Tyler Boyer, COO of Turning Point Action, joins me to talk about how he built one of the most successful political organizations in the country, and how he thinks about how to keep the Republican Party strong in 2020.
00:00:36.000His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazinging job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:00:44.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:14.000We're going to blow all of our time today, but I do want to be able to get some audience questions.
00:01:18.000And this is going to be all I want to talk about politics in particular.
00:01:21.000The elections, what did we learn, the state of like what's happening right now, the state of the RNC, the grassroots, the establishment, so much happening.
00:02:02.000So Tyler, what you ran the largest ever ballot chasing operation in Republican Party history, 1000 full time people.
00:02:12.000I was able to take credit for it and kind of watch it from afar, but you hired the people, you sourced the people.
00:02:18.000What did you learn through that whole process?
00:02:20.000We had, I mean, for all those who are listening, that run a business, that have housed hundreds of people in a business, you know that that comes with a lot of, a lot of struggles.
00:02:33.000The hiring process alone, identifying the right people to be able to accept, adopt a culture and then get into the job is what's part of building the business.
00:02:42.000That's what we've done at Turning Point so well on the backs of a lot of really great advisors that have helped us along the way.
00:02:48.000So it's great that at Turning Point we had a brand that we could attract people to and that we had a culture that we could attract people to.
00:02:56.000A lot of political operations don't have that.
00:02:58.000And so we've been really blessed because people could look at Charlie and see the Charlie Kirk show every single day and go, I want to be part of that.
00:03:05.000They could see the brand that Turning Point USA had built and say, I want to be part of that.
00:03:10.000That's unique and that's what I think enabled us.
00:03:12.000I mean, you and you and I sat down, talked about this and we said, we looked around and we said, there's no one actually doing the whole political operation the right way.
00:03:21.000CFORCE, PACS, they've just for years just kind of come in at the last minute, raise a bunch of money from donors, and then they just throw whatever they possibly can in the sloppyest way possible at an election.
00:03:37.000You have to do it the way that the left does, which is the left has for years been talking and harping about the community organizer model, the relationship building model, every customer that's out there that's a voter., you know, trying to get them over the line to vote for maybe the first time in a long time or for the first time ever,
00:03:56.000especially when we talk about the youth voters and why we had so much success and such a dramatic increase with youth voters is because when you focus in your conversations that right way, then it works and for us that blends with the hiring process because anyone that understands that and actually gets drills deep into the process, the brand, the culture of what we're trying to do, it becomes easier.
00:04:19.000But hiring a thousand people, how, how, what period of time did you have to hire a thousand human beings to go chasing ballots in the Arizona Sun?
00:04:26.000Well, we were very, very lucky because we have, again, a lot of people who are already near and dear to us.
00:04:32.000College students, but college students, volunteers, members of TPUC.
00:04:35.000Tight staff, that people who used to work for us, people who used to work for us, their parents, uncles, aunts, siblings.
00:04:43.000so again, that's why it's so important to establish long term credible organizations in places that matter, like Arizona, like other places, other swing states.
00:04:52.000We need a turning point esque operation in every swing state.
00:05:43.000So where we are right now in Colorado, this is where it was born..
00:05:47.000You have the combination of Arabella and Democracy Alliance.
00:05:51.000Without getting into all the details, well, Arabella is essentially the funding mechanism that's able to go out and do a bunch of special projects that enable the left to do a bunch of crazy things.
00:06:01.000Whenever you see something crazy, you're like, how did that enter the zeitgeist?
00:06:05.000It probably came from Arabella's infrastructure and we have full presentations on this.
00:06:10.000But here in Colorado is where CODA started, the Colorado Democracy Alliance, and that was intended to replace the Democratic Party in Colorado because what the Democrats realized early on that the Republican Party still hasn't figured out is that the party itself, the apparatus, is actually pretty useless.
00:06:29.000It gets in the way more times than it actually helps.
00:06:32.000And so what the Democrats here in Colorado did was they realized, oh, we are going to create an alternate party structure outside of the party.
00:06:41.000And again, we're going to call it Democracy Alliance, and this is the permanent infrastructure that we're going to build because we can't count on the Democratic Party to actually show up and do all the right things.
00:06:50.000And they did that, and they did it very well, and they did it so well they were able to spread it across the entire country, and Colorado Democracy Alliance became Democracy Alliance, and our side is still kind of going, oh, well, we got to check in with, you know, with the, you know, again, not to throw Mitch McConnell, Mitch McConnell, all of these.
00:07:07.000I don't think there's any Mitch McConnell fans here.
00:07:10.000Establishment checkpoints before you fund.
00:07:31.000So in a good way, like so overwhelmingly positive and popular that it forgave all the sins of the Republican infrastructure.
00:07:40.000So this is the most important point, Charlie, is that you have to have a candidate that enables that outside organization organism to actually survive.
