The Charlie Kirk Show - From the Archive: Charlie at Cal State Fullerton

Episode Date: June 27, 2026

Should you hide your real beliefs in college in order to "get by," or stand up fearlessly? If you're determined to stick it out in a blue state, what's the best way to get politically involved? Is it worth severing friendships over politics? Charlie got a lot of tough and practical questions at Cal State Fullerton, and his answers to those questions are timeless. Watch every episode ad-free on members.charliekirk.com!    Get new merch at charliekirkstore.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My name is Charlie Kirk. I run the largest pro-American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic. My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth. If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable. But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful. College is a scam, everybody. You've got to stop sending your kids to college. You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible. Go start a turning point USA college chapter. Go start a turning point you would say high school chapter.

Go find out how your church can get involved. Sign up and become an activist. I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade. Most important decision I ever made in my life and I encourage you to do the same. Here I am. Lord, use me. Buckle up, everybody. Here we go.

Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you could protect your wealth with noble gold investments at noble goldinvestments.com. That is noble goldinvestments.com. All right, let me say something about Q&A before we get started. So this is a majority conservative audience, I would imagine, right? So if someone who is on the left or someone who disagrees comes up to ask a question, I ask you not to heckle or interrupt, show respect and show them the respect that they usually do not show us when we show up to events and public places. So please just be tolerant and to the

extent of let them get their ideas out and then we can respond appropriately. Okay, it will, it takes courage to come up at a conservative event and let your voice be heard. So just show them that and then we can respond from there. Okay, the first question. I was wondering if you could give some encouraging words to students who are being alienated by teachers, their communities and their friends because of their Christian. or conservative values. That's a really important question. So students, raise your hand

if you think you've been graded differently or treated differently because of your beliefs. Yeah, basically every hand goes up. So that's right. Marco says worth it. Yeah, look, I want to say this. So there's a disagreement on the right, and I have a lot of respect for Ben Shapiro,

but he has a different answer than I do on this, and I'll kind of say this. So Ben, and this is not precisely your question, but I'll incorporate it. So the question, here's the question, Do you lie on your term paper or how you present yourself to your professors to get a good grade? That's a question a lot of people ask, right? It's like it's easier to kind of hide and to not confront things.

So Ben says yes, lie, misrepresent your beliefs, get the good grade, and get through college or high school. I see it differently. I do not believe getting a good grade is nearly as important as creating strong people filled with integrity, willing to fight for truth at all. And so now why am I bringing this up? Because if you wanted to kind of, those you that are conservative wanted to have an easier life, then just pretend to not be a conservative and just keep your head down and just pretend to be something that you're not and delete your social media. I think there's a lot more important things in life than that.

So the word of encouragement is this. First, something that is true that you don't want to hear and then something that is true that you probably will want to hear. It's never going to stop. You will be harassed, called names, demonized, victimized. you will be smeared and slandered. You will lose a lot of your friends and you'll doubt whether it's all worth it. Sound fun, right?

Well, here's the second thing, though. You will be a stronger, tougher, more resilient person that will look around at your peers one day while they're worried about whether or not they're being called the right pronouns and you will be, you will have your direction, you'll have resolve, you'll have an intestinal fortitude, you'll have gusto that will run circles

around an increasingly fragile system. society and you will have what is so lacking in America today, grittiness and toughness. And that is something that I want to instill in every single young person. So yeah, it's going to be tough. We here at Turning Point USA are here to help you get through that through our networking events, through our Young Women's Leadership Summit, through our chapter events, through the events like this tonight so you know you're not alone. But we want to try to continue to rise up the citizen of young people and students to be able to

take a stand. But it's going to be tough, but it's worth it. God bless you. Thanks for being here tonight. Hi, I wanted to ask, how would you advise that those of us who plan to stay in California effectively convince others to do the same instilling the same passion to fight for a conservative California instead of fleeing to other conservative states? Yeah, that's a great question, right?

So start local. I think that for those of that live in Orange County, take back Orange County. Orange County is a great project. Focus on it. It's doable. If you're not personally volunteering for local candidates, get involved. Orange County is a great first step. It really is on a variety of ways, whether it be congressional involvement, whether it be city council, school board, super important. Look, you're not going to be

able to change the whole state in just one election cycle. It's not going to happen. I know a lot of people were upset with the results of the recall. I certainly was. But I really was in support of the recall then and now. I thought it was a great thing to show the people in charge in Sacramento that they're at least still going to have to get up and pretend that they represent their voters, spend a bunch of money. And I think it also invigorated a lot of you to get involved in the process

that you otherwise would not have been involved in. I thought it was a really beautiful thing. And also I just got to say that from a political standpoint, which is not something that I'll just talk about personally, not on behalf of Turning Point USA in this sense, which is if the races you get involved from a congressional standpoint in Orange County, they can and will determine the future of the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.

