From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Charlie Kirk: Is College A Rip-Off?

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

On this episode, Sean and Rachel are joined by the Founder and President of Turning Point USA Charlie Kirk, to discuss his new book The College Scam: How America's Universities Are Bankrupting and Brainwashing Away the Future of America's Youth. Charlie explains how he founded Turning Point USA with the help of his mentor, and the ways he believes colleges have instilled anti-American ideology into the minds of students. Later Charlie offers alternatives to those who are seeking higher education. Follow Sean and Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My parents have had a lot of time on their hands lately. At first, it was nice. Hey mom, can you drive me to soccer practice? Sure can. We're having slow cooked ribs for dinner. It was awesome. And then it became a lot. Some friends are coming over to watch a movie.

Ooh, what are we watching? I'll make some popcorn. Thanks to Voila, they can order all our fresh favorites from Sobeys, Farm Boy, and Longos online, which is super reliable. And now my parents are reliable. A little too reliable. Voila, your groceries delivered just like that. Hey, everyone, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm your host, Sean Duffy, along with

my co-host for the podcast, but also my partner in life and my wife, Rachel Campos Duffy. Thank you, Sean. And hello, everybody. We're back at our kitchen table. And this week at our kitchen table is somebody that we've known for a long time, Sean and I. But also, if you watch Fox News, you definitely know who he is. It's Charlie Kirk. He's the founder of Turning Point USA. He's the author of a new book that has been getting a lot of attention, a topic so many parents are talking about. It's called The College Scam, How America's Universities Are Bankrupting and Brainwashing Away the Future of America's Youth. Probably one of the best book titles I've heard this year.

Charlie, so great for you to join us. Thank you. I want to talk about the book. Thank you. Of course, I want to talk about the book, but you know I've been on The View many, many times, and I cannot let this moment go without you telling us what happened at The View this past week

and how Turning Point, and you specifically, decided to fight back. So give us the lowdown. Yeah, first, I'm honored to be here, and you guys are just amazing. I mean, what are you, I'm like the 14th kid now? It's incredible. I don't know how you guys do it. I lost count. It lost count. Yeah, I know. We got to catch up. So, yeah, look, it was one of the weirdest stories I've ever lived through,

to be honest with you. So we had an amazing Turning Point USA event this last weekend, our Student Action Summit, 5,000 plus students from all across the country, just amazing energy and enthusiasm. And Rachel, you've spoke at a lot of our events before, you know how just incredible these students are, right? And so then outside Saturday, after all the left-wing protesters came through very suspiciously, about five or six total loons came up with Nazi flags and SS flags and started protesting, I guess, us. That's what never really made any sense is how are they protesting us? Why are they protesting us? The whole thing was really bizarre. And so I still think it's kind of Democrat plans, to be honest with you.

It just doesn't this doesn't feel right. And so anyway, that happened. And we immediately as I saw it, I texted my whole team. We denounced this. I asked my security to try to get them off the premises. They were on public land. So we weren't able to do that. And so some of our students were bold enough to basically go tell them like Nazi scum get out of Tampa, which I fully support, obviously, meaning I support them confronting the Nazis to get out there. And so it just felt so artificial and weird and bizarre and uncharacteristic. You guys do a lot of events. You don't see swastikas around. Are you kidding me? The whole thing is really strange. Charlie, it sounded a little bit like the Yunkin. Remember when those four of you showed up?

Very similar. Yeah. And yeah, that's the second part of this, which is we're actually going to dedicate a lot of resources to try to find out who these Nazis actually were. Which, as a side note, I've never seen the media so uninterested in who Nazis actually are. Usually they're always like, you're a Nazi. Like, really? You actually have actual Nazis on a corner and you don't even go up to ask them their names or where are you from? Or where'd you buy that flag? And who are you? Because I think the media deep down would have known that that level of investigative journalism would not have really helped their cause. So anyway, the event ended without a hitch. We were so blessed. Turning Point Action hosted Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump, and it was just awesome. And so then on Monday, again, this continued. It's been a four-day saga. It's like 15 days to slow the spread. It just doesn't stop.

And so on Monday, Joy Behar thing where she just – she talks before she thinks, like not exactly wise, but that's okay i guess it's entertaining for some people and she goes through this whole thing and she starts talking about joseph doubles and how they're outside our event and says that you let them into our events not true at all no facts at all whatsoever and then hilariously right after that then whoopi goldberg after the break it's obvious that someone in the legal department got in her ear. She comes back, says, OK, OK, I just want to clarify something. I said that you guys let them into the event. What I was really saying is metaphorically they were in your midst. I was like, really? Did you make a clarification there, Whoopi?

Sure doesn't sound like it. So then right after that, our legal team, they're phenomenal. Our in-house counsel, Veronica, sent a letter, a cease and desist, being like, you better correct this or else you're going to have harsh and severe legal action. And to our surprise and our shock, and I have a reason I believe I know why, a co-host, who seems like a nice, a sweet woman, I don't know much about her, but she seemed fine, who wasn't involved in any of the bickering or bantering, Sarah Haynes comes out and she says, Turning Point USA would like us to apologize and this whole thing. And we actually do apologize and we clarify the whole thing. It's like, OK, wow, that has never happened before, where you actually get the view to kind of go backwards and backpedal.

