countries.

00:16:33.000 Instead, have people trade value to people.

00:16:36.000 Value for value.

00:16:37.000 Trade is the most assured way to lift the most amount of people out of poverty in the quickest possible way.

00:16:43.000 The next one, oh, this one's going to be fun, fun, fun.

00:16:46.000 The gender wage gap is a total and complete lie. 0.87

00:16:49.000 How about that?

00:16:51.000 So it's.

00:16:59.000 I see these statistics.

00:17:01.000 You keep going.

00:17:01.000 You keep applauding.

00:17:02.000 I love it.

00:17:08.000 So I hear all the time, and I want to be as respectful as I can to those that disagree with me, but there is a movement, the 77 cents on the dollar movement, right?

00:17:17.000 That women earn 77 cents on the dollar than a man makes. 0.98

00:17:21.000 And on its surface, that statistic is not untrue, but incredibly deceiving and not taking into effect how long those women have been in the workplace, education, and other work experiences.

00:17:31.000 So breaking it down first and foremost using a more, I would say, appropriate economic index, and then actually reciting some statistics that I think will really surprise all of you.

00:17:42.000 It surprised me when I saw.

00:17:43.000 So first and foremost, when you take into account men and women equally that studied the same major, were in the workforce at the same period of time and had a similar trajectory in their own job, the wage gap nearly disappears.

00:17:54.000 It nearly disappears.

00:17:55.000 In fact, women earn more than men. 0.80

00:17:56.000 Let me recite some statistics to you.

00:17:58.000 Recently, college graduate women from the ages of 22 to 26 in Atlanta, Memphis, New York, and San Diego, in Atlanta, women earn 21% more than men under the age of 25 in Atlanta.

00:18:10.000 In Memphis, women earn 20% more than men under the age of 30.

00:18:14.000 In New York, women earn 17% more than men under the age of 28. 0.96

00:18:18.000 In San Diego, women earn 15% more than men under the age of 27. 0.61

00:18:21.000 Do you see a trend here?

00:18:22.000 That actually we have more women than ever going to college. 1.00

00:18:25.000 60% of all college graduates are women.

00:18:28.000 That's a good thing, right?

00:18:29.000 We should applaud that, right?

00:18:30.000 Isn't that a good thing?

00:18:31.000 Because of that, we're seeing a near obliteration of this idea that we need a government bureaucracy and a government mandate to eliminate gender-based wage discrimination.

00:18:41.000 Look no further than our organization, Turning Point USA.

00:18:43.000 I'll use a micro example.

00:18:45.000 No one told me to hire women. 1.00

00:18:46.000 No one told me to hire men.

00:18:48.000 Yet we have more women that work for us than men, and the women that work for us earn more than men. 1.00

00:18:51.000 What a concept.

00:18:52.000 It's because they're really good at what they do, and women are better than men in certain things, and men are better than women at certain things.

00:18:58.000 Yes, I will say that again.

00:18:59.000 Women are better than men at certain things, and men are better than women in certain things. 0.99

00:19:03.000 And I think that's an okay thing to say.

00:19:07.000 At the U.S. average, found, this is a study, you can check it out yourself, by NPR.

00:19:11.000 Now, NPR is not exactly a conservative think tank, folks, okay?

00:19:14.000 NPR, that recent college graduate women earn 8% more than recent college graduate men as of February 1st of this last year.

00:19:23.000 So you're seeing the gender wage pay gap absolutely disappear for recent college graduates.

00:19:28.000 In fact, isn't there, there is a wage gap in favor of women. 1.00

00:19:31.000 I have no problem with that because it's happening in a market-based way, because I do believe, again, that women are better than men at certain professions. 0.88

00:19:36.000 And we have to let the market sort it out, as predicted, women will outearn men without government having to mandate it. 1.00

00:19:42.000 might say, Charlie, but what about employers that intentionally discriminate against women? 1.00

00:19:48.000 Well, there's actually a law that's already been passed.