So all the while it might feel as if the state is lost, but there's five congressional districts in Orange County, or did they go down to four now with the new maps? There's three now. There used to be five, if I'm not mistaken, right? Yeah, there's four. So those four, I don't know how they probably obliterated the maps, right? But the direction of those four seats will be highly consequential

to whether or not it'll be Speaker Pelosi or a Republican Speaker of the House, right? That's a very, very important dividing line. And so finally, I'll say with this, though, is that one of the keys to saving California is continually getting the churches to rise up and to speak truth. And we have some pastors here in the audience that have done such an amazing job. James Cadiz was here. Rob McCoy, Jack Gibbs, so many phenomenal people. And then, look, if you believe California is your home and is your future, then don't allow

someone to just automatically take your future and your home from you. Fight for every inch. And I believe that it's going to be a long-term project, but there is, there's a lot more hope for California than I think people realize. Thank you. God bless you. I appreciate it. Angel Studios has a new feature film that is a must-see, and I really, really mean it. This film tells the untold story of George Washington before he was a general or a president. At just 20 years old, Washington faced crushing failures, near-death experiences, and pivotal moments that forged the courage, the character, and the leadership that would one day shape the United States. Angel Studios and Wonder Project have joined forces to bring you a high-quality production

that doesn't erase the values that made George Washington who he was. It's not some woke film. Directed by John Irwin, who did Jesus Revolution, I Can Only Imagine, American Underdog, House of David. This epic film brings history to life with authenticity. scale and truth. With these incredible people behind it, you know it's going to be good. Starring legends like Andy Circus, Ben Kingsley and Kelsey Grammer, Young Washington arrives in theaters this Independence Day, right on the 250th anniversary of America's founding. Angel tells the stories America was built on. No apologies or rewriting just the truth of who we are. Their curated library of films and shows honors this country instead of tearing it down.

This is an awoke version of history. It's bold. It's authentic. And it's true to who George Washington really was. The biggest blockbuster of the summer, timed perfectly with America's 250th anniversary, where you can become a premium Angel member for only $15 a month or $135 for an annual membership. You need to see this on the big screen. By becoming a premium member of Angel,

not only can you get tickets to see Young Washington, but you'll get access to their whole library of content where you can stream other patriotic films and shows like green and gold, Mike Rose something to stand for, homestead and the last rodeo. Stories of freedom, sacrifice, and the people who made this country what it is.

Join the Angel Guild today. Go to angel.com slash Kirk. Take advantage of our special offer and become a premium member for the lowest price of the season. You'll get two free tickets to see Young Washington in theaters this Independence Day and be a part of making this film

the number one movie in America for our nation's 250th birthday. Hi, Charlie. My name is Jared. I'm the president of the Turning Point Chapter at your Belinda High School. So last week on April 5th in a 3-2 vote, my school board passed a resolution to ban critical race theory in my district.

So my question is, what's the next steps to ensuring that we have a good education even after that ban? That's great. So it's a two-part dance, so that's great. Now you need to say, okay, let's get pro-American curriculum in our schools. So what does that look like, right?

Hillsdale College has done a lot of work in this, So we're starting to do a lot at Turning Point USA. But we have to teach people, what is the American story? What is the proper way to view American history? What is America? Was it a mistake? Was it something that just kind of fell out of the sky? There's just a couple things I'll share here that I think could really excite high school students

that they're definitely not taught in school. America was summoned into existence at a time and a place. That is very unusual. In fact, it's almost never happened before in human history. Most civilizations or countries stumble into existence. They're not summoned into existence. I want you to think about that. There was a decision to create America.

China just kind of existed, and, you know, is kind of the Yanksy River Valley civilization, and just kind of built into itself. Indus River Valley into India and so on and so forth. But America was a group of people that made a decision, founding fathers. We have a set of principles. We don't like what's happening.

We're going to declare independence of things that are always true. And I'm afraid that most young people are not just being taught that even worse. They're being taught the opposite. They're being taught that the founding fathers were racist bigoted slave owners. And they don't know their history. They don't know that the first anti-slavery convention

in America was hosted in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin in 1775. They don't know that 9 out of 13 states before the Constitution was ratified in 1787 had already independently abolished slavery. A lot of young people never taught that Vermont was the first state to abolish slavery in 1777,

inspired by the Declaration of Independence. So the next step is get your local school districts and not just teach this, but inspire young people to be excited about the country they live in. A lot of young people, I think, are unnecessarily depressed and negative about their life because they've been told the one thing that you have a yearning to associate with your country is awful. Deep down, I think most people actually want to support their home. And you kind of see that when you start to see like a Dodgers hat here and like a Rams hat here. Like that's a different way of kind of showing association that you care about where you're from. Yet the one thing they're trying to get rid of is the Jersey of America. And that's something I think that excites people. It creates happier lives.

It creates stronger communities. When all of a sudden you're like, you know what? I, here in California, have a direct connection to a time where people decided to say that self-government was a moral issue. And that separation of powers and consent to the government is worthy of protection and preservation. And they were willing to do something about it. I think that actually creates a much happier country to live in than one where you think everything is racist, bigoted, awful, colonialistic, homophobic and backwards. At some point, that only way you could solve that question is to revolutionize the country. And that's what they're trying to get young people to do.

It's like if all that buildup was nothing but evil, then you might as well just burn it all down to the ground. So we as conservatives, and to answer your question in your Belinda, the home of Richard Nixon, if I'm not mistaken, right, is to do this, which is to say to your local school district, we want to create a curriculum that creates grateful and informed citizens and an informed sense of patriotism. That is not political. That is essential to the survival of the country. Thanks for being here tonight. God bless you. Hey, Charlie. My name is Jonathan.

I go to Kassai Fullerton. I guess I have a simple question. Like in a family full of like conservatives, we're kind of the minority in a grand family. I just want to know how I can converse with the rest of my family being like liberal and especially my friends as well without obviously causing discourse and too much hurt, I guess.

Yeah, well, never be the source of hurt. That's my first piece of advice. So don't be the one to call names or, you know, try to disassociate from people. But I think every conservative here in this audience would agree that you lost friends, but they left you. You didn't leave them. A lot of, and that's, I never support the severing of friendships over politics, but I'm also realistic. It happens all the time where people stop being friends with you because of politics. I bet every single person in this room could resonate with that. So look, this is a, This is a situation where you're going to have to balance. Are you going to tell the truth when there might be a consequence to it, right? And it's also how you say it. It's also how you communicate it. Having that balance of 100% grace with 100% truth, trying to be magnanimous in how you communicate, I think is really, really important. But also, you know, understanding that in family dynamics, you have to prioritize whether or not you want the family to kind of stay together. or whether or not you want to make a political point.

