The Michael Knowles Show - ＂Charlie Kirk Helped Me Find Jesus＂ Students Give Their Testimony ｜ Cross The Line

00:00:00.000 Charlie's impact, you know, he also made me a better Christian.

00:00:02.760 I saw Charlie on YouTube and I was like, all right, let's get back into this thing.

00:00:06.720 He wasn't just like some kind of talking head, but like actually lived and approached people with love.

00:00:12.160 Like he genuinely wanted people to be better.

00:00:16.460 On the 22nd, we will be in University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

00:00:21.500 I'll see you in Mogadishu.

00:00:23.800 Somalia awaits. 0.98

00:00:24.660 I don't know how to respond in their native language, but how?

00:00:27.600 See you up there.

00:00:28.140 See you later. God bless you guys.

00:00:32.260 My friend Charlie Kirk and I were scheduled to host an event together at the University of Minnesota on September 22nd as part of his American Comeback Tour.

00:00:41.560 Twelve days before that event could take place, an assassin's bullet took Charlie's life.

00:00:47.200 Charlie Kirk has been shot.

00:00:50.340 Political assassination.

00:00:52.320 Triggering a national trauma the likes of which we had not seen in decades.

00:00:56.520 That someone's life was taken because they have a different opinion.

00:01:01.260 It's just unbelievable.

00:01:03.380 He was the voice of a generation and gave voice to a generation.

00:01:08.420 He was killed because his words made a difference.

00:01:12.160 He is irreplaceable.

00:01:13.900 He was a true, authentic American genius.

00:01:17.060 This guy is reaching out to his mortal enemy, saying, we need to be gentlemen, sit down together and disagree agreeably.

00:01:25.160 He was for dialogue, open debate and dialogue, even with me.

00:01:28.600 I feel the gravity of the moment you're talking about.

00:01:32.860 But what if the other side doesn't?

00:01:34.900 What do we do?

00:01:36.460 Charlie Kirk just got shot.

00:01:38.260 Girl, someone had to do it.

00:01:39.540 Put down like a dog in Utah.

00:01:41.720 You know what kind of Nazi is the best Nazi? 1.00

00:01:44.020 A dead one.

00:01:44.720 This is a guy that was willing to engage in debate to resolve disagreements. 0.95

00:01:52.200 And the fact that I am seeing celebration, this is disgusting.

00:01:59.080 He is not martyr material, so his death will mean nothing.

00:02:03.720 As we all mourned Charlie's death, a question had to be answered.

00:02:09.360 Would his tour go on?

00:02:11.500 Charlie's organization, TPUSA, insisted that it must.

00:02:15.500 Our campus tour this fall will continue.

00:02:19.460 There will be even more tours in the years to come.

00:02:23.420 In a world filled with chaos, doubt, and uncertainty, my husband's voice will ring out louder and more clearly than ever.

00:02:30.940 And I agreed wholeheartedly.

00:02:32.220 Well, evil forces thought that they could stop Charlie's movement.

00:02:36.920 His many friends and his millions of admirers would not allow that to happen.

00:02:41.660 In just a couple of hours, the University of Minnesota will be hosting the first Turning Point USA event

00:02:46.220 since its founder, Charlie Kirk, was killed on a campus in Utah.

00:02:49.660 What was intended to be a conversation between two friends with Q&A from the audience

00:02:53.600 became a tribute to a man who gave his life to encourage healthy debate.

00:02:58.320 Throughout the country and especially on campus.

00:03:00.780 For the freshman pledge, the junior sociology major, and all those kids scrolling through clips online,

00:03:07.480 being exposed to new ideas, and having their minds changed.

00:03:11.200 Charlie Kirk, the vote is found out.

00:03:15.200 TPUSA's decision to continue the tour raised a serious question.

00:03:18.380 Would students feel comfortable showing up amid the widespread celebration of political violence against people like them?

00:03:25.900 You need conservatives to be afraid of getting killed when they go to events

00:03:29.960 so that they look to their leadership to turn down the temperature.

