The Charlie Kirk Show - REWIND — Charlie at 18, Newly Unearthed

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

Even as a teenager, Charlie was possessed with a powerful mission to change the world. In an interview recorded 13 years ago and never before seen on The Charlie Kirk Show, an 18-year-old Charlie explains why Turning Point USA is needed, what indoctrination is being taught in schools, and how to wake up the next generation. It's the some of the first public statements by the young man who would change the world. 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 much.

many kids as possible. Go start a turning point USA College Chapter. Go start a turning point to 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. of Champion News Talk Radio, brought to you by ChampionNews.net. We are your choice for the conservative voice. Today, our founder, Jack Rozier, and myself have Charlie Kirk with us, and Charlie Kirk is a young man from Turning Point.

He's the founder of the organization. And Jack, how are you today? Well, I'm fine, but they've seen me before, but they haven't seen him. And this guy is a mover and shaker of young years that, A marvelous experience you've done with your life. And I understand that you're a bit of a critic of the school system. Well, what is the matter with you that you're criticizing this system that has made you so wonderful? Well, you know, it's not all because of the school system.

There have been some very good teachers, and through my years at Wheeling High School, I enjoyed my time. But there were a lot of times where I felt that the teachers were pushing an alternative agenda and that our textbooks were written in certain ways to make us think things that were not true. They were trying to remove the founding documents from the U.S. history classes. They said they were not relevant. They really spent a lot of time on the progressive era, and our economics textbook was written by Paul Krugman from the New York Times, and in it was factually incorrect data.

I stood up to my teacher several times, and I try to get other students through the same. Now, I have a question for you. What do you mean they removed our founding documents? They made a motion to try to remove. It did not pass in the school board, but they tried to remove it from our U.S. history class. Specifically our Constitution, our Declaration of Independence. No, they tried to remove for our U.S. history classes everything before 1860, saying it was not relevant. That's stunning to me.

Now, it did not pass. It did not make the news, of course, but it showed that some people found that our founding documents no longer had relevancy in our schools, which is really concerning. That is extremely concerning. Why, what was the teacher's reasoning, Charlie, Charlie, for our founding documents not having relevancy to our country right now. Some educational people in our district said that we need to have a more progressive view of our country and that everything post-1860 was more relevant to what kids need to be learning.

And I found that alarming. And again, that wasn't all the teachers in the district, but it was a select few. And even a few, if they are teaching that way, it's very concerning. Now, you may or may not know this. what was the parental involvement in something like that? First of all, the awareness level of parents, and then the involvement. It was minimal, and parents have not been involved in school boards like they need to be. They do not run for school board.

They don't show up to the meetings. Just the fact that Paul Krugman had economics textbook approved and put into our public high school. This is inexcusable. Who is Paul Krugman, and why is he relevant to this conversation? Who is he? Okay, Paul Krugman is a nationally known Nobel Prize-winning economist from the New York Times. He writes a daily column. He also wrote the book, Conscious of a Liberal, and he's a renowned collectivist.

Obama was given the prize from the same organization. Right. Ah, the right judgment wasn't so good there either. And the school board decided to put Paul Krugman's textbook into the public school system, where, in quote, it said the Reagan tax cuts did not accelerate economic growth in our public school. I wrote a piece for brightbark.com exposing this lie in our public education school system and it encourages the progressive train of thought

into our students. And it's unfortunate because if a young person wants to get into economics, they're probably going to look as Paul Krugman as a credible figure. But he's not economically viable. His statistics do not add up and he writes for a very partisan news source in New York Times.

He should not be in our public school system. And we need more students to stand up. He's a propagandist. Very similar to it. He said that, 9-11 was a stimulus and created jobs. He thinks that a broken window creates jobs. This is an economic myth called the broken window fallacy. And it's what is being taught in our schools and unfortunately being pushed on to fellow

students. Well, I do know that some of the textbooks, I have a 15-year-old son, and I've got a lot of friends whose kids go to, even some private schools. But they talk about communism versus capitalism. and capitalism is somebody having the whole cow to themselves. And communism is where everybody shares this cow. Do they, in theory, in theory, do they make communism and socialism sound like a more desirable way to live, where it's just fairer? Well, they do put a very big emphasis on the progressive era in the early 1900s, where they say that, oh, there's a problem, there must be a government to fix it.

for example, you know, Upton Sinclair's book, The Jungle, you know, we had all the terrible meat factories. Well, then we had to create the FDA. We had an unstable currency. We had to create the Fed. So the kids start to subconsciously feel that, oh, the government solves every problem. And we did a poll in our high school, in the local area, which economic system would be most prosperous to create wealth for the middle, lower, and upper class, for all people over

the next hundred years. 28% said capitalism. 40% said socialism. the rest said they don't know the difference between socialism and capitalism. Really? Which was really the more intelligent answer? Right. Well, yeah, at least, yeah, I'd rather have them not know because there's opportunity for education.