And it was because we sent the legal letter and we threatened legal action. And I think there's a little bit of echoes of Nicholas Sandman, if you ask me. Yeah. Right? There's some fear there. But anyway, just the story gets weirder. This morning, they can't let it go. Whoopi Goldberg looks in the camera again, and she says, all right, all right. I just want you to know that on Monday, I said one thing about these Turning Point kids, and I don't like when people misrepresent me. My bad.

And I was like, okay, well, you know, to say my bad when you call a bunch of kids Nazis, it just seems so forced and all that. But look, I do appreciate the gesture, gesture, the apology. But honestly, I'm not in a position to accept the apology. It's our kids. Right. She was slandering high school kids. So anyway, it's been quite a week, Rachel and Sean. And I could say that we got the view to publicly apologize to Turning Point USA. Rachel and Sean. And I could say that we got the view to publicly apologize to Turning Point USA. Wow. That is an amazing thing. I will say, by the way, that the view should probably know that when I have gone to speak at Turning Point, it was for the Latino conference. So that's what's so hilarious. Exactly. I mean, and this is what was just think about what kind

of bubble you must live in. If're whoopi goldberg before you open your mouth you're like wait a second swats to cuz you really think a conservative group would be like yeah come on in you know come amongst our midst as if we have no decency at all like what do you think you're doing like what are you saying but i mean and so but charlie she's she's so consumed with politics and it's like she does see republicans as or you know you're not republicans you guys are conservatives but conservatives are evil and if you're a conservative you must be a nazi and i think truly in her mind it would be like of course of course they would wear swastikas at this event this is who they are she's she's a believer and therefore express

expresses that of course she does that's such a good point maybe she does but here's the other part because you bring up Sandman. And this is what I think it is. I think they're afraid. They're afraid of how many kids are Republicans and conservatives. They're afraid of how many black and Hispanic kids turn out to turning point. What I think happened with Sandman and what I think is happening here is they want to scare kids from going to those conferences. And what they want to do is smear the whole organization.

In this case, Turning Point. In the other case, it was wearing a MAGA hat and supporting Trump or going to a pro-life rally. They want to say, if you do that, guess what? We are going to call you a Nazi and we're going to ruin your life. Which is why I think it's great that Turning Point stood up for those kids, because it really wasn't about you and Turning Point. It's that all those kids would be smeared as Nazis and their opportunities in life and the future would be ruined, which is what they tried to do with Sandman. That's so beautifully said, Rachel. And that's right. I said that on my podcast and I said it publicly when I was talking about pursuing legal action, which we are still pursuing. We're looking at all of our options. It's like, look, you can say whatever you want about me. I'm a public figure. You know,

you can write bad tweets about me, whatever. I'll figure it out. Do not get close to touching our Turning Point USA high school kids. I will respond with the full fury and force of Turning Point USA if you get near our high school kids. Because here's this amazing 16-year-old that comes to our event, for example, right? And she emails me, Charlie, I'm in the midst of trying to apply for all these things. And somebody just sent me an article saying that you let Nazis into your event. And it would be all these vague generalities. So we had to respond the way we did. We had no choice. It's about our students. And look, this kind of fits into a broader theme, doesn't it, guys, about fighting for curriculum at school boards or standing up for the unborn, which is we as adults need to stand up for our children. Like, it's just that simple. Right. And we cannot allow our kids to be slandered by these smug celebrities on television.

Like, how dare they? And I'm glad it's taken the trajectory it did. I'm actually shocked. And I'm glad it's taken the trajectory it did. I'm actually shocked. The cover of the book has an endorsement by Tucker Carlson. I think it's a great lead off for you just to kind of tell us your story. It says Charlie Kirk. This is our friend, Tucker Carlson. It says Charlie Kirk has lived his own advice. He knew college was a scam. Read this. You'll know it, too. So you took a gap year and that turned into 10 years. Tell us about that. Yeah, it's it started, as you said, it started as a gap year and that turned into 10 years. Tell us about that.

Yeah, it started, as you said, it started as a gap year and it became a gap decade, which is a new term that I've now coined. And look, I had every intention to go to college. And this book is definitely indicting the college scam, but I have nothing against people that have gone to college. Obviously, everyone can take whatever path that they see fit for themselves. However, for me personally, it just wasn't the best that they see fit for themselves. However, for me personally, it just wasn't the best choice. And I started Turning Point USA and it's just grown to this amazing thing, thanks to the Lord's favor and praise God of how it's just been able to continue throughout the last couple of years to become a real force in the conservative arena. But look, I've been thinking about this topic ever since I started Turning Point for the last 10 years, which is, are we giving an honest and transparent value proposition of colleges, for colleges, I should say, for young people, of colleges for young people, I should say?

And largely the answer is no, we are not. College is almost an expectation for most people in upper middle class suburban society. We don't ask high school kids, hey, why are you going to college? We ask the question, where are you going to college? Like, hey, where are you going to school? And if not, you're deemed an abject and total failure. I think that's really wrong on several levels. And so what I do in this book is this book is very unique. I've written a couple books. The book I wrote before this was written in a different prose where I was trying to clarify something. I was clarifying what I believe Donald Trump stood for. It was called the MAGA Doctrine. This book is totally

different. This is a book of persuasion. And so you've got to ask yourself the question, where are arguments presented in front of people that are not biased and you have to win them over? The courtroom. And so I wrote this book as if I'm a prosecutor and the reader is the jury with a 10 count indictment against the college industry from every angle that you could imagine, not just from the cost, but also from legitimate graduation rates, from the long term trajectory of what happens if you don't graduate from college, but you enroll from the student loan debt to the foreign infiltration on campuses, to the violence against conservatives, to the outright anti-Americanism, to the outright anti-Semitism. All of this is compiled in a 10-count indictment. And I'm trying to persuade the reader that college is indeed a scam. And I encourage every parent out there, every young person, give me a shot to hear my argument. Again, it's three years of detailed research. We had over 35 pages of footnotes in the book, which is a lot. So everything is cited because I know that my critics would say, where do you get this stat? Where do you get this from? And so we put a lot of work into it. We're truly going after kind of what you could call the third rail of kind of