00:03:33.660 The answer was a resounding yes.

00:03:36.080 Campus security estimated 4,000 people showed up to an auditorium that could fit fewer than 2,700

00:03:41.720 to show that they would not be threatened and intimidated into silence.

00:03:46.340 What we must now do is reassert order and reestablish a healthy politics.

00:03:52.980 You all who have come out here tonight, despite the threats, despite the hardship,

00:03:57.780 have shown that you all believe that it can be done.

00:03:59.900 The man that we honor tonight gave his life in the confident hope that it can be done.

00:04:06.360 We must never despair.

00:04:08.740 We must never surrender to the forces that seek our destruction.

00:04:12.400 And we must work tirelessly to ensure that this moment truly becomes a turning point for America.

00:04:18.640 Thank you very much.

00:04:19.440 It was an honor to pay tribute to the man they came to see,

00:04:23.620 the man who set the standard for campus outreach and healthy debate.

00:04:27.700 And it was a special pleasure to sit down there with some of the students whose lives Charlie had changed.

00:04:33.040 When did you first encounter Charlie Kirk?

00:04:36.080 Well, I first encountered Charlie when I was in high school.

00:04:38.500 I saw all his videos on, you know, Instagram and TikTok.

00:04:41.280 About two years ago, it's the same year that I came back to my faith as well.

00:04:45.400 Yeah, about junior, senior year of high school.

00:04:47.260 Saw his Instagram videos, very moving.

00:04:50.180 Yeah, mine was about the same way with the Instagram videos just about a year ago.

00:04:53.240 It's the best recommendation for kids to be on TikTok and Instagram that I've ever heard.

00:04:57.120 You say that you were out of your faith and then you came back into it.

00:05:00.260 How did that happen?

00:05:01.500 I just felt God's presence.

00:05:03.340 And, you know, with Charlie's impact, you know, he also made me a better Christian.

00:05:07.500 I think the way that Charlie spoke about his faith just like impacted me more to be just super close to my faith as much as possible and to learn from him as well.

00:05:15.300 So what is it about him?

00:05:16.720 There are plenty of people who talk.

00:05:18.040 There are plenty of people on TikTok and Instagram, most of whom are disreputable and should not be viewed by teenagers.

00:05:23.520 What was it about him that grabbed you?

00:05:25.860 I think it was mostly, I mean, just the way he lived his life.

00:05:29.280 He wasn't just like some kind of talking head but like actually lived and approached people with love.

00:05:35.080 Like he genuinely wanted people to be better.

00:05:38.860 He was going to these campuses where people disagreed with him, people were struggling, people were miserable, and he was trying to get them to a better place.

00:05:48.080 And I think that resonated with a lot of people.

00:05:50.400 People say that he's the embodiment of Rush Limbaugh and Billy Graham in the same person.

00:05:53.920 And I couldn't agree more to that.

00:05:55.680 It's such a combo.

00:05:56.300 Yeah, I know.

00:05:56.940 And that's just really inspiring for not only on a political scale but also just my faith and just Christianity as a whole.

00:06:02.160 I thought he always had his facts known and set straight when he was debating so it was really nice to hear someone not just, you know, spitballing things but he'd bring the facts back with it and then he'd back up his faith with theology but then he'll also go back to like statistics and what, you know, some people would call concrete examples.

00:06:20.880 It seems like the left hated him in particular.

00:06:23.880 And for a while I thought this was really weird because of all the people in public life who would go around, give speeches, organize, campaign, of all of them, he was in many ways the most moderate or the most gracious, generous.

00:06:39.380 He was certainly up there.

00:06:40.720 And so I thought of all the people you're going to try to get, why him?

00:06:44.220 Why do you think he aroused such ire?

00:06:46.240 I think just the way his character, the way he loved God, his family, his country, and how that shone through.

00:06:53.600 There was some clip where they asked Charlie like why the universities hate having him on campus and why there's so much pushback from the university.