And I don't say this advice lightly. There's some politics that should, there's some families that should never discuss politics. And there's an argument for that. It's like they're so rigid in their beliefs, it's just going to cause a civil war. Now, some people say, you know what? I'm going to, you know, say what I want to say.

And I know personally, dozens of examples of parents that don't talk to children anymore. I think that's really unhealthy. I think it's not good at all. But it's a balance. I think that everyone should know where you stand. And then the final piece of advice is go to work on the family members where there's a little bit of openness. If you believe that you're right, if we believe we're right, then start to send articles, ask questions,

start to understand their points of where they think that they view the world in a certain way. Like, well, I just want to help people. Like, okay, then start to find things where all of a sudden left-wing policies are not helping people, right? Like, how exactly does it help people when the border's wide open and women are being sex trafficked across there every single way? How does it help people exactly? and start to ask those questions. And then with your friends, I mean, I kind of answered that already. Just, you know, you're probably going to lose friends, and they'll probably continue.

And also know the difference between good faith arguments and bad faith arguments. Do not waste your time in bad faith arguments. Just don't. If people are just putting their hands in their ears saying, I don't want to hear anymore, just disengage. But if people are really curious and their dialogue with you, that's worth your time. But don't waste your time. And you could use your own prudence and your wisdom to navigate that. Thanks for being here tonight.

Appreciate it. Hey Charlie, I love your comment about how you said we should encourage younger people to invest in like buy property and buy land Recently Florida's governor Rhonda Sanchez he passed SB I think 1050 1044 I forgot the exact name wants to encourage or he wants to teach financial literacy Yes, is that something it's kind of surprising because I've seen a poll that said a lot of parents disagreed with schools teaching financial literacy and do you think that's something that that as a nation can be pushed forward and financial literacy can be taught across all schools? Yeah, I mean, it depends what the devil's in the details. What do they mean by financial literacy, right?

If the federal government is teaching us about financial literacy, certainly. Exactly. Trust them on that. Couldn't balance a budget to save their lives, right? But no, I think financial literacy is super important. But here's the thing is that, so if you take a financial literacy textbook from 2003 or whatever, right? They'll say saving is good, save as much money as you can, right? That's probably something you were taught in financial literacy. That's actually really bad advice right now.

Like you shouldn't be saving money right now. You're going to lose it. You're like, what do you mean? Inflation. Like you're getting poorer every day that money's in a bank account. So, yeah, people need to know that. That's really important. Now, I hope and I wish for a set of economic circumstances that reward good behavior

and don't reward bad behavior. Saving is a good behavior. We should have a society that does reward saving. But right now we don't. Right now people get actively poor when they have cash sitting in their bank account. And so to kind of piggyback on this, I do support financial literacy. I think it's super important. The lack thereof is unbelievable to me.

I think that a lot of the financial models kind of prey on young people and their illiteracy when it comes to credit cards and debt and all of that. And the first thing is this is why I can't believe this is not a law. I want to start with financial literacy. Like, okay, you want to go borrow $80,000 to go to some scum, to study some kind of super fringe degree. Like, can we put some more checks and balances in for that, like before you actually know what you're signing up for?

There was an amazing poll that showed like 45 to 50% of young people are borrowing money, student loan debt, without their parents understanding how much money it actually is or their payment plan post-graduation. That's insane. The way it used to work is you had to go dress up in a suit and tie and go to your local community bank, and you'd have to persuade a banker to give you a loan

to be able to go to college. And you know what they would say? Show me your grades. What are you going to study? And how are you going to pay our bank back? And now you can go borrow $80,000 in your pajamas from your basement. And your parents might not even know that. And so, yeah, I'm a big supporter and an advocate of getting more people financially literate.

And finally, to be able to have young people own property is what we would call a conservatizing event. Of people that own homes, they don't go burn Wendy's. they don't. When you have a mortgage, you don't go march in the streets against, like, systemic inequality, like you have responsibility. We need to try to create a set of circumstances. More young people have responsibility in their lives. The first of which is, do you own property?

Like, do you own something that eventually could get more valuable, and you have a reason to keep going to work? When you're renting, that's not always the case. And then you might say, well, Charlie, own a car. Well, that's a depreciating asset. Well, actually, not anymore. Amazingly, used cars are not a depreciating asset. Everything's upside down, right?

Remember the financial literacy stuff? It's like, the more you drive it, it's actually getting more. It's so strange. That's not sustainable. I'm just giving you a warning. This stuff is not, when you have cars that have 60,000 miles on them, going more than what a used car did two years ago, that's like a fire alarm.

Something ain't right. I'm telling you. Not sustainable. Thank you for your question. Appreciate it. Gentlemen, let's get real for a second. Are you frustrated with today's woke dating scene, the apps, the games, the endless swiping?

It's a waste of time. Finding a woman who shares your values, faith, family, patriotism, if it feels nearly impossible, it doesn't have to. Selective search, America's leading matchmaking firm is changing the game. They connect strong, successful men like you, men who love God, love America, want a family with women who share your values. These are intelligent, faith-driven women who put family first and still believe in traditional values. Imagine that.

If you're a single conservative man in his late 30s to early 50s in Southern California, listen up. Selective Search has an exclusive network of women ready for the real thing. Here's the best part. Their candidate program is 100% free and confidential. Some of our closest friends of the show have used Selective Search, and let me tell you, they're meeting great, great women, high quality women. This is your chance. This isn't an app, it's your answer.