American life. You're not allowed to question college. You're just supposed to say, hey, everyone's got to go to college. We're trying to crash that consensus. You know, Charlie, Rachel and I have, you know, we have a lot of kids, as you mentioned at the start of the show, not 14, but nine. And the blessing, we've mentioned this a number of times in our podcast, the blessing is that we can make mistakes and then remedy those mistakes as we have new kids come up. And so we sent our first child to the University of Chicago, woke, liberal. We were proud that she got in, but we realized it wasn't really an education. It truly was an indoctrination. but we realized it wasn't really an education. It truly was an indoctrination. And she went through that experience with flying colors came out and she learned a lot, but not because of

the university. She learned a lot because of her experiences there and is stronger for it. The next one went to the University of Wisconsin, Madison. But our third one, we said, you know what, if you want to go to college, we are going to pick the colleges that you can go to if you want us to pay. If you want to go anywhere else in the country, pick your school. You can pay for it, which by the way, she can't pay for it. So I'm like, if you want to go, we are going to pick the schools that you can choose from, ones that will give you an education. And I think what you talk about is just because you're saying maybe college isn't right for you, education is incredibly important.

Talk to me about the education side of what Charlie Kirk has done, not through massive student loans and through college, but through the personal perseverance of someone who goes, I want to be informed and enlightened. Yeah, thanks for saying that. It's so important because my critics will call this book an anti-education book. In fact, it's a pro-education book. important because my critics will call this book an anti-education book. In fact, it's a pro-education book. All throughout the book, I offer resources of if you want to learn thanks to technology, boy, there's an unlimited amount of opportunities to do so. I'm no fan of smartphones. I think we stare at our screens too much. But one blessing of technology is look at all the stuff at your

disposal free of charge. You could learn all day. Forget going to Harvard, Princeton, or Yale. Why not learn from the subject matters themselves for the amazing content they put online? For example, we have a partnership with Hillsdale College, which is one of the few remaining good colleges in America. They can go to charlieforhillsdale.com, and there's 32 free online courses that they could take at any time, and they're good. I've taken over half of them, and they can learn a lot. Courses on what, Charlie? What are those courses? Everything from the Constitution to Aristotle to the great books of the West to the Federalist Papers, the Supreme Court, C.S. Lewis, Winston Churchill, World War II, Sparta v. Athens.

I mean, you get the full canon, basically. Awesome stuff that, by the way, they're not teaching in most schools and it's free of charge. Now, it does take work. The Hillsdale courses, you just don't do it in an afternoon. No, it's going to take days, if not weeks. And you got to take the, they have tests you have to take. They're all free. Um, and, but the point is this, is that there's so much at your disposal. So look, I read a book a week. I spend two days every two hours, every day learning, uh, listening to podcasts, reading new things, watching YouTube videos of people that are

interesting, you know, trying to challenge maybe an idea I have. I love to learn. Learning is everything. I mean, if you're not learning, what are you doing, right? That's one of the most beautiful things I think the Lord gave us is the ability to reason and learn and connect dots and really dive deep into subjects. I'm afraid that isn't happening though on most campuses, just not. Postmodernism and post-structuralism and critical theory, these ideas do not make the human soul in the pursuit of truth at all. Instead, it's all about deconstructing Western hegemony or reconsidering your colonialist privilege. Just shut up. There's so much beauty in the world. And you want to know why so many young people leave college depressed and quasi-suicidal and on psychiatric drugs? It's because for four years they've been filled with the idea pathogen of nihilism, which is there is no beauty, there is no truth.

And that's so insidious to teach a young person that's trying to figure out their way in the world. Instead, the message should be like, hey, there's a lot of beauty in this world. Let's go on a journey together to go find it. Boy, has the academy changed a lot. We'll have more of this conversation after this. My parents have had a lot of time on their hands lately. At first, it was nice. Hey, mom, can you drive me to soccer practice? Sure can. We're having slow cooked ribs for dinner. It was awesome. And then it became a lot. Some friends are coming over to watch a movie.

Oh, what are we watching? I'll make some popcorn. Thanks to Voila, they can order all our fresh favorites from Sobeys, Farm Boy, and Longos online, which is super reliable. And now my parents are reliable. A little too reliable. Voila, your groceries delivered just like that. Yeah, it really has. It's so interesting because our podcast, as Sean mentioned, we had Victor Davis Hanson and we had him on to talk about what are the schools he likes and then also to give tips. So as you do college tours, what to look for, what to look for in the syllabuses and the curriculum. He gave a lot of great tips. One of the things he said was, go to the bookstore and see what

they're pushing there. I thought that was a good one too. But Sean is right. One of the beauties of having a big family is that you do get these do-overs. And so for us, the adjustment was that we said we're going to limit. So we've done our research. We've learned that for us, both in elementary, high school, and now in college, we're only going to give as far as our own funding. We're only going to fund our children's education if they're choosing classical schools. So we have one going off in a couple of weeks over to the University of Dallas, which was one of the schools on Victor Davis Hanson's list. which was one of the schools on Victor Davis Hanson's list. By the way, we named that podcast, What Would Victor Davis Hanson Do?