00:07:01.740 And obviously there's a lot of reasons.

00:07:03.560 But Charlie said something like the universities get these kids for four years and they know that if I talk to them for 30 seconds, I can change their whole lives.

00:07:14.420 I think they saw that and I think that's why they hated him.

00:07:17.880 You keep coming back to religion and specifically the way he lived his life, that he actually walked the walk.

00:07:23.420 He practiced what he preached.

00:07:25.020 Charlie is one of my few friends that I've never had a cigar and a drink with because he didn't smoke and he didn't drink.

00:07:29.840 I found it very frustrating.

00:07:31.200 But he really lived that.

00:07:32.740 You think that that very, very high standard and he lived up to it, that that is what really enraged people.

00:07:39.360 Absolutely, yeah.

00:07:40.020 If that's what you're really interested in, why wouldn't you join the Christian group on campus?

00:07:45.320 What would attract you to a political organization like Turning Point USA if you're seeking those religious lessons?

00:07:54.000 Well, public policy affects everyone.

00:07:55.960 So if we don't have good students in schools, don't have good people in government, then we won't have that protection of religion.

00:08:03.700 It's going to be further encroached by one of the parties.

00:08:06.320 This is something I always loved about Charlie because there are plenty of dime store philosophers who will write some white paper that no one cares about, but they have their brilliant idea and everyone has to go read their book or whatever.

00:08:16.460 And Charlie, weirdly, was interested at the same time in the eternal and the most nitty gritty political.

00:08:23.780 So he was always preaching the gospel, always trying to get people to religion, but also focused on that house race in Missouri 5 and all focused on making sure they sign up enough voters in Arizona.

00:08:36.600 And I think some people saw that as a contradiction, but I certainly do not.

00:08:41.180 I agree with Charlie on that, which is, yeah, you've got your eyes on the prize.

00:08:44.340 You've got your eyes on the eternal destiny, the heavenly Jerusalem.

00:08:46.820 But we're here, aren't we?

00:08:49.740 We have bodies, we have communities, we have nations and families.

00:08:53.460 We've got to do something about that.

00:08:55.080 Those two things really are not supposed to be disconnected.

00:08:58.340 Yeah, I think the left likes to try and tell us that we don't have the numbers, like that we just need to kind of stay hidden and, you know, do our own little thing in the corner.

00:09:07.040 I know when we have club fairs, it's always, you know, the Catholics and Turning Point USA are in the farthest back corner, away from everybody. 1.00

00:09:16.040 You've got to, like, realize that we have people, we have a movement.

00:09:20.100 And I think Charlie was really good about, especially with the youth, getting the youth out and knowing that we have the numbers, we can do this.

00:09:27.240 The Democrats still technically won young voters in 2024?

00:09:31.260 Barely.

00:09:32.320 And young voters moved 10 points to the right.

00:09:35.340 And who led the young voter efforts?

00:09:38.300 It was Charlie.

00:09:39.180 There was no number two.

00:09:40.460 How did he do it so effectively?

00:09:41.780 You know, plenty of people would go to campus and talk and even the format of change my mind, prove me wrong, ask me anything.

00:09:48.440 You know, that's a format that's been around for a long time.

00:09:50.440 Plenty of people have done it.

00:09:51.700 Why was he so good at it?

00:09:53.060 He set his mic down just so that, like, he would let the other person talk.

00:09:56.320 Like, it was a very inspiring way on how he was always so approachable.

00:10:01.260 And he just welcomed that other diversity side and, like, kind of was able to push back against that and, like, was a really comforting guy.

00:10:09.660 I feel like he really told the truth through his debate.

00:10:12.540 It was very apparent that, like, he meant what he said.

00:10:16.820 And that's what really stood out to, like, people.

00:10:18.400 Hold on one second before we get to any more very, very important stuff.

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00:11:45.040 So what's the feeling on campus after this happens?