00:19:49.000 It was signed into law by John F. Kennedy in 1963, which is illegal to pay a woman or pay a man less work for equal work for a profession.

00:19:58.000 So if you know an instance where that's happening, you should report them to the Better Business Bureau or report them to the Department of Labor.

00:20:04.000 What the statistic and the lie that is built around this is that there's this institutional sexism built into business, which is wrong.

00:20:12.000 It's false.

00:20:13.000 It's built on bad statistics.

00:20:13.000 It's wrong.

00:20:15.000 You can see women are actually out earning men that are recently graduating college.

00:20:18.000 That is a wage gap, but in the wrong direction.

00:20:23.000 We're honored to be partnering with Alan Jackson Ministries.

00:20:25.000 And today, I want to point you to their podcast.

00:20:28.000 It's called Culture in Christianity, the Allen Jackson Podcast.

00:20:32.000 What makes it unique is Pastor Allen's biblical perspective.

00:20:35.000 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.

00:20:44.000 He doesn't just discuss the problems.

00:20:46.000 In every episode, he gives practical things we can do to make a difference.

00:20:49.000 His guests have incredible expertise and powerful testimonies.

00:20:53.000 They've been great friends.

00:20:54.000 And now you can hear from Charlie in his own words.

00:20:56.000 Each episode will make you recognize the power of your faith and how God can use your life to impact our world today.

00:21:03.000 The Culture and Christianity podcast is informative and encouraging.

00:21:06.000 You could find it on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:21:10.000 Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes.

00:21:12.000 Alan Jackson Ministries is working hard to bring biblical truth back into our culture.

00:21:17.000 You can find out more about Pastor Allen and the ministry at alanjackson.com forward slash Charlie.

00:21:25.000 The next one.

00:21:26.000 Oh, this one's going to be too much fun.

00:21:28.000 White privilege is a divisive data-skewed campaign built on lies. 0.78

00:21:32.000 How about that? 0.96

00:21:35.000 White privilege.

00:21:36.000 White privilege.

00:21:36.000 I love this one.

00:21:39.000 Now, while recognizing, of course, everyone has a certain element of privilege in your ability to think, your size, your background, income, this idea that every person that has white skin has an institutional advantage and has a thing called white privilege, which I'm sure you've all heard once or twice throughout your college years, is wrong.

00:21:59.000 It's built on bad data, and I think it's incredibly divisive.

00:22:02.000 So I asked someone the other day, they said, you know, white privilege is a horrible thing. 0.91

00:22:07.000 White people are much better off than people of minority and color. 1.00

00:22:11.000 And so a couple things.

00:22:12.000 First of all, anyone want to guess what the richest sub-racial group in America is right now?

00:22:17.000 It's not white people, it's Asian Americans.

00:22:19.000 And that actually goes back to why the Constitution is the greatest political document ever written by man.

00:22:23.000 The Constitution was not written in Korean, okay?

00:22:26.000 It was written in English.

00:22:27.000 Essentially, it means that anyone can succeed in this country.

00:22:31.000 Asian Americans came here mostly fleeing communism and socialism in the late 1930s, early 1940s.

00:22:37.000 We did not treat Asian Americans very well. 1.00

00:22:39.000 In fact, we should be ashamed of our history of our treatment of Asian Americans in the 1940s.

00:22:43.000 We built internment camps. 0.99

00:22:44.000 We violated their constitutional rights.

00:22:46.000 Despite all that, they rose past horrible oppression, graduated high school in record rates, built businesses all throughout the West Coast, grew and grew and grew as a portion of the population.

00:22:58.000 They are now the richest per capita racial group in the country.

00:23:02.000 I have no problem with that at all.

00:23:03.000 I think that's actually a great thing.

00:23:04.000 I think it embodies meritocracy, which makes this country so unique and so great.

00:23:08.000 But this idea of white privilege, so I had this discussion the other day, and this might sound a little aggressive, but so apologize in advance.

00:23:14.000 But this guy said, all white people are very privileged.

00:23:16.000 I said, all white people. 0.93

00:23:17.000 Do you really want to stand behind that?