The perfect conservative woman is out there waiting for you. visit selectivesearch.com slash California today. Let the professionals introduce you to women already looking for someone like you in Southern California. Don't wait for the perfect match. Take action now. Go to selectivesearch.com slash California and start building the future you deserve. Hi, Charlie. My name is Kiara, and I'm the president of the Turning Point USA chapter at San Diego State University.

Thank you. So as we enter into yet another very important election cycle, and with campaign ads popping up left and right, I find myself feeling torn on the Citizens United versus FEC ruling. My question is, what is the conservative approach to the Supreme Court's ruling that corporations spending on campaign election communications can be unlimited, that corporations are people and that they're spending doesn't need to be regulated? Yes, so let me walk you through the, great question, by the way, and you do a wonderful job. You gave one of the best school board speeches I've seen, by the way. You did a phenomenal job. So it's a great question. So let's go through the lawsuit. The lawsuit was an organization called Citizens United, run by David Bossy, and it was about a movie, actually.

The question was whether or not a movie that attacks a political candidate is political speech that needs to be regulated by the Federal Election Commission. Okay, so it goes all the way up to the Supreme Court. And there was a couple questions I want you to think about before I get to the opinion. And a lot of the, even left-wingers will agree that there might be some problems here where there was a question in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. Someone asked, they said, wait a second, would you consider, for example, a book written unfavorably about Hillary Clinton to be political speech that should be regulated? And they said yes.

So I think that's incredibly dangerous. I think that if all of a sudden my podcast, my radio program, my articles, and my books will be start regulated as if it's a campaign ad on television, I think there's something very wrong with that. In fact, that's what would have been the standard. We would have expanded a speech bureaucracy that would go after anyone, any person, any time, and say, that's the equivalent of running an ad on television. That's the equivalent of running a 30-second ad. that is an attack on journalism, on commentary, and speech. But you do bring up a good point, which I will say, I do not think it's healthy, nor do I think it's sustainable, to have major corporations that, whether it be the pharmaceutical corporations, or labor unions,

or kind of public sector unions, or tech oligarchs, like Reed Hastings or, you know, Reed Hoffman, or, you know, any one of the big tech billionaires, Zuckerberg, or Bill Gates, be able to parachute in and completely basically carpet bomb a race and make it where it matters less of what the candidate's messages and it's just who's going to get the more outside money. Now, this is an important point. The left, they're always trying to repeal Citizens United. So basically the decision of Cities United was you can spend as much money as you want, no matter what, there will be no restriction on it, okay? Now, because of that, believe it or not, the left has always been trying to get rid of that.

In 2020, left-wing groups spent $1.5 billion. Conservative group spent $900 million. So it's actually the left that has been using this more in recent years, understanding they can pump a lot of what's called dark money into the system and trying to change, you know, persuasion and outcomes and all this. Let me just talk about from like a health of society standpoint. I don't like it. I would, I don't like the idea that someone can just parachute in with $500 million, like Mark Zuckerberg and change the way elections themselves are actually done. So what is the conservative approach? I think the conservative approach should be the following, that you make sure that political speech by individuals,

commentators, podcasts, authors, and movies are protected no matter what. That is not political speech. However, I would support a law that is common sense and transparent that would say that if you're going to donate, you must be disclosed within 24 hours, that there's no more anonymous donations. We must know where it's coming from. No more like giving through shell stuff or dark money. We want to be able to see it. And I do think that a reasonable cap on money and racist is something that I think would actually de-radicalize our politics. When all of a sudden we're starting to say that, that the Pennsylvania Senate race is going to be in $185 million Senate race, and Wisconsin is going to be $110 million Senate race. What then ends up happening?

Unfortunately, massive corporations that don't always have our country's best interest at heart, like Disney, will come in and start to run ads, and then candidates will then be beholden to those corporations to not represent their voters, but instead of the people that drop the biggest ad spend towards the end of the campaign. And I don't think that's a good thing. In fact, I think we can have common cause on the left. So I'm worried that if we just blanket say, yeah, you know, repeal that decision.

Political speech from people like me would then soon be regulated. But I do think that a common sense middle ground could be found where all of a sudden we try to make it, where we say there has to be some form of transparency and regulation with the amount of money pouring into some of these races. And I don't know about you. I'm so sick and tired of seeing these political ads already. It is exhausting. I don't think it's good to constantly see negative political ads about how awful things are on this person. And I don't think it's healthier.

good. Thank you for your question. You're doing a great job. Thank you. Charlie, you've been a very strong supporter of President Trump, but when lockdown is descended on our country two years ago, President Trump did not take a strong stand for freedom. He consistently refused to fire Dr. Fauci. On March 20, 2020, he gave a press conference where he said that Gavin Newsom and Andrew Cuomo locking down their states. He said they're taking bold, strong steps, and I applaud them. On April 22nd, he criticized Brian Kemp for reopening Georgia, and he also attacked Thomas Massey for criticizing the $2 trillion CARES Act, which has contributed at least as much to this inflationary crisis as anything Biden's done.

So when Trump did not stand up for our liberties, why should we stand for him as opposed to, say, Ron DeSantis in 2024? Okay, fair question. So let me just first take my opinion. Let's just so you know where I stand. So I wrote a book that was published in February 2020 called The MAGA Doctrine, defending Trump and his policies and all that, you're right. And then with all of that, I came out in March and April saying that this Fauci guys got to go.