00:11:48.080 Obviously, Charlie was riling up all these left-wingers who didn't want to have an honest conversation, so much so that one of them murdered him.

00:11:56.000 And then many other normie liberals and mainstream liberals and establishment liberals and people on TV and people in government excused it or tried to justify it or, in some cases, even celebrated it.

00:12:08.940 What's the feeling among the left on campus today?

00:12:11.640 Well, I can speak for the Twin Cities.

00:12:13.980 So the day after President Trump was elected, we were offered mental health services, those dogs that we can pet, free food, stuff like that.

00:12:23.780 In fairness, I think those students probably could use some mental health services.

00:12:26.800 I think you're right.

00:12:27.320 Yeah, but then, like, you know, after September 10th, the 11th, I came to campus.

00:12:33.860 I was texting my friends.

00:12:34.900 We were all really sad.

00:12:35.740 We were still grieving.

00:12:36.680 Went to a bunch of vigils.

00:12:37.520 But everyone else on campus seemed pretty fine, pretty okay, which I guess you could say it was disheartening, but I wasn't expecting anything less, so.

00:12:47.000 I mean, for Duluth, when after news that Charlie passed away, like, every two voices I heard, you know, going throughout the hallways was like, they were celebrating it.

00:12:55.920 And I was just like, I mean, just how can you even do that?

00:12:59.980 It's crazy.

00:13:01.360 And it's just, Duluth needs a big change, and I'm obviously trying to get that underway, but, I mean, it's just crazy.

00:13:10.020 People who just try to have civil debate are not supposed to be murdered for it on the left or on the right or in the middle or anywhere else.

00:13:18.760 That's not supposed to happen.

00:13:20.660 And at a university, which in principle endeavors to exchange ideas and arrive at the truth, that's an existential threat to the mission of the university.

00:13:30.920 How could the university not take that seriously?

00:13:33.320 I go to a school at a small private school, and I had politics class 9 a.m. the day after, and I was actually supposed to, the professor had asked me to make an announcement to the class about the event that was supposed to happen here and see if any of my class would want to come along.

00:13:50.180 I walked in, and my professor was like, well, that's not happening, and he's a liberal professor.

00:13:57.040 He kind of just had it like a, oh, well, and he talked about political violence, you know, the next day and kind of just tried to both sides the issue, and I was kind of just sitting there like, it's completely different.

00:14:08.640 He's not even in the government.

00:14:10.140 He has no, like, decision-making power, and he's just trying to talk to people in no way.

00:14:15.820 Right. 0.96

00:14:16.060 I guess this is why the comparison is so ridiculous. 0.93

00:14:18.580 One, because the left can point to one or two examples of political violence right to left. 0.85

00:14:25.700 Even that, though, let's say you get one or two where you say it's right to left.

00:14:29.380 Every other example you can name in recent memory, at least going back to BLM, actually going back much further, to the 70s, to the 60s, all of the examples are from the left, and a lot of the time, they're not even categorized as political violence.

00:14:41.760 There was an attack at the University of Pittsburgh a couple years ago.

00:14:45.000 I was there.

00:14:45.480 It was a debate over transgenderism.

00:14:47.400 Antifa threw an explosive at the building when we were walking on stage.

00:14:50.940 It seriously injured a female cop, not classified as political violence.

00:14:54.720 So I was president at UMD, where Nathan is now.

00:14:58.720 I was president of the Turning Point USA chapter there last year.

00:15:02.240 We were preparing to host a speaker, and a student on campus threatened to shoot me in the student common area.

00:15:08.600 I didn't go to school for three weeks.

00:15:10.840 The school didn't do anything.

00:15:12.700 I slept on the floor of my buddy's dorm room.

00:15:14.760 The school's solution was they said they couldn't do anything to the student until police had finished their investigation.

00:15:22.320 Well, that does me no good.

00:15:23.720 He's still walking around campus.

00:15:25.320 He's the president of the socialist chapter.

00:15:27.520 I mean, that's a crime.