00:23:19.000 I said, and I challenged a couple of statistics, which were too easy, that there's twice as many white people living in poverty than black people, but that's not a percentage of population.

00:23:25.000 So it's a little bit of a deceiving statistic, admittedly, that black people live in a lot worse poverty conditions per portion of their population.

00:23:32.000 So I even self-dismissed that statistic.

00:23:34.000 But I asked, I said, a very innocent question.

00:23:36.000 I said, would you consider Jewish people to be white?

00:23:38.000 And he said, yes, absolutely.

00:23:40.000 I said, do you think they had a good 20th century?

00:23:41.000 Do you think they lived a privileged life in the last hundred years?

00:23:44.000 And he was stammering.

00:23:45.000 And that's the point is that, unfortunately, Jewish people in particular are categorized as white.

00:23:50.000 I wouldn't necessarily think that they have some sort of inherent privilege.

00:23:53.000 In fact, there was an extermination order against them throughout all of Europe.

00:23:56.000 They were drove out of their houses by thousands of miles, and millions of them led to their grave.

00:24:01.000 That's not to say that they should get any more preferential treatment than any other group.

00:24:04.000 There's been horrible atrocities committed throughout the 20th century.

00:24:07.000 I wouldn't consider them to be a privileged class.

00:24:09.000 I don't think that they're boring with a certain amount of institutional privilege more so than any other group.

00:24:14.000 Now, if any of you disagree, I would love to hear that about how you believe there's institutional racism throughout our country, and we can have a discussion on that.

00:24:21.000 I'm curious what your experience is.

00:24:24.000 Such as like where I started this?

00:24:31.000 Yeah, where you went to employ yourself up by your bootstraps?

00:24:34.000 I went to high school, decided not to go to college, self-funded an organization, successfully raised $10 million in the last two years, employ 150 people, became a best-selling offer, the youngest speaker at the Republican National Convention, worked for the successful campaign of President Trump, was a member of the presidential transition team.

00:24:52.000 I think I'm doing okay.

00:24:56.000 But, yeah, did I, was it all because of me?

00:24:59.000 No, it wasn't.

00:25:00.000 But I'm sorry?

00:25:03.000 My father's an architect.

00:25:04.000 My mom is a mental health psychiatrist.

00:25:06.000 I lived an above-average privileged life.

00:25:10.000 I raised it from 6,000 donors in 50 states going to different events, different people that found our initiative and our effort worthwhile.

00:25:20.000 I don't receive Koch brother money because that's a question I could just hear coming out of the left of my ear from over there.

00:25:25.000 But it's from patriots across the country that had successful businesses liquidated effectively.

00:25:31.000 They say, here's an effort that's actually mobilizing and educating young people around values that I care about.

00:25:36.000 Was it all because of me?

00:25:37.000 People believed in me.

00:25:37.000 No.

00:25:38.000 People invested in me.

00:25:39.000 But I know a lot of people that went to the same high school I did, that grew up with a lot more money, that are bankrupt, have student loans up the wazoo, and are living a pretty less than desirable life.

00:25:49.000 If you want to use me as a poster child for privilege, go ahead.

00:25:52.000 I've made good choices.

00:25:53.000 I've employed over 500 people in the last five years.

00:25:55.000 I'm proud of that.

00:25:56.000 People have jobs because I took a risk.

00:25:58.000 Great.

00:25:59.000 But that's not, I think, an effective argument to argue institutional privilege.

00:26:06.000 It's been, I think meritocracy exists, and I think I'm an embodiment of it.

00:26:09.000 So I appreciate the kind interruption.

00:26:11.000 So thank you.

00:26:14.000 It's good.

00:26:14.000 No, it's good.

00:26:15.000 We'll have questions in a little bit.

00:26:16.000 Thank you, though.

00:26:17.000 So here's the next one that's kind of aggressive, but actually, I think this will get widespread support.

00:26:22.000 College should be only three years and it is way too expensive.

00:26:25.000 You are all getting ripped off.