Right, that's exactly what our group is doing, is getting these kids understanding the morality of free markets, the immorality of excessive borrowing. This is Lane Schoenberger, Chief Investment Officer and founding partner of Y Reefi. It has been an honor and a privilege to partner. with Turning Point and for Charlie to endorse us. His endorsement means the world to us, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with Turning Point for years to come. Now, hear Charlie, in his own words, tell you about Y-R-R-R-R-E-F-Y-F-Y. I'm going to tell you guys about Y-ReFi.com. That is Y-R-E-F-Y-F-Y-F-Y-Fi is incredible. Private Student Loan debt in America total is $300 billion. Why-refi is refinancing, distress, or defaulted private student loans.

You can finally take control of your student loan situation with a plan that works for your monthly budget. Go to yrefi.com. That is yrefi.com. Do you have a co-barrower? Why refi can get them released from the loan. You're going to skip a payment up to 12 times without penalty. It may not be available in all 50 states. Go to yrefi.com. That is y-R-E-F-Y.com. Let's face it, if you have distress or default to student loans, it can be overwhelming. Because of private student loan debt, so many people feel stuck, go to y-refi.com. That is y-reafy.com. Private student loan debt relief why refi.com. So your group, what is, specifically, what does that mean?

You have a group. What is that mean? The Turning Point USA is turn into a national movement. It was launched June 5th. We have over 20 to 25 national chapters, and we have 30 to 50 student columnists from all over the country that contribute to our website. We give them a platform of empowerment. So they can write something, they can publish it, they can show their friends, their family.

But let me ask you a question. Did you organize that while you were still in high school? At the ends of high school and then throughout the summer, yes. But you have a website. How specifically are you reaching out to this percentage? I think it's 40% that don't know the difference. How specifically do you reach out to that 40% that's unsure and then re-educate that other 40% that is obviously misled? We're doing it in three specific ways.

Number one is Facebook and Twitter. Social media is extremely important. We have 12,000 likes. we're on the cutting edge of social media for young people. The second of which is in July, we're hosting hopefully one of the biggest debate tournaments in the Midwest. We're planning to have three to 400 high school debate teams come and debate fiscal policy. The third is a very innovative way that we came up with, and it's to reach that 40% of kids that usually don't care about politics.

We're hosting a three-on-three basketball tournament to get young people to come and play basketball, they leave with our T-shirt, and they leave with a little bit of literature. It's innovative. It's new. It's fresh. Not many think tanks think to do a basketball tournament. And that's the way we reach kids that are usually apathetic or they don't know because we go to where they are. And that's what's innovative and creative about Turning Point USA. So you're trying to do an outreach. Now, do you ever do, I mean, do you have things right affiliated with the school?

Because I know there are some young folks out of the Will County area too that have a youth program and they reach out and they have meetings and they've really tried to. They actually, do you walk precincts and things like that? No, we do not, we do not specifically for any candidate, at least this last election cycle. And the reason is, is we go at it in a nonpartisan point of view. Now, we believe in fiscal responsibility, free markets, but instead of, we encourage civic participation, we encourage people to be interns. A majority of our people in our group were interns for Joe Walsh, or Congressman Dold. We love that. But also, we educate in meetings and debates.

Like, we hosted a debate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. and we're starting a chapter there. We have 20 high schools and colleges representative where they have meetings and they gather and they educate their peers in innovative ways, like through basketball tournaments. Or one of the chapters, they emailed me. They said, can we do an ultimate frisbee competition

for turning point? Like, how cool is that? Who would have thought of that otherwise? That's how you get college kids engaged in politics. You know, it's good to have the slideshow and the graphs. But we have to get them through the door first. But do you get them through the door and you do this frisbee thing

and you give them literature. What's enticing them to even open this up? They give us their email. They have to like us on Facebook. They like us on Twitter. We tie them in perfectly because through social media, it's kind of you lassoom them in and then you reel them in later. Because these kids have their minds going in so many different directions

that once you tie them in, they're going to be educated. What topics are you mainly interested there? What topics are you? The debt and the deficit. We think it's extremely relevant to our generation. going to have to pay it off. And it's immoral. Do you relate that to socialism in the market? We think that it's immoral and we do call it socialistic behavior, absolutely. And we also focus on education. We think that every student should have a chance to learn and we think

that teachers are not being held accountable in our public school education system. To give some perspective, 50 teachers in the District 214 area earn $150,000 or more with no accountability. And you ask these students. That would be Arlington Heights. Right, the Arlington Heights area, Mount Prospect, El Grove, and Wheeling area. And most of the students even believe that's excessive. When the students believe it's excessive, you know that we need reform. And a lot of these, there are some great teachers that I've had in my life,

but there are also teachers that take advantage of the system. And we need private sector reforms to make sure our education system is better for the students. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.