00:15:28.560 It's a crime to levy a direct threat.

00:15:31.280 Yes, absolutely.

00:15:32.320 And he was charged with, by the police, and he pled down.

00:15:36.100 I don't know if he's still on campus.

00:15:38.040 The school wouldn't tell me if he would be allowed to come back.

00:15:40.860 So I transferred schools.

00:15:42.540 I'm now involved with the Turning Point chapter at my other school, and Nathan here has taken over Duluth very courageously.

00:15:49.140 Those are just the threats you don't even hear about, of course.

00:15:52.300 Yeah, we were literally tabling when that happened.

00:15:54.040 I was right next to him when that happened.

00:15:56.020 It's, like, mind-blowing.

00:15:57.660 Now, of course, if it had been in the other direction, if someone had accused you of a hate crime, no matter how absurd, it would be a statewide news story. 0.97

00:16:06.620 But a direct threat to kill you passes by.

00:16:09.380 So then what's your take on campus now?

00:16:11.580 Because it's a legitimate question.

00:16:13.180 I was doing an interview with a liberal outlet earlier.

00:16:16.540 They said, okay, so is the event going to go on?

00:16:18.580 I said, yes, it is.

00:16:20.020 I spoke to Turning Point.

00:16:20.980 They want it to go on.

00:16:22.160 I think that's the right decision.

00:16:23.820 I would be happy to do whatever they want to do, but if they want to do it, I'm going to show up.

00:16:27.160 We can't back down in front of these people.

00:16:29.160 The host of the show asked me, well, are people going to show up?

00:16:32.860 Aren't they scared?

00:16:33.840 You know, isn't it?

00:16:34.480 It's kind of dangerous, isn't it?

00:16:36.040 The insinuation being that we need to stay home.

00:16:39.100 We need to accede to these threats.

00:16:41.320 But it's a real concern.

00:16:43.880 Are you guys afraid?

00:16:45.420 No.

00:16:46.080 No, why not?

00:16:47.080 I mean, like everyone's been saying, this is the turning point.

00:16:50.360 This is when we come back stronger than ever.

00:16:53.060 That's not going to turn us down.

00:16:54.680 We're going to come back and live through him even more.

00:16:57.840 I literally dropped a class just to be here.

00:16:59.660 All right, my man.

00:17:00.700 It comes down to faith for me, but also like when you know you're in the right, you're doing the right thing.

00:17:06.540 So I want a turning point to be here when I graduate.

00:17:09.520 That was my goal coming here.

00:17:10.700 You don't want to have something where you regret not being involved, you know?

00:17:15.340 And you trust in the Lord, you say the truth, whatever happens is God's will, it's going to happen.

00:17:21.660 And we see with Charlie, he can take something that is evil and use it to bring the most good.

00:17:28.840 And we are agents cooperating with God's will.

00:17:31.140 So I totally agree with that.

00:17:33.540 What's your impression of Charlie and his impact?

00:17:36.680 Because I think a lot of people would say, well, he was preaching to the choir.

00:17:39.780 All you kids were already conservative.

00:17:42.080 And you've got to preach to the choir.

00:17:43.700 The choir needs preaching.

00:17:45.000 But that's not my impression.

00:17:47.160 From what I would see, he really turned people.

00:17:50.160 Is that seeing your friends and your classmates?

00:17:52.520 Did that happen?

00:17:53.280 Yeah.

00:17:53.560 So when we started our chapter back in November of 24, I had seven people at my first meeting.

00:17:58.640 Then last week we had about 30.

00:18:01.260 About 45 in our group chat.

00:18:03.060 You can't say it now, but in the future, we're going to see the statistics show that Gen Z is going to become more conservative.

00:18:09.340 They're going to become more Christian.

00:18:10.600 And it's going to be a small revival.

00:18:12.400 And I think Charlie's head is going to have a huge part in that.

00:18:16.100 Yeah, we had going back before Charlie's unfortunate, you know, killing.