00:07:50.000So if you don't have candidates that are actually exciting for those people to come take the job and work, for those people to show up and knock the doors and build relationships two years ago, you can't do it.
00:08:02.000Donald Trump actually unlocked something because for the first time in a long time, maybe ever, the general populace was like, I want to go work for that guy.
00:08:12.000And that's what enables that relational organizing community organizing model to work.
00:08:17.000And so the Democrats have actually been focused on this.
00:08:20.000And this is what Obama unlocked for them.
00:08:22.000Obama was able to get people up and get people excited.
00:08:26.000This is actually where they're struggling is because they're at the national level really lacking that interest.
00:08:32.000Our side has to realize that and realize, hey, moving forward, you know, after Donald Trump, you're going to have to make sure that the people love and want to get up and work for that person who's running.
00:08:45.000Have you ever heard anyone say this is unconstitutional?
00:08:50.000Have you taken the time to study and understand the constitution so you know for yourself what is and what isn't constitutional.
00:08:58.000That's why I'm so excited that Hillsdale College is offering a brand new free online course called The Federalist.
00:09:03.000The Federalist papers were written primarily by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison.
00:09:08.000Together they explain how the U.S. Constitution established a government strong enough to secure the rights of citizens and safe enough to wield that power.
00:09:17.000And today it's our responsibility to pay attention, to be vigilant, and you might say, in order to preserve and protect Republican self-government.
00:09:25.000Hillsdale's online course on the Federalist includes 10 lectures, each about 30 minutes long.
00:09:31.000You could take the course at your own pace.
00:09:47.000So part of what we are building and more specifically what you are building that, you know, we're doing together is trying to build an outside party.
00:09:57.000organizational apparatus that is not at odds necessarily with the establishment Republican Party at all times.
00:10:03.000We'll pick some fights every so often where necessary if they go out of control like Liz Cheney or McConnell.
00:11:40.000The average is usually less than a year, believe it or not.
00:11:44.000And there's no possible and fundamental way that you can build a campaign infrastructure that can do all the things that are necessary to win if the other side is doing them full time.
00:11:55.000So the first and foremost is hiring door knockers, hiring people that are going to build effective relationships for you out in the field.
00:12:05.000There's no way that you're going to be able to fight a fight with someone in the remaining 60 days of the election if your opponent's been basically crafting an entire legal strategy against you for two to four years.
00:12:17.000And this is part of what the law fair thing has been, has been done to Donald Trump that nobody ever talks about and to you.
00:12:23.000Yeah, and to me, which is, you know, we're winning this thing, but you know, you have a real struggle with that.
00:12:29.000The third thing, which is most critical with parties that people never talk about too, is that most people don't realize those that have been involved, who here has been involved with, with, like, their local Republican party?
00:12:43.000If you've ever walked in, that's more than I can.
00:12:46.000When you walk in, how has your experience been in that in that fundamental time the DMV is better it's a little it's a little crazy I'd rather go through TSA it's it's a little gritty sometimes you walk in there's like kind of just fighting happening that's going on you don't really know what's going on and people they have fax machines everybody some of it's really old so when I took over when I was the county chairman in Maricopa County over 10 years ago now It's amazing.
00:13:59.000And that was the Ronna problem that you brought up.
00:14:01.000The fundamental problem with Ronna was she was going across the whole country, telling everyone she was doing all the work that was necessary to win.
00:14:07.000And upon further inspection., nothing of that was being done.
00:14:11.000So, how are we at Turning Point Action going about fixing this?
00:14:40.000I mean, we literally just like, leashed on the state.
00:14:43.000And the outcome was exactly what we expected.
00:14:47.000was that we had a body of about 400,000 people who didn't vote in 2016 or 2020.
00:14:53.000And Charlie brought up something earlier today that was a really funny story.
00:14:56.000We had people that we knocked on their doors.
00:14:59.000They were the biggest Trump fans you've ever seen in your entire life.
00:15:02.000In fact, there was one story that I tell all the time, a guy we knock on his door, he didn't vote in the last two elections, including 2020.
00:15:10.000Knock on his door and start talking to him.
00:15:50.000And Charlie, the number one thing that we asked people, we assume that when we talk to people, their number one reason for not voting was they just didn't care about voting.
00:16:09.000Can't they just like grandfather it in?
00:16:12.000This guy who didn't vote had voted sporadically in primaries.
00:16:16.000He had voted sporadically in other midterm elections or not less important elections, like city council stuff that's off the grid and stuff like that.
00:16:25.000So he was kind of in and out, but missed the presidential, the big one, because he thought he missed the Kerry Lake election.
00:16:32.000And he swore up and down he had voted.
00:17:30.000No, it's these predatory emails that they've got to stop sending.