00:26:26.000 So there we go.

00:26:31.000 I always get the most amount of applause for that one, right?

00:26:33.000 Now, again, I will admit, I did not go to college.

00:26:36.000 70% of Americans did not go to college.

00:26:38.000 The biggest attack I get against me is Charlie, you don't know what you're talking about because you don't have a four-year degree.

00:26:42.000 If you are going to encapsulate yourself and only listen to people that have doctorates or master's degrees, then I'm sorry because there's a lot of wisdom in plumbers, electricians, and mainstream America, people that did not go through the four-year traditional route.

00:26:53.000 If I had a college degree and I was saying everything I said today, you wouldn't say that.

00:26:57.000 So it completely invalidates any sort of line of attack.

00:26:59.000 I will say this.

00:27:00.000 College, as we know it today, both Republicans and Democrats have created a system that benefits the administration, benefits the endowment board, and does not benefit students.

00:27:11.000 Most modernized countries, including Germany, France, Spain, Greece, Sea, I'm actually using a Bernie Sanders tactic here, talk about Europe.

00:27:18.000 Most modernized countries do college in three years, not four.

00:27:22.000 How many of you took a class that you probably felt was redundant or you didn't want to pay for it, but it was forced upon you?

00:27:26.000 Almost all of you, right?

00:27:27.000 How many of you had professors that you felt should be fired?

00:27:29.000 Almost all of you.

00:27:30.000 How many of you had high school teachers you felt should be fired?

00:27:32.000 All this.

00:27:33.000 The point being is that it's no longer about individual choice.

00:27:36.000 It's like you must take these four years of school or else you're not going to be successful in the world.

00:27:40.000 So I make the compelling argument that college should be much closer to the German model, which is three years. 0.83

00:27:45.000 College should not be about life exploration.

00:27:47.000 It should be about career preparation.

00:27:50.000 College should be about what am I going to get out of this, not because I have to go.

00:27:53.000 The number one question that we ask our high school seniors is not why are you going to college?

00:27:58.000 We ask where are you going to college?

00:27:59.000 We've created a cultural expectation to go to college.

00:28:03.000 The national graduation rate from college is 59%.

00:28:06.000 It's much higher at this nice university, but that means 41% of students that enter four-year college will not graduate.

00:28:13.000 That tells me we have way too many people going to college and that college is not doing a great job of self-selling themselves.

00:28:19.000 Anyway, college should only be three years.

00:28:21.000 It's way too expensive, subsidized by the federal government.

00:28:23.000 We could talk long, long about that.

00:28:25.000 I can already start to hear complaints and comments on that one.

00:28:28.000 So two more, and then we're going to have a discussion where we bring the microphones in the aisle, and then we're just going to be able to have question and answer throughout the entire time.

00:28:35.000 This one is my own personal opinion, not that of Turning Point USA.

00:28:38.000 I'm not going to expound on it too much, but if you'd like to challenge me, please go ahead.

00:28:42.000 It might be the most controversial, least controversial, the greatest agreement, or least agreement.

00:28:46.000 Three words that I believe to be true.

00:28:48.000 God is real.

00:28:49.000 Those are my three words.

00:28:49.000 Okay?

00:28:51.000 So I say this for a reason.

00:28:56.000 I find the rise of atheism in this country to be curious and to be something I find to be alarming, because I believe that as a culture starts to embrace atheism, not agnosticism.

00:29:06.000 Let me separate the two.

00:29:07.000 I think agnosticism is a perfectly respectable intellectual belief.

00:29:10.000 It means I'm still curious and searching for the truth.

00:29:13.000 The problem with atheism that I personally have is that it's so certain.

00:29:16.000 It's that I have come to the irrefutable conclusion that there is not a God and that I am atheist, that I believe that there is no God.

00:29:24.000 So I hold the belief that God is real, whether you're Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, or Jew makes no difference to me, or you could be agnostic.

00:29:31.000 But I believe firmly that the rise of atheism in this country, and it is rising quickly, I think something like 13% of millennials self-identify as atheists, is disturbing and something that I think should be challenged respectfully in a forum such as this.