I was against lockdowns, federal spending. So I've been consistent all the way through, even publicly disagreeing with the Trump administration. I think Trump's instincts were right. I will push back a little bit. I think his instincts were right. And I think he was suffocated and unfortunately overwhelmed by a deep state medical bureaucracy that scared the living daylights out of him. And I believe that he probably has some form of regret that he's. he would have handled things a little bit differently. Now, I'm not defending it, because I think

the lockdowns were the worst mistake in American history. I think they did more damage than we'll ever know. And I think also the pushing of the vaccine on the American population is something that will be studied for years to come that I think in a lot of different ways. We still do not know the entire story behind that, especially from a mandatory perspective, and in Trump's defense, he never supported mandatory vaccines. Now, with the Fauci thing, firing Fauci, I think, would have been a mistake. But that doesn't mean that I don't think you should have been handled. You should be at Fauci on a 30-person committee and sent him off to the hinterlands and have him be on some form of bureaucracy where they just meet all year and issue a report. Firing Fauci would have made him

into a cable news pundit and he immediately would have been able to go on TV all the time and would have been the, I told you so, they fired me. I think it would have created a bigger liability. I agree. He should have been sent off to like the CDC office in Fairbanks, Alaska, to be. you know, investigate pathogens in polar bears. So your question is, why should, so, so, and finally, you asked a question of a hypothetical question in 2024. So I'm going to talk personally on this, not on behalf of Turning Point USA, on the political side of this.

It all but it's pretty clear Trump is going to run in 2024, and people have mixed opinions on that. Ron DeSantis may or may not run. I am Ron DeSantis' biggest cheerleader. I think he's phenomenal. I think he's America's greatest governor. I think he's terrific. So I've said this before, and everyone will have their own opinions on this.

That issue aside, which I would give, you know, I believe Trump did more good than bad, and you've seen how bad Biden did on that particular issue, we definitely have to look at the totality of the presidency as a whole. And he had our country, we were experiencing a blue-collar boom, we were energy independent, the southern border was under control, Putin wasn't invading countries, that I could go on and on. The question is, did he earn a chance to be able to run. run for a second term. I believe, given the shenanigans in 2020, the mail and ballots going

in every single direction and all of this, I believe at the very least, he needs to be given an uninterrupted case to tell the Republican base why he wants the second term and what he would do differently. And I've already said he has my support. He runs again in 2024. There's no mystery behind that. But that being said, Ron DeSantis, I believe very well could be a once-in-a-generation political statesman. I believe Ron DeSantis could be in the mold of Churchill, Lincoln, and Washington, But I said, I think, but here's what I know. I know Donald Trump was a phenomenal president. I know that he fulfilled his promises, and I know he would do it again.

Thank you for being here. I appreciate it. Today's culture would have you believe that a baby is only a baby if you decide it's a baby. Sometimes it's a choice. Sometimes it's a baby. And guess what? We all know that's garbage. It's not true. And when it matters most, preborn is making sure that the truth is known.

One woman at a time, one baby at a time. pre-born provides free ultrasounds to abortion vulnerable young women and ultrasounds tell the truth. When that mom sees her baby and hears her baby's heartbeat, she's twice as likely to choose life. $140 helps give five mothers a free ultrasound and saves babies. $280 can save 10 babies and just $28 a month can save a baby a month for less than a dollar a day. And I know there's some of you out there. You can do this. A $15,000 gift will provide an ultrasound machine that will save lives for years to come.

Whether you want to save one baby or five or hundreds, that opportunity is just a phone call or click away. Call 833-850229 or click on the pre-born banner at Charliekirk.com today. That's 833-850229 or click on the pre-born banner at Charliekirk.com today. Hi, Charlie. So my name is Max Mickelson. I'm the chapter president of Orange County School of the Arts, turning point chapter. And, thank you.

That's like a radical right-wing university, right? So earlier this year, as you may have heard from my friend, Alex Leruso, ALX. Yes, sure. I started a chapter there. We were, agged, harassed, vandalized, had basically threatened attacks from administration, all kinds of things.

So I kind of have a two-part. question. First question is, do you think Elon Musk will free Alex? So yeah, ALX is banned from Twitter. I think so. If Elon, you know, sorts this out, I support that, and hopefully he'll free me too. Thank you. And my more serious question is, what's your message to? I'm always trying to recruit people to the chapter, and a lot of the response I get is, oh, I don't want to be harassed, I don't want to lose friends, I don't want to be egged, basically. And so what would be your message to people who believe in conservative ideas, want to get involved, but I guess don't want to suffer the backlash that comes with it. Yeah, that's, I mean, it kind of goes to the first question, right? Which is,

you're going to get it, it's worth it, hold the line, and strengthen your resolve. I would love to go speak at one of these art schools, and I'll tell you why. The left has destroyed art in our country in a way that I don't think we can actually appreciate. And I, this is kind of like one of my kind of, you would say, kind of like unexpected kind of focuses. I think that our society has become so aesthetically ugly, the more the left has taken things over, from architecture to what we consider to be art, to music, to dramas, to this garbage they call, you know, television at night.

And so I believe art should try to strive towards the divine, the beautiful, the good, and the true. There's two rules in architecture that used to exist in Western society. You should try to have buildings that point upwards to God, and the circle is the perfect shape because it has no beginning or end, just like God. Very two simple rules.

You just look at Western architecture now. It's just an amalgamation of like the very same deconstruction ideology that we're seeing right now. And so there's one of my favorite people to follow. He passed away recently as Roger Scruton. He was amazing. He talked a lot about objective beauty. And it also talks about more fundamental things, which is do we believe there are such things, objective standards?