Because he is a national treasure and we thought he had good advice. He totally is. He is. But what you're saying is so interesting because what we said in the last podcast is, well, what are the good schools among? But you're making the case that actually the academy is a scam. So those are very strong words, a scam. Talk to me about the scam part of it. Like what?

Talk to me about endowments and all that stuff. I'm going. Yeah, thank you. And yes, there are a few good schools left. But boy, there's a you could count them on one hand. So, yeah, let's let's talk about a couple numbers that I think really illustrate the scam. And you're right. It is a strong word and I use it intentionally. I

thought deeply about it before I put it on a book title. So can I defend this? And as I did the research, Rachel and Sean, for years, I was like, oh yes, I can. So let's just talk one number that makes people's jaws drop. 40%. 40% of people that enroll in college will not graduate. They drop out. That is the national dropout rate. So 40% of people should have no business going to college at all whatsoever. And by the way, you could prove it just empirically. Ask anybody, hey, do you know a couple of people that have dropped out of college? Like, oh yeah, I know a couple. Oh yeah, I know a couple.

I mean, I know tons of people that dropped out of college. So that's number one. By the way, those people, they have their confidence shot. They're usually in debt. They are struggling to find their way afterwards. They're very confused. They're like, whoa, what is right for me? I don't know. So 40% that enter college drop out. Now, some people say, well, Charles, because college is so difficult. No, it's not. College has become super easy. Unless you go to a great book school like University of Dallas or Hillsdale, you can co-spy by a D or C. Now, should they have been going to college with the skills that they got in high school? That's what's questionable. Do they want to be a plumber or electrician and

someone told them to go study queer theory at some school in Massachusetts you could barely pronounce? That's probably more likely. And so what you have here, that's one number. The next number is equally as appalling, which is 41% of college graduates, if they end up graduating, which is not a guarantee, will end up getting a job if they get a job that does not require a college degree. 41%. And that's 10 years after graduation. So they'll go into a career or a job that never required them to go into debt, be exposed to these bad ideas in the first place, and have a likelihood of dropping out. And on top of that, even more, if you add another 20%, people end up getting a job in a field completely different than

that which they studied. So for example, you would study economics and you get into computer science. And so you add all that together, that says about 4 to 5 million of the 23 million current kids in college right now are actually studying something. They're going to get a job that requires a college degree. They're going to graduate and they'll stay in the same field of which they're studying. That's an extraordinary indictment of a system that is a multi-trillion dollar taxpayer funded, heavily government subsidized system of which we send our most prized possession, Rachel and Sean. And that's why I use the language I also used, which is we're not talking about, you know, even energy systems here or tax rates. We're talking about our children. We're talking about the most prized possession a nation has is the nation's young people.

And we send them with no questions asked into an industry where they have a 40% chance of dropping out. And if they graduate, they might not even get a job that required them to go through the process in the first place. All the while, they have to have every single metaphysical, spiritual, and cultural notion that built Western civilization shattered to the core. That sounds like a scam to me. In fact, if any other industry operated that way, they'd be shut down immediately. They come back unrecognizable. These institutions have perfected indoctrinating your children. Unless there's a Turning Point USA or good parents that are engaging them, or you just have just a really great kid that can rebuff the advances of a liberal institution,

but they get so many of the kids, these little Marxist warriors, they turn out. But here's what else I find fascinating with what you talk about. A lot of people go to college because their parents tell them they have to go to college or their school counselor tells them they should go to college. The pathway to success in America is college. And so many of them, Michael, you know what? I'd be happy, to your point, being a plumber or an electrician or a mechanic. And those jobs pay really well, and you're not going to have a ton of debt

and you can go to school for, you know, sometimes 18 months to, you know, two years and you get out, you're, you're doing something that can allow you to buy a truck and a, and maybe a home and start your life making money at 18, 19 years old, as opposed to getting out with a boatload of debt and being, you know, 20, 22, 23 years old. Yes. Yeah, that's exactly right. But I mean, I challenge this in the book and I say it as politely as possible, but, you know, it's a little controversial to say this out loud, but it's true is most upper middle class suburban parents don't want their kids to work construction. That's right. skill or their passion at to go get that four-year university, that degree. And look, I'm doing this

podcast from Scottsdale, Illinois. Scottsdale, Arizona, not Illinois. I grew up in Illinois. I could say in Arizona, there is such a, there's an unbelievable deficit of plumbers and electricians and manual trades people. And I asked these guys, you know, where are they all going? They're like, well, you know, a lot of my buddies, you know, went to college and studied something and they're having trouble finding jobs. They're earning six figures. They got no debt. Like you said, Sean, they work really hard. They're working with dignity. You know, they love the Lord. They have big families. I say, man, I would much rather have that than more people that are studying things that like how to hate America. Like really? That's also that's just why is the country becoming politically unrecognizable, especially on the coasts? I also tie that together in the book, which is a lot of our politics, I believe, have become more radical because of college campuses.

wacky, but that wackiness will stay confined to Berkeley or Harvard. It's not true. Instead, what happens on college campuses is not stay on college campuses. It goes into corporate boardrooms and the halls of Congress. Look at AOC, Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush. And so I make a provocative claim in the book. I admit it, but I'll defend it. America cannot continue all of our fights that we're doing together. And you both do such a beautiful and wonderful job. I do not believe that we can have the country survive if we do not see a massive decline in college enrollment. I couldn't agree more. So very interesting. Go ahead, Rachel. Go ahead. No, no, you go ahead.