00:18:21.100 We had about 30 members at Duluth.

00:18:22.880 Now we're up to like 70, getting close to 80 now.

00:18:25.760 And we've had a lot of people, you know, from kind of moderate sides also go to the right side,

00:18:30.640 which is awesome to see.

00:18:33.400 So the impact's just everywhere, and we're trying to continue that.

00:18:37.120 I've seen a lot of people, not even just youth, but even I had like, obviously, I had a lot of people texting me, you know,

00:18:44.080 because they knew I was involved with Turning Point.

00:18:45.820 And I had family members and neighbors texting me.

00:18:48.420 And now they all want to get involved.

00:18:51.160 And so it's not even just the youth.

00:18:54.640 It's people who were kind of like on the sidelines, kind of.

00:18:58.860 They believe in the conservative movement, but they don't really want to do anything.

00:19:02.700 And they see Charlie's courage, and it's kind of been like, well, Charlie did all these things when he was 31.

00:19:10.040 He made such a huge impact, and I'm here sitting on my couch.

00:19:14.320 And Charlie didn't come from money.

00:19:16.400 Charlie didn't have some fancy college degree.

00:19:18.980 Charlie didn't have connections to all the richest people in the world.

00:19:21.720 He just kind of did it.

00:19:24.180 He outworked them.

00:19:25.360 He did it.

00:19:25.760 He did outwork them.

00:19:26.460 But post-Charlie, people have to figure out what to do, how to keep the coalition together, where to move, what that turning point is going to be.

00:19:33.420 What's going to drive it?

00:19:34.740 The hunger for truth, the hunger for just normalcy and reality.

00:19:40.500 What happened to Charlie is not normal.

00:19:42.740 That shock is going to drive them, and they're going to say, we want normalcy.

00:19:46.060 And it exposes, like we've kind of been discussing, all the people who've been celebrating this. 0.97

00:19:52.620 It exposes them as complete, just like crazy people.

00:19:57.780 What should happen to those people, the ones who are celebrating?

00:20:00.760 And I guess that's throughout all of society.

00:20:03.440 There are students who are doing it.

00:20:05.160 There are professors who are doing it.

00:20:07.580 Doctors and nurses and teachers and waiters.

00:20:10.240 What is the response to the people who would celebrate the murder of the most mainstream civil conversationalist?

00:20:19.520 In other words, would celebrate your murder, too?

00:20:22.620 Yeah, I think it really puts it on us to speak out towards those people and let them know that this isn't okay.

00:20:28.540 There's going to be repercussions for this.

00:20:30.960 Yes.

00:20:31.580 And to not fight violence with violence, we've got to do it through our Christian theology, and God will handle the rest.

00:20:36.900 Yes, yeah.

00:20:37.580 Do it in a civil way, through the civil authority sometimes, you know, and people step out of bounds.

00:20:43.460 But that's right.

00:20:44.180 The consequences have to continue until the behavior improves, I think.

00:20:48.620 I think that's what a turning point means.

00:20:50.380 It's wonderful to sit down with all of you.

00:20:52.660 Thank you for risking, well, not only your safety, but also your grades and the classes that you're skipping, to come down here.

00:20:58.640 It's great to see you.

00:20:59.640 The turning point tour continues this fall, with Charlie's friends from across the country stepping in to keep the movement moving forward.

00:21:06.360 So the people like Elizabeth Kleckner, Sam Spainer, Nathan McIntyre, Teva Feit, can hear ideas that have otherwise been banished from campus.

00:21:16.800 And maybe some ambitious 17-year-old watching will even feel called to dedicate himself to advancing the next great American movement.

00:21:24.520 Thank you.

00:21:26.920 Thank you.

00:21:32.080 Thank you.

00:21:40.500 Thank you.

The Michael Knowles Show - September 27, 2025

＂Charlie Kirk Helped Me Find Jesus＂ Students Give Their Testimony ｜ Cross The Line

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