You didn't ask anything about this. I'm just kind of riffing on it. But I'm sure you love it. But that's what's so interesting is that actually where these discussions are the most robust is in the art school, right? So the question is, do you believe, like, a signed urinal is art and beautiful? This was a question in the 1920s. I can't remember.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Douchon. That's right. Marshall, Duchamp, where he signed a urinal. I don't think that's art. I think that's a place to, you know, relieve yourself. but that was considered to be art. And I think that's actually directly connected

to a lot of the philosophical deconstruction that we're living through right now, right? If all of a sudden, you know, art is nothing more than what your own opinion of what is beautiful, well then why can't you also have all these kind of other societal cancers all of a sudden start to infect every single portion of American society? So, okay, so what do you say to friends that don't want to get involved?

Look, you can only push them so far, but it's all about leadership. It really is. And so if you're the leader, you know, you're going to have to say, hey, I'll take the hits for you, just help me out, try to be part of it. And so there's two types of people. You could be a George Washington or you could be a John Hancock. George Washington went right into battle, stared the bullets in the eye and went straight into there. John Hancock, of course, we know he signed the declaration. No mystery he was involved,

but he never wore a uniform of the Continental Army and was the number one financier of the effort. There's people that are the fighters and the people that help the fighters. And both are equally important. So if people are afraid to get involved, be like, hey, can you be a covert graphic designer for our Turning Point USA chapter. Something would tell me you guys would probably come with some of the coolest memes in the world at your school. So there's a lot of different ways to get people involved, but you as a leader are the most important thing. We have a crisis of leadership right now in our country. George S. Patton had a great quote, which is lead follower, get out of the way. And leadership is hard. But a lot of people think they want to be leaders, but in reality,

they just want the perks of leadership, right? They want the corner office, the Instagram followers, is the chauffered car, but they don't really want to work until 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning to go reach a deadline, make payroll, borrow money, fire, hire people. They don't want to have to do that. Leadership is hard, but it's necessary because it requires you to take responsibility. A leader is someone who does not point any fingers except in themselves when things go wrong, and that's what you're doing as a turning point you to say chapter leader. So God bless you, man. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Hello, Charlie Kirk. My name is Michael, a student here at a CSU 4, tenant, a member of the

the TPSA Club at Fullerton. And thank you very much for coming. I greatly enjoyed the speech. Anyway, so my question, with foreign leaders being in power for decades to even a lifetime, and with the presidency in the United States being changed out every four to eight years,

how do you effectively deter and combat a foreign entity when they could essentially just wait it out for a president who is much more lenient on foreign policy? Because four to eight years, compared to a lifetime as a drop in the bucket. Sure, that's a good question. So there's benefits and there's disadvantages to having term limits.

I think the benefits far outweigh the negatives. Let me kind of give you a very obvious one. If you have a really bad leader, you should have a way to get rid of that leader, right? That's a pretty obvious one, right? We believe in checks and balances. That's a fundamental moral good, we believe. It's part of what it means to actually have self-government in the West, to be able to check and balance against bad leaders.

But you bring up a point, right, which is, you know, how do you fight back against Iran or Russia or China that can just wait it out? The answer to your question is exactly why the deep state was built and how they justified it, and it was used against us. So the answer to your question, in the 1960s, we all complain about the deep state, but we never actually asked the question, why was the deep state created? Yeah, I always sort of control things and all this, but they weren't actually, they weren't doing it in secret in the 60s. They said, listen, we're up against foreign adversaries that are there forever.

We need to create a permanent bureaucracy in laying, Virginia that runs the Central Intelligence Agency, formerly OSS, and they'll always be there, therefore they'll be the ones that will actually be able to be sustained. Yeah, except what happens when they become corrupt to the core and spy on a sitting president of the United States, you know, start to leak information illegally and they actually go against the will of the people, right? So I would only push back to your question in one regard. We kind of do have a permanent bureaucracy in our country, right? We just have kind of different people that come in to try to manage it. Does that make sense? Where it's like, we have, yeah, we have a new president,

the FBI doesn't change, like DOJ doesn't change, the IRS doesn't change. And look, I will say this, that, you know, there's a temptation to be like, oh, yeah, a dictator could just fix these problems, they can wave a one. I know that's not what you're saying at times. But I think that we need to do everything we possibly can to resist that, that separation of powers and believing that a single person should not have the dominance over the many, that the many need to rule the few, the few should not rule the many. is something that will actually allow the civilization to survive a lot longer than the Potemkin village of the Chinese Communist Party.

So CCP or Saudi Arabia or Iran or Russia might be able to wait it out, but they're actually sitting on a much more, I would say, destructive set of circumstances. Because I do not believe dictatorships are sustainable long term. I don't. I think they can be passed down, but eventually there'll be fault lines, divisions, civil war, and hopefully a citizen. and lead movement to displace them. So thank you. I appreciate it. I want to talk to you about an issue so many Americans face, and that's health insurance. There's an organization I really, really appreciate, called Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM is a faith-based alternative to health insurance. And this is real stuff, folks. Like, you've got to listen in.

With CHM, you're not paying into a company's profit margin. You're investing in a community with less overhead, than the competition. You get reliable support through the giving and prayer of fellow members. Members contribute every month to help pay for each other's medical bills, allowing believers to afford the care they need because they're not insurance. You get access to your preferred doctor or hospital without network restrictions. You heard that right. If you want to see massive savings in your health care budget, CHM has four low-cost programs for every stage of life, starting at just $150 a month. Plus, you can enroll or switch your program

at any time. See why so many believers are taking a leap of faith. Start today by visiting ch ministries.org slash Charlie and use promo code Charlie for a 50% credit towards your first month. That's ch ministries.org slash Charlie and use promo code Charlie. Hi, how are you? I'm a huge fan. My name is Gabby and I am here to ask you a question. How many believe that California needs help in saving California? Well, I believe that we need help in getting Newsom out. And so my question to you is I obviously support this candidate right here.