What frustrates me, I was looking at running for governor in Wisconsin. I didn't run. But if you look at the university systems, not just in Wisconsin, but across the country, look at the university systems, not just in Wisconsin, but across the country, these universities not just get federal taxpayer money through loans that kids get or grants that kids get, the taxpayers in those states, Charlie, fund those institutions to then radicalize the kids. That's exactly right. And so I pay my tax dollars to let the left, the Democrats, radicalize my children, and the conservatives and Republicans still allow this to happen? I got Republicans in Wisconsin are like, oh, we have

to deal with the university system. And Republicans are like, we can't touch the university system in Wisconsin. I'm a badger. I went to four years. I loved it. And we have to support them. I'm like, do you not know what they're doing? Do you not know that they're ruining our state and our country because of the ideas that they're pushing? To your point, they're anti-God, anti-American, anti-Western civilization. And we're supposed to fund that with our hard-earned tax dollars? Hell no. Let's gut them and bring them back to an education system.

Charlie, Sean will tell you from wisconsin politics this is something i mean he literally had to tell me this 20 different ways before i got it through my head sean believes it was easier for scott walker to reform the teachers union which you saw what that caused the the beehive that caused it would be easier to reform teachers unions in Wisconsin than to go in to the beehive of the university system, mainly because a lot of conservatives are very sentimental and nostalgic about their experience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in particular. That's right. That's right. That's why I wrote the book the way I did as a persuasion document, because a lot of my base and even some of our donors at Turning Point, they love what we're doing. They said, oh, Charlie, you're too hard on the college thing. You know, colleges just need to be reformed. And so, look, I think they're irredeemable. I really do. And I say this, you know, I say this as someone who's visited over 120 campuses in 35 states. We run a 50 state organization. We have thousands of chapters and hundreds of thousands of members, and you guys know all about it. I don't say that lightly, right? I don't like bashing institutions unless they deserve it. But look, here's one of my kind of policy goals in the next year, which is let's come to a middle ground. I'd love to see these universities completely defunded, but why is it that North Dakota and South Dakota can't say,

all right, we're going to boost funding for science, technology, engineering, and math, but the humanities, go raise your own money. Go figure it out. You guys can still exist on the campus, but not one more taxpayer dollar is going to go fund anti-Americanism, humanities. There's nothing good that comes out of it. Period. Nothing. Zero. Absolutely nothing. No one cares about critical theory, post-modernism, post-structuralism. Go do a bake sale, Right. Go do some sort of Bill Gates fund. Whatever you have to do. It's fine. But taxpayer dollars should go towards science, technology, engineering and math. Now, those have become pretty political in recent years. But still, I believe if you put the humanities on defense like that, that's how you contain the idea pathogens. But Sean, I got to say what you just said was so smart, both you and Rachel just said it, is that conservatives are in on this and there's a lot of reasons. Go look at the boards, go look who gets the football tickets, go look at how about the contractor contracts, right? When they have to go build a new building or all this sort of stuff. There's a very incestuous relationship between major conservative donors, between the college,

the campus itself, the infrastructure. And so this is going to have to be a people-led movement. But one of my great frustrations has been how red state legislatures have sat on their hands while taxpayer dollars, their state, forget the federal government, federal government's a waste of time. We know that that money trough is going to continue. And Sean, you fought that battle beautifully for years, but it's just, you know, it's nothing. I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon. The states is where action can happen. That's right.

Yes. Why is this still continuing? It's a mystery to me. Well, there's some nostalgia about it, isn't it, Sean? I mean, from your conversations with your constituents, people are just, they think it's the way it was in the 80s. Can I make a comparison to that, Rachel, too? So we're all like, free trade is the best thing ever. And we all need free trade. And that means that people can take advantage of us, but we're going to let them sell their wares freely in America, but they can put tariffs on

us and that's free trade. And Donald Trump came in and said, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hell no, we're not doing that. We're going to treat you the way you treat us. You want to take advantage of us? We're going to slap tariffs, China, on all your products. And that moment of leadership and courage from Donald Trump made Republicans go, he's right. Actually, we should change our policy. And so if you had a governor who was a leader to expose the rot in the university system and the money from the taxpayers that goes to fund that rot and the rot of their children.

I think you would see more people buy into it, but I don't think people fully comprehend how bad it is in the university system. We do. We see it. But I think the average alumni or donor doesn't get the concepts that are being fed to the children or young students at these institutions. And if they did, that's how we would change it as well. That's why your book is so important. That's right. That's why this book is so important. By the way, I heard you last week with our buddy, Pete Hegseth. It was one of the first things I said when I got off the show. I said, Sean, did you watch Charlie? He said that parents would ask him, are you sure the schools are this bad? The universities are this bad? And Charlie, the greatest line I've heard in a long time on Fox News,

you said, would you send your kid to CNN school? That's right. I thought it was the best thing I ever heard. I thought it was great, but I'm going to push back on you for one second. Because one of the things that Victor Davis Hanson said, one of the things Victor Davis Hanson said was a positive about sending your kids to a good university was that they would meet a mate, that there is a social component to going to college. And I know you just got married. Boy, is she gorgeous. You didn't have to go to college to find her.