00:17:33.000And it's the emails, but this is part of the problem that you bring up, Charlie, is when people donate then, they think that they've done something.
00:17:40.000And it's actually replacing voting habits by sending these predatory emails.
00:18:09.000And she's on, she's on rap every single day.
00:18:12.000Like, it's like her entire, it's she, she watches and listens to you more than she listens to my mom who's supposed to be taking care of her right now.
00:18:20.000So, uh, so anything you say, she's going to do.
00:18:23.000But this is, but this is part of it, so she's going to hear this.
00:18:26.000But this is part of it is that it's really critical for us to focus, first and foremost, this is why at Turning Point and Turning Point Action, when we send out emails, we are talking about the things that we're doing.
00:19:15.000It's one of the best things we.'ve done real peace of mind so go find that box go to legacy box dot com slash k irk to save fifty percent and take care of it today you'll be glad you did that is legacy box dot com slash kirk legacy box dot com slash k irk that is legacy box dot com slash kirk So I want to get to some questions because people I know are chomping at the bet on the political question here.
00:19:41.000But Tyler, let me ask you a provocative one.
00:19:43.000How not the Republican Party institutionally is out of alignment with its voters.
00:20:10.000First, the first thing is that, like, some of this has just got to time itself out, which is like they have to decide to resign and go back.
00:20:19.000And, you know, I think America was intended to be what George Washington and Thomas Jefferson intended to be, which was go in, do your job and get the heck out, right?
00:20:30.000Go in, be there for a shorort amount of time and then go enjoy your grandkids and go enjoy your family and your business that you built your entire life.
00:20:53.000People lost their minds when everyone said, are you sure you're in when a couple of people asked the question, are you sure you're in good enough health to run again?
00:21:19.000And so it's a selfless thing to get in, I think, into public office and then make the self-determination that I'm not going to be there forever.
00:21:29.000And I think that that's an education thing that's really important that Turning Point is doing and Turning Point Action is doing.
00:22:04.000So you know how they're doing in real time.
00:22:06.000Then the second thing we have is the Mount Vernon project, which is we focus mainly on the Republican National Committee because the Republican Party, if it gets fixed, a lot of the country gets fixed.
00:22:15.000Part of the reason why just follow up your question is like, what do we do about some of these people?
00:22:19.000Well, you know, it would be nice if the Republican Party had cojoness every now and then and would step up and say, hey, you know, Lindindsay, your time's up, dude.
00:22:43.000And so a lot of people, it drives me crazy when people are like, Oh, well, I guess we don't have term limits and sometimes we get a good person in and we want them in for forty years.
00:22:51.000And it's like, Yeah, but that's like one out of a million, right?
00:22:54.000Like you don't have only so many of those.
00:22:57.000Most are horrible at the end, in part of their career and we have to get them out.
00:23:01.000And they're totally disconnected by the end of their terms, by the way, with the general public.
00:23:05.000Let's do ten minutes of questions and we have Dr. Or in ten minutes.
00:23:08.000We're just going to keep flowing everybody.
00:23:10.000So let's do some questions because this Tyler in particular I know elicits a lot.
00:23:14.000So let's and I'll say I'll say this real quick while Brian will you raise your hands here?
00:23:36.000Are you guys seeing a movement of money from the RNC, from the Republican Party and individual donors over to Turning Point and other groups that are spending time on the Yeah, let me let me start there.
00:23:50.000Yes, but we're not trying to take donors away from the RNC.
00:23:53.000If donors want to stop giving the RNC, that's all of your own agency and ability.
00:23:57.000But yes, let me talk more about the NRSC than the RNC because we want to have a good working relationship with the RNC.
00:24:04.000It is of to no one's benefit, not to the country, the RNC or Trump's best interest for us to be at war with the RNC.
00:24:11.000We were at one point and that was a necessary fight that we forced, right, Tyler?
00:24:17.000But it was a headache, honestly, right?
00:24:21.000However, the NRSC, a lot of donors are coming to us.
00:24:25.000They're like, Charlie, instead of giving $500,000 to some PAC, I would rather give $500,000 to take a state over for the next twenty years.
00:24:34.000So we're seeing a lot of donors come to us that believe that don't get the same sort of presentation that we had this morning.
00:24:42.000That's in depth, detail, and metric driven.
00:24:46.000Yeah, I think the craziest thing about the RNC, and this still is, is takes, you know, you have to understand the construct of the Republican National Committee.
00:24:54.000It's 168 members, and most come from states that are deep red or deep blue, right?
00:24:59.000So the people who need the most assets or resources are actually the minority voices there.
00:25:06.000And don't forget, and again, no shade on our folks in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico, but they have a vote, they have a vote, equal vote.
00:25:15.000So my vote, whenever I was speaking, speaking up, forget about, you know, freedom of speech on the RNC, but when I was voting on things, my vote was being canceled out by the vote in the Northern Mariana Islands.