So I was wondering, and I wanted to ask you, what are your thoughts on Anthony Tremino? And if you were still living in California, would you, what are your thoughts on him? Yeah, I met Anthony. So I'll answer this personally, not. on behalf of turning point. I have to separate the two. It's because we want to keep the event educational in nature. So I'll just give me my own personal beliefs. So, yeah, I think Highly of Anthony, I had a chance to pray with him up in Rockland.

Don't know enough about the other candidates to endorse yet. But pretty impressive guy, I've got to say, awesome family, very articulate, very charismatic. But, yeah, haven't made my mind up yet. But in the recall, I was a big elder guy. I'm a big fan of Larry Elder. I know he's not running again, but I made my allegiance there. I will say that, to Anthony's credit, he has some of the most passionate and dedicated grassroots volunteers I've seen in a Canada scene quite some time. They were up at Berkeley tabling yesterday.

It's pretty amazing. You see Berkeley campus. There's some resolve to that. And I've got to say, the one thing I am convicted by personally, spending time with Anthony, he really has a heart for this state and to turn it around. So you're supporting a good man. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Good evening, Charlie. My name is Johnny and I'm an MBA student in Cal State Fullerton. And like many other students and conservatives here, I believe this movement that we're starting is created at the grassroots level, which in turn starts in the classroom. So my question to you is this, what do you feel is the biggest problem in the collegiate education system? And how do we fix this moving forward if we wish for our movement to continue to gain ground?

Yeah, man. I mean, the biggest problem with the collegiate education system is the collegiate education system. I mean, it's top to bottom, rotten to the core. College is right for some people. It's not right for most people. It just isn't. It's a racket and a cartel for a lot of people. I have a book coming out called The College Scam,

where I put forward a 10-count indictment against the current state of college that I think that will blow you away. So, for example, I'm not going to put you on the spot, but I just want you to think for a second, what do you think the national graduation rate from colleges? It's 59%. Raise your hand if you know someone that dropped out of college.

every hand goes up. 41% of people that go to college don't graduate. That's demoralizing. They leave with debt. They leave with less direction. They never should have gone to college in the first place. Now that's only one part of it, not to mention the student loan burdens, right, where people are borrowing money they don't have to study things that don't matter, to find jobs that don't exist, to go into a job market where everything's hyper-inflated

where that piece of paper means less and less and less. A vast majority of people going to college are not trying to get their MBA, which is a great reason to go to college as long as it's not completely woe. but they're getting sociology degrees. They're getting degrees that don't exactly have a highly, let's say, let's say a very competitive kind of standpoint to what that degree would be, especially where people are looking to hire right now.

We need more people in the muscular class in America. We need more plumbers, electricians, and welders, and police officers and firefighters and entrepreneurs. And we need to not demean them or diminish them. We need to elevate muscular labor. in our country. If you ask me, we have way more than enough people that studied North African lesbian poetry in the last couple of years and that have this huge debt burden, and they don't really know where they're places. So look, top to bottom, college is doing a lot of damage to our

country. I wish that wasn't the case. I don't think it has to be the case. College can be awesome. Hillsdale College is a great example of that. If every college like Hillsdale College, I'd have a completely different opinion. spent time at Hillsdale College. I've got to know Dr. Larry Arn. You know what they try to do from day one? They tell you that you don't know everything, and there's something here at this college that's special, and you're going to go on a journey to discover it. They also say this. They say, we're going to complete the whole human being, the mind, body, and soul. We're going to read things that are ancient and beautiful and good, and you're going to really wrestle with the most

important ideas and topics. That doesn't happen a lot at universities anymore. Instead, it's, hey, you have your own opinion of truth, who's to say what is good and beautiful, and kind of just go have fun along the way. So, look, not to mention, I just want to say this about college in general, is that for parents out there, just be very, you know, pray about this and be filled with wisdom. If you're pushing your child to go to college because of you, that's a bad reason. Most kids going to college believe they don't want to be there. And you might say, oh, they don't know what's good for them. Okay, there might be an argument to that.

But it's also them that's borrowing the money. Maybe it's not. Maybe you're paying for it. That's a different dynamic. But at Berkeley yesterday, this one kid is $85,000 in student loan debt. I say, do you want to be here? I said, do you want to be here? I said, that's quite an operation there, right?

Like, go borrow $85,000 in your name because your parents are making you do it. Like, that's not good. It's not sustainable. So we need less people going to college. We need more people to start businesses. We need more entrepreneurs. We need more people to do things. And we need more people to fill with integrity and courage

in character and less people to be filled with postmodern secular atheistic ideas where they start questioning the most. I had a woman yesterday at UC Berkeley came up to me at the table. She said, Charlie, we don't know what human beings are. We're just a collection of cells. And I said, only at a university campus could you be filled with something that is so unwise to spend so much time on something so fundamentally deranged as that question. And she really was wrestling with it. She said there is no fundamental difference between a human, we call a human and a goldfish. and I said, listen, I don't have a college degree and go to college. Goldfish, they don't write symphonies.

And she's like, you're right. Thanks for your question. I appreciate it. Hi, folks, Andrew Colvett here. I'd like to tell you about my friends over at Y Reefi. You've probably been hearing me talk about Y Reefi for some time now. We are all in with these guys. If you or someone you know is struggling with private student loan debt, take my advice and give them a call.