But that's right. I'm just saying that there is that social component. And for some of the elite schools, a lot of those parents say, well, there's a lot of networking going on there. Talk to me about that. So first to me, if that was true, why are marriage rates the lowest they've ever been? We've sent more kids to college than ever before. And we have the least married generation in history. But maybe not at Hillsdale and University of Dallas, maybe just at Wisconsin or Harvard. Or, you know, there may be no, but liberty. Yeah, but it's kind of the joke is, you know, I used to go get my MRS degree. No, you don't. You go get your hookup degree. I mean, it's like this. And so that's not right.

The second thing I think, look, I think Victor is on to something here. And this is the one piece of caveat I do put in the book. And I say this, if you are if you are a rock ribbed conservative, like a radical right winger, I say that jokingly, of course. But if you're like a real conservative like we are, right, and you get into Harvard. I had a kid ask me, Charlie, should I go to Harvard? I said, look, I hate Harvard. I would, you know, it's just an irredeemable institution. I said, but look, you're Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. You got a golden ticket where the only reason to go to Harvard is that you will be taken more seriously for the rest of your life. I don't think it's fair. I don't think it's something that I like. I don't appreciate

it. But if you graduate with just the Harvard degree for the rest of your life, you could say you went to Harvard, you'll get into rooms that took me years to scrap and hustle to get into. And so that's something to wait. But let's be honest, guys, that's not the majority of schools. We know that, right? The vast majority of schools don't give you that kind of entrance or that kind of ticket. Now, the other part about the networking, that's interesting. That value proposition fell apart in COVID, I think, hilariously because of all the Zoom and Skype class, right? Where it's like, oh, yeah, how are you going to meet all your classmates? Like people went to Princeton to go meet, you know, the future, the future, whatever Supreme Court justice. And they were doing all of it by Zoom and Skype.

Most colleges, right? I would say that the networking is more like friendship building more than anything else. But I will say this though, like because of technology, you can network outside of the halls of Yale, Dartmouth or Cornell. Right. I think it's more about values than it is about the alma mater. And so let's get this straight. I ask people this all the time. Ask a parent. I said, well, I want my kid to go to Stanford. I want my kid to go to UC Berkeley because I'll meet a lot of different people. I said, OK, fine. If I gave your kid two hundred thousand dollars and I said in four years, find the 10 most interesting people you can get to

me that you know well, or the 10 most interesting people that you'll meet at Stanford or Berkeley, which list would be more compelling? If $200,000 to do that for four years, and if that was your mission, and by the way, you could meet some pretty interesting people, right? You could travel, you could go to events, you could do all sorts of different things. And the final thing I'll say is this, which is life is what you make of it. You guys know this, right? And what bothers me most about what college does is that it destroys ambition because of the debt burden, because of the nihilism.

We have the lowest level of small business startups in our country's history. And so many kids say, I want to start a business in high school. The worst thing you could do is go get saddled down with debt and filled with bad ideas. Go start that business. Take a gap year. It might turn into a gap decade. And look, not everyone's path needs to be the same. That's the other thing I talk about in the book. My path will be different than your path. What I am doing here, though, is that if you still decide to go to college after reading the book and you agree with me, at least you know you're going into a broken system, right? At least you know how to navigate it. At least you know that it's largely a scam. At least, you know what class is not to take,

right? What's the worst is if we're trying to convince ourselves like Sean, like I'm a badger, like, okay, be honest, right? Stop it. Like just at least you're able to admit that the entire thing is a largely a racket and a cartel. So that would be my answer to that. Really, really quick. Have you been able to give your message, the message of this book on any like non-conservative outlet? So like has ABC or NBC or, you know,

the Today Show, The View, whatever. Have you been able to get your book out there or is there, are there gatekeepers that, you know, because you're Charlie Kirk, they don't let you do that? Because I mean, it's a good audience at Fox, right?

It's a good audience. It's fabulous. So thankful for it. Yeah. Right. I get it. But we're kind of really naturally open to it. The idea, I think there's an opening in there.

I think there are some barriers that we've all talked about in this podcast. But there's an openness because people on the right understand that there's something rotten there. Right. But what about on the, in these other outlets, have you been able to access that? No, I haven't. And I've wanted to, and look, it's not even a political book, right guys. I haven't said Biden or Trump once. I mean, I talked on anti-Americanism and these idea pathogens, but that's not, I don't even think that's arguable, right? Like if you're going to disagree that, you know, colleges are woke, then you're not living on the same planet. But what's hilarious guys, and this is one of the other reasons I wrote the book,

is that this is supposed to be a cornerstone issue of the left, isn't it? College affordability, student loan forgiveness, right? I mean, come on, let's talk about it. But no, I think that the book probably makes too much sense to platform. And it probably isn't helpful to their narrative to do this. Instead, they'll try to smear it and slander it, of which I will respond. So they're just deciding to ignore it, right? They know that like an NPR article or whatever would be only further platforming, but I'm going to try to seek out some opposition media. But like I challenge everyone. And I also warn them though, I spent three years researching this. Like I said, we got 35 pages of footnotes. Come ready because the numbers are far worse than you might think, you know? But like, I would welcome an NPR or CNN or

anyone that wants to tell me why college as it is today is a wonderful value proposition for most young people. But everyone in these media outlets are like, listen, we want everyone to go to CNN and MSNBC College University. That's where we want them to go. Why would I tell them not to go? That's like, this is going to better inform them to be better citizens and voters when they get out. We want everybody to be at our university, right?