00:29:44.000 Finally, my favorite one, and then we'll get to questions.

00:29:48.000 Socialism is evil, wrong, and ineffective, and must be stopped at every turn here in this moment. 0.99

00:30:00.000 So we say socialism sucks, and we believe it. 0.99

00:30:04.000 Let's define socialism. 0.87

00:30:06.000 Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, which people throw at me all the time, again, have more capitalist tendencies at times than the United States, despite having a very, very high tax rate.

00:30:16.000 They have no national military.

00:30:18.000 I talk more about what I would consider people that go all in for socialism, or countries that are very, very low on the World Economic Freedom Index, such as Venezuela, such as Argentina, such as Brazil, which is slipping quickly.

00:30:30.000 But you can also look at the failed socialist experiments of Portugal, of Spain, of Italy, of Greece that have bankrupted their country, that have double-digit unemployment, near 40% unemployment, youth unemployment in Spain.

00:30:43.000 And my favorite example, which is Cuba, not my favorite, I shouldn't say.

00:30:46.000 One of my favorite examples, which is Cuba, which has wholeheartedly gone all in to the communist tradition and has suppressed human rights for over 60 years, has seen little to no economic progress compared to that of comparable Western countries and is an absolute failed socialist disaster.

00:31:03.000 But even more than that, you look at the body count of those people that have under the guise of socialism.

00:31:10.000 Admittedly, not all of them might have believed in the pure Marxist doctrine as enumerated in the Communist Manifesto.

00:31:17.000 But nevertheless, they use socialism as a way to build a movement and as a way to amass incredible amounts of political power rooted in Marxist ideology.

00:31:26.000 The USSR, which unfortunately murdered 61 million people, Mao, to the Chinese Communist Party, 35 million people.

00:31:34.000 Some would say Germany, which I would argue was more fascism, but he did use the word socialism in his original term, the National Socialist Workers' Party, 20 million people.

00:31:43.000 Cambonian communists killed 2 million people.

00:31:45.000 Vietnamese, 1 million.

00:31:47.000 USSR communists, unknown throughout the Eastern Bloc.

00:31:52.000 Grand total in the last 100 years that we know of 129 million people murdered under the guise of socialism, communism.

00:31:57.000 It's a pretty bad body count, if you ask me.

00:31:59.000 So not only is socialism evil, but I believe it's ineffective when put into practice.

00:32:03.000 And I think the worst parts of our American political experiment recently have been those that are most socialist in its inclination.

00:32:10.000 Let's talk about the Veterans Administration, which is single-payer universal healthcare, government-run doctors.

00:32:15.000 You come in, waiting lines, vets dying in record numbers.

00:32:18.000 We spend $180 billion a year in the VA, and it has horrible approval ratings.

00:32:23.000 And they're saying that we don't have enough money.

00:32:25.000 They see about a million patients a year.

00:32:27.000 You can do the math.

00:32:28.000 That's a lot of money per patient, right?

00:32:31.000 And you look, you calculate it through and through.

00:32:34.000 Where free enterprise and capitalism is allowed to be experimented here domestically and around the world, we have seen an incredible flourishing of success.

00:32:42.000 Socialism is evil, wrong, ineffective, and must be stopped here in this country.

00:32:46.000 I remain committed to it, and that's why Bernie Sanders and I get along so well on Twitter.

00:32:50.000 And we have quite a, well, it's not really a back and forth.

00:32:52.000 It's more just like a one-way diatribe.

00:32:55.000 By the way, I do want to say one thing, a little unexpected, a little, but I appreciate the commitment to allowing me to say my piece.

00:33:02.000 For those of you that disagree with me, that means a lot.

00:33:04.000 And we should all applaud that.

00:33:05.000 Those us contributors.

00:33:06.000 So thank you.

00:33:08.000 I appreciate that.

The Charlie Kirk Show - February 15, 2026

Speeches From the Archive- Charlie’s 2017 Speech at The University of Illinois

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