Maybe you're behind on your payments, Maybe you're even in default. You don't have to live in this nightmare anymore. Y refi will provide you a custom payment based on your ability to pay. They tailor each loan individually. They can save you thousands of dollars and you can get your life back. We go to campuses all over America and we see student after student who's drowning in private student loan debt. Many of them don't even know how much they owe.

Why Refi can help. Just go to yrefi.com. That's the letter Y, then refi. dot com and remember why refi doesn't care what your credit score is just go to why refi.com and tell them your friend andrew sent you. So I have a question that might be a little bit different. I want to ask why you're a Christian. I'm a Christian. It's true. It's Sunday is Easter and so look there's we're all made in the image of God. The universe that we live in right now was created by someone who loves us and the

Bible tells us this. The Bible is one author, 66 books. of telling the story. And look, we're all, we're made in that image of God, and the gospel can be summarized in four words, three words, two words, and one word. Four words, Jesus took my place. Three words, him for me. Two words, substitutionary atonement, and one word grace. We don't earn it. We don't start to do a lot of good things to be able to have eternal life. I'm a Christian because I had a collision course of Jesus Christ in fifth grade, changed my life, gave my life to the Lord, and every single year, it started to mean more to me. As I got older, I realized like, wow, I'm broken.

I am, you know, there's something not right with me. It's like, yeah, that's original sin. But Jesus is there to give us something we did not earn, to give us something we do not deserve, to be able to get back into true and real communion with the God who loves us. And it's true. You look at the archaeological evidence,

the evidence for the resurrection, the evidence through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the Book of Acts. You look at how there's never been an archaeological discovery that disproves the Bible. all that things can be done with reason, but there's one final reason why I'm a Christian. It's less because of this and more because of this, which when you start to open up your heart and your soul

and all of a sudden have the humility that you're just kind of a speck in this massive cosmic creation, all of a sudden I think many people in this audience that might be a little skeptical, all of a sudden that Lord who does love you is going to all of a sudden come into your life in a way that you might not expect. And so celebrate that Easter. And if you haven't given your life to the Lord,

he sent his son Jesus Christ for you today. Thank you. Hi, Charlie. I'm running for a local school board here in Orange County. Thank you. When I get elected, what is the most pressing... When I get elected, what is the most pressing issue that I could focus on to make the biggest impact in our public schools? Well, first of all, God bless you for running, and thank you for your courage and your conviction.

It's just awesome. So, first of all, first, you. First, you'll be demonized, slandered, smeared. I just kind of went through all that, especially if you go on a school board. But no, we're going to have your back in more ways than one. To be able to do the right thing and to stand with conviction. So look, there's a lot of different things that I think that are incredibly important if you're on a school board. Number one, you've got to ask questions about textbooks, curriculum, appropriation of funding,

to make sure that there's policies in place that schools will never be locked down again and making sure kids are not wearing masks. I was driving in Beverly Hills today, and I saw groups of children walking on the side of the street coming out of Notre Dame Academy right near Beverly Hills, all wearing masks outside. And that's nothing short of child abuse. It's child abuse to put a mask on a child. It's bad for their development. It's bad for their spiritual development. Bad for their linguistic development.

But the most important thing that you can get done as a school board is be a relentless hawk for transparency and accountability. You need to be the public sector teacher union's worst night. You need to be asking questions they don't want to ask. You need to follow the money. You need to find out whether or not they're teaching gender transition surgery nonsense to five, six, and seven-year-olds. And then you need to channel righteous indignation and not put up with their excuses, their delay tactics, their nonsensical one-liners. Like, oh, it's all about equity. No, it's not. It's not about equity. It's not about teaching children. You are grooming children to be something that they shouldn't be, and I'm not going to put up with it. So the most important thing is you have courage, which look to you. you do have, but then you need to have a mission. Your mission is not to be liked. Your mission is not going to be like voted the most popular person in the school board. Your mission is to protect the innocence of children and lead them through truth and to create and form patriots. God bless you.

Okay. So in closing, I love California. I have a couple asks out of you. Do not give up on this state. And you might be cynical in all this. Focus on Orange County. It's a beautiful place. People are waking up.

They really are designed. A change, get involved in local races, get involved in city council races, know who's running for state senate, know who's running for state house, help on the congressional side, all up and down the ballot, get involved in voter registration. I mean, people right now, I'm telling you, they're opening their eyes in record numbers, especially in the Latino community. There's huge opportunities that are otherwise would not be happening. And then finally, just keep in your prayers and keep in what you're doing, what Turning Point USA is doing on the front lines on high school. school and college campuses across the country. I believe it's some of the most important work to make sure that we pass down American values to future generations. We're working really hard. Traveling the country last year, I traveled 330 days last year. We're doing three podcasts a day,

three hours of radio a day. If you're not yet subscribed to our podcast, please consider subscribing and thank you for considering. You guys can take out your phone really easily and subscribe to the Charlie Kirk Show podcast. All of this content will be rebroadcasted there. But in closing, I believe the momentum we are seeing of regular, normal, everyday people running for office that are starting to ask questions, it is the rise of the citizen against the regime. And isn't that the most American thing to do? Which is regular everyday normal people, rejecting the cynicism, rejecting the negativity, and saying instead, this is still my country, that the many are going to rule the few,

and that I'm not going to put up with these edicts, these orders, these mandates, and these double standards. Instead, we're going to renew this idea of citizen government by and for the people. And we've been given this gift by the American founding fathers. And it's up to us to conserve and preserve it. And each one of you play such an important and critical role in helping make that happen every single day. God bless you guys. God bless California. God bless Orange County. Talk to you soon. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.