Charlie, I gotta tell you what, even the pushback that you've given us on the podcast and the thought that you put into it is remarkable in the college scam. Can I just ask, and we're over time and I'm going to let you go in a second. Would you tell us just quickly, synthesize, I mean, you're 18 years old. You're at the start of your gap decade. The college doesn't work for you, but you're like, I got this idea.

I want to start this youth organization that's a conservative organization. How does a young man who doesn't have a Harvard degree start this group that grows into this massive, powerful movement in the country? How did you do that? And I actually don't know the answer to it. I don't know your story. Yeah, I mean, it's the Lord, number one.

And honestly, it's something I talk about in the book, which I think we need to have a revival of, which is a topic that's not political. Mentors. What a beautiful thing, an American tradition of mentors of one generation helping the other.

Bill Montgomery was a 72 year old who told me I shouldn't go to college. And I thought he was nuts. I was 18 years old at the time. And he was like our first board member, our first supporter. And he helped me tremendously. Foster Freeze, who I think both of you knew,

passed away recently. Yeah, he was such a special. He's from my old district, born and raised in Rice Lake, Wisconsin. Foster Freeze, who I think both of you knew, passed away recently. Yeah, he was such a special guy. He's from my old district, born and raised in Rice Lake, Wisconsin. Rice Lake, Wisconsin. Yeah. And he was our first donor. Gave me $10,000 when no one else believed in me. So it was really, I mean, and then the Freeze family has given over $10 million since. They've just been unbelievable. And so, and Foster in particular, it was mentors. And that's something I talk about in the book is that, man, if I could, again, it's idealistic, who knows, I got an I got a lot of my plate. But imagine an organization that paired up 10,000 high school graduates and the mentor for a gap year,

and they shadowed that mentor, instead of going to college, it would change the country, it just would, you know, how many CEOs would love to give back. And it's actually interesting. Now, 10 years later, I'm starting to realize the delight and the joy that my once mentors had mentoring me because I get to mentor now younger people. Right. And so what is life all about? It's about passing things down to younger people so that they get to enjoy the journey like you did. And so I have to just credit mentors. It's just so incredibly important. And I think I don't think it's done enough. I really don't. I one of my challenges in the book is for Baby Boomers Plus to be bolder in their offering of mentorship, offer more meals, offer more weekend coffees with young people, right? Offer more advice. I think they'd be shocked at how many young people are looking for someone to help guide them. I think they'd be shocked at how many young people are looking for someone to help guide them. Oh, God, such a great point. It's such a great point, the wisdom, right?

And that's what you're seeing is lacking at so many of these universities. But it's that wisdom passing down from one generation to the next. Your story is remarkable and so inspirational. And I think that it talks about the American dream and possibilities. And the American dream never was tied to, you know, graduating from Harvard. And by the way, I always tell my kids, it's like my, I have a mommy motto.

You can steal this one when you have kids, Charlie. But the motto is, my job is to get you into heaven, not Harvard. And I've always said that. And I mean that. And the whole mentorship idea, the whole idea of seeking out beauty, seeking out truth, love, family, dignity in work, whatever that work is, all of those messages to me have come through this book. And I think it's a powerful message. It's a powerful thing for all of us to be thinking about and rethinking the notions that have been

passed on. I think it was Michelle Obama who said, every child needs to go to college. Well, Charlie Kirk says, maybe not. That's right. In fact, I say forcefully that most shouldn't and that there is a beautiful life out there, even if you don't get a college degree. You know what, Charlie? It's a courageous book. And you know what? I think it's important that people reconsider these preconceived notions. And you do that here. As you said, 35 pages of footnotes that cite all the studies. I appreciate you doing it. And I appreciate you jumping on our podcast and sharing the book. you jumping on our podcast and sharing the book. I imagine that they can get The College Scam anywhere they get their book from Amazon to Fox News to any bookstore in the country. Good luck with it. I'm sure The New York Times is just chomping at the bit to make sure you are a number one seller. Yeah, they messed with us last time. We were right at the top of the list last time. Honestly, the way we did this book rollout, we're with Winning Teen Publishing. They're

wonderful. People can find it at collegescam.com. I don't even care about the New York Times list this time. I did that whole game last time. That's not worth it. Who cares? We just want to sell a bunch of books. We want to change lives. And also, this book is different in the sense that all proceeds go to Turning Point USA.

So it's just a direct contribution to Turning Point if they buy it. So collegescam.com. I love that, Charlie. Thank you for joining us at the kitchen table. God bless you guys. Thank you so much. God bless you. You too. Great talking to you. We'll have more of this conversation after this. Visa and OpenTable are dishing up something new. Get access to primetime dining reservations by

adding your Visa Infinite Privilege card to your OpenTable account. From there, you'll unlock first-come, first-served spots at select top restaurants when booking through OpenTable. Learn more at OpenTable.ca forward slash Visa Dining. Charlie is so smart, Rachel. He's challenging the way that we're thinking about school even and i think he's right to say is you know is the value there and i still believe if there's the right university with the right curriculum you know gaining some wisdom and knowledge on how the world works is still a value proposition it really is but so many of them, to his point, are just rotten, rotten to the core. Yeah. And it's interesting. Think about how much money you pour into a college education. If your kid is not going to go to a classical academy or doesn't really want to be a professor or

doesn't need that degree and isn't going to be a computer software person. Maybe you could give them the money that you were going to spend on college and they can go live in Rome for a year. Maybe they'd learn more doing that. Maybe just going to work for a while and taking that gap year and figuring out what they want to do. I think the lesson really for me, Sean, that I learned from Charlie's book and Charlie's conversation is that really a lot of times it's us parents that are the barrier. You know, that a lot of parents want the bragging rights of saying our kid went to such and such

grade school or just being able to say my kid's in college, that somehow you feel like you failed if your kid is off doing something other than college or, or, or forgoes a college degree experience. So I think it's, it's a lot of, it's on us parents to think about and to break down those, those, as you said, pre preconceived notions and, and those societal norms that are holding back our kids, or in some cases, actually destroying our kids. We hand our kids over and they come back, as you say, unrecognizable. The one question I wish I would have asked him that is coming to me as we're having the after conversation is, he makes sense.