00:25:29.000And so that's extraordinarily frustrating.
00:25:31.000I think there's a huge construction error that's at the RNC just with how it operates, which makes it really difficult to focus on the key target states that they need to focus on.
00:25:41.000I think the immediate thing that the Republican National Committee could do that would lend a lot of help to the NRSC and the NRCC is by sitting down the day after the election's over in November and saying, we're going to decide right now what our key targets are for and we're going to go through and then everyone is going to get on board for this and we're going to get everyone to vocalize with a raised hand that they're on board for this so that we don't have knifeing each other all the time the two years heading into the next election cycle.
00:26:16.000I feel bad for the chair that's in that position.
00:26:20.000because they sometimes just look like they don't know what to do or they have one moment where they can make a big difference and reset, restack the deck in a way that will help the Republican Party and the Conservative movement and they're too scared to do it.
00:26:33.000And so you have to have a leader that gets in there and for the future, just so everyone knows, we can talk about this at length, but the Republican National Committee getting kind of structurally in a better place is probably going to be good because the Democratic Party has figured out, Charlie, that they don't really need the DNC to do too much.
00:26:54.000And one final thing, where we've seen the most most donor movement though is the small dollar donors.
00:26:59.000So we have tens of thousands of people that are monthly recurring donors.
00:27:03.000And as I mentioned, we have half a million small dollar donors across the country, which are, if we get to a million, that will be more active donors than the RNC.
00:27:31.000Bernie Sanders got to like 1.7 small dollar donors.
00:27:35.000So if Turning Point, a non-campaign could get to a million, we would probably be the largest nonprofit of small dollar donors.
00:27:43.000And all of you guys as investors should be cheering us on to get to that million figure, because that's where all of a sudden we become very uncancelable and you kind of have a recurring base.
00:27:53.000And by the way, if someone's given ten bucks a month, they're more likely to show up at our events, get their kids involved, start a Club America chapter.
00:28:03.000And on that topic, if everybody here, here's this within the sound of your voice, just gave a couple of bucks to TPUSA, Turning Point Action, TPPAC, all three of those websites, tpaction dot com, TPPAC.com just a few box everybody listen up it would be massive so i'm excited to share something that's especially close to my heart the people of israel the bible teaches us that in a world of broken promises one covenant remains unshakable god's
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00:29:55.000So you have states that like Florida, you have to give a little bit more excuse and states like Arizona where they're like literally you can show up and order a ballot for anyone and they want to do it.
00:30:05.000This is part of the reason why the left pushes no excuse male and ballot or motor voter laws all the time.
00:30:11.000They want to automatically register everyone to have ballots floating around everywhere because they know they can out.
00:30:16.000They historically have been able to outperform us on voting collection.
00:30:21.000And this is what's hugely problematic.
00:30:24.000One of the things in Arizona I was just talking with Charlie about this is the Yokava voters, the uniformed officer overseas votes.
00:30:32.000The left is constantly equipping nonprofits to change the rules and then re-register people from one state to another.
00:32:35.000There's no question they have to get this done before the midterms.
00:32:38.000But if, you know, I'm hoping for that that we can contribute to the midterms so we can complete this.
00:32:42.000This is one of the reasons why Trump's got to get his people.
00:32:44.000We need to do a lot of civil lawsuits to clean up the DOJ needs to go in and Harmiet Dylan is doing this to her great credit and she's a she's a 10 she's doing an incredible job.
00:32:54.000The Civil Rights Office of the Department of Justice needs to sue LA County, Maricopa County for voter roll violations because they're violations of the Civil Rights Act to get the dead voters off the voter rolls.
00:33:21.000I think I mean, I'll let Charlie speak to this because he probably has more insight, but I was most excited about Elon coming to our side because probably like Elon helped fix the social media war on Republicans, he's probably going to be our biggest ally over the course of the next thirty years.
00:33:40.000We should keep him on our side to solve this problem because that's the.
00:33:45.000We want him on our team, not their team, period.
00:33:47.000Well, we talked about this in our chat, Charlie.
00:33:49.000There are what Meta and other groups are funding to hundreds of millions to billions of dollars., individuals, I mean, there are individuals that are working on AI that are getting paid one hundred, two hundred million dollars individually.
00:34:03.000Like some of the, I mean, I would assume these are some of the sharpest minds that we have.
00:35:31.000And so how Charlie might talk to the voter and how I might talk to the voter might be very different and find different trends that we align with.
00:35:38.000Yeah, AI could say, okay, here's fifty things we know about Joe Smith Plumber., Cardinals fan, but write a script that has a 90% likelihood of working.
00:35:48.000And also take into consideration you and your stuff so your conversation becomes much more organic and you're a real shock to him for the first time.