If you're going to go study the humanities or read the classics, there's a lot of tools and videos and teachers that have free content online. But if you're going to study math, if you're going to study the sciences, it seems like that's not made for online coursework. That enlightenment that comes in some of these specific fields, you got to go to some higher form of education. He kind of admitted that. He did. He kind of admitted that even the way he talked about the funding.

Why can't North and South Dakota? Yeah. He said, in the humanities, you can have the George Soros School of Gender, Queer Theory, whatever. But the state will fund the science departments and so forth. One thing I think about my own experience, Sean, you know, I studied economics for undergraduate. I have no regrets about that. I feel like it just gave me a base of knowledge. I don't know if I would have been exposed to it

in that way. But when I graduated from college, I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. I had a scholarship for graduate school because I had good grades and I had applied for it, not knowing what I wanted to do. And I kind of am glad I went to grad school in the sense that, I don't know, I probably would have just, I mean, I waited tables while I was in grad school, but I think I would have just waited tables for those few years. And I do think I made some, some good relationships. I learned, you know, in my graduate program, but so I, I'm a little bit like, yeah, maybe, you know, I don't know. I mean, do I want to say, you know, I think as he said, it's, it's,

it can't be for everybody. Right. I mean, everybody isn't, he doesn't want everybody to not go to college, but he wants people to sort of weigh the pros and cons. And so for me, I think doing nothing versus going to school, I was a little lost at that time. I think I was kind of glad I went to school. And a lot of, a lot of people, his point is should not go to college, but there's some people who I imagine should. And for me, uh, I didn't use my brain, didn't know how the damn thing worked for a long time. I went to, I went to college, I went to law school, and I found a career path going to law school. I was a prosecutor that really kind of enhanced the way I thought and spoke and argued in a way that was profound for me, that set me up to

be a very good congressional candidate and win a seat against a 42-year incumbent Democrat and be successful in the House. And so those things for me only came through undergrad and through law school that gave me the opportunity to become a prosecutor and then develop these skill sets that I didn't know that I had. And I'm grateful for that. But again, there's- The job I'm most proud that you've ever had, Sean, was as a prosecutor, because you were putting the bad guys behind jail.

Oh, I wasn't woke. You were so damn good at it. You won like 90 some percent of your trials cases. But you can't be a lawyer unless you go to law school. I mean, it's just not possible. So that's one of those cases that I think it made sense for you to go and you were a damn good prosecutor. I appreciate that. Thank you. I was proud of that work as well. It was, but it was, it was good for me in many ways. So, and I thoroughly enjoyed it and I was proud of the work. And again, the woke DAs, Gascon and Alvin Braggs of today, give all us good law enforcement prosecutors a bad name. But listen, Rachel, I love this podcast. I love the theme that we're doing on education.

I think more parents, and as we're kind of going through this process ourselves, have to think about education, college. Think about K through 12. And he made a really important point that the most important possession a country has is their youth. And as parents, we put so much time and energy and money into our kids to let them have life experiences and be well-informed and be loved and cared for and taught. To think that we would send're meant to be, Sean. I mean, we have nine kids. The chances that all nine of them must go to college because there's no other way for them to see is very slim. And I think the closing message here is that, you know, college has a very specific purpose.

It is not for everybody. It should not be a one size fits all for everybody that we should look at our kids as individuals. We should also look at the institutions and be very picky about them if we do if they do decide to choose that. But that we shouldn't shame our kids if they decide not to go and have a different path. And that's a hard thing for parents to do because the way the society and culture has set it up, going to college and graduating equals success. Like you did the right thing. And as he said, nobody asks, why are you going to college? They just ask where. And so it's sort of like, you know, understood that that's where you're going

to go if you are, you know, successful or, or as a parent, if you are successful, your kid's going to take that path. So we have to open our minds to that idea that maybe of our nine, not all of them are going to end up in college. Um, and maybe that's a great thing. And that's fine. It really is. And again, it's an educational process that we're going through. And again, I appreciate Charlie spending the time to write this book and make us all think, challenging us to think through this in a way that's really smart and really well-informed. And so I appreciate him joining us on the podcast and having this conversation with us. I want to thank everybody. Life is a learning experience. We should all be in lifelong learning. And so Charlie definitely

opened us up to that idea and emphasize that. So Sean, great conversation. I hope everyone joins us next time around the kitchen table. I'm going to say it again, rate, review, subscribe to our podcast, wherever you get them. We would love it. And until next time, have a great week. Bye-bye. From the Fox News Podcast Network. I'm Janice Dean, Fox News Senior Meteorologist. Be sure to subscribe to the Janice Dean podcast at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And don't forget to spread the sunshine.