The Charlie Kirk Show - The Generation That Will Save America: Charlie at the 2023 Chapter Leadership Summit

Episode Date: June 7, 2026

Charlie was always hopeful that the rising generation of American young people would be the one to reverse America's decline. In his speech at the 2023 CLS, Charlie shares this hope with Turning Point's grassroots leaders, telling them to remain committed to truth, purpose, and wisdom. Drawing on the teachings of Aristotle and Plato, Charlie encourages young people to pursue depth over distraction, build strong character, and become the leaders America needs. 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 noblegoldinvestments.com. That is noble goldinvestments.com. Thank you, guys. Take a seat. Thank you. Thank you. Wow, this is by far the largest chapter leadership summit we have ever had. Great to see all of you, but having a good day. Good. Yeah, well, I want to say thank you guys. I see so many familiar faces. We had a fun year this last year, didn't we, on tour? Raise your hand if I came to a college campus near you.

And yeah, it's about half. It's good. From New Mexico to anybody, UC Davis? Where's our UC Davis? Yeah, that was quite a visit. That was terrible. But we survived. And UC Santa Barbara, where's our...

That was also... That was something. And how about Ohio State, the Ohio State University? You don't boo. You don't boo our chapter leaders. You don't do that. There's Danny. He's doing a great job. You guys are on the front lines.

Every day I get asked the question by people that are 30 or 40 years older than you, and they ask me, how can I save the country? What can I do? These some people have private jets, yachts, second or third homes. Now, you are probably like, I want the private jet, the yacht, the second or third home. You should want that stuff. But guess what? You have a thing that millions of people.

people wish they had. And that's you have something you can do every single day to help save the country. You have an action item where you could say, you know what, the country's falling apart, it's collapsing, we're seeing Western civilization basically be stolen from us by some really, really bad people. But you're going to be able to say for the rest of your life that you took your college in high school years, and you decided to stand for truth to save the greatest nation ever to exist in the history of the world. And not only that, you give millions of people hope, literally millions of people. Being part of Turning Point USA, we are the largest organization in the country of its kind, whether it be on social media, on campus, what we're doing with TPA USA Faith. You are

all on the front lines and making a huge difference of that. And We have now over 270,000 people that donate to Turning Point USA that help make this possible, that you guys get to stay in hotels, that you guys get to travel here, that you guys get to have meals. Why do they give money? Why do they give $10? Some people give a lot more than $10. Because they're betting on you. Like, what do you mean?

Like, I'm a high school kid. I'm a college kid. It's because they know that the great hope to defeat these godless Marxists is joyful, strong. wrong conservatives on high school and college campuses pushing back against this Marxist garbage. They're betting on you. They're betting on your engagement, your activism, your recruitment, your courage. That should give you, that should honestly give you some pride in a good way, not the pride that we had in the month of June. Not good.

That should give you some gratitude as well. that I'm sure you have a lot of friends that are very upset, neurotic, liberal, but I repeat myself. And they're on the left and they're looking for purpose. You have purpose. You get to be part of a movement that is against everything the world tells you. The world tells you, and that's fun actually when you're young. What does the world tell you? The world tells you your country sucks.

We say America's great. The world says that your history is full of white men that you shouldn't study. We believe that our history is beautiful and needs to be understood and passed down to future generations. The world tells you take any substance you want to take whenever you want to take it and that will give you happiness. We believe that that's an empty way to live your life. And then if you experiment with that stuff, it's not going to end well for you. And that hopefully one day you'll realize the people that are best at six, saying no, actually are the happiest people in the world.

The rest of the world tells you that there is no such thing as biological men or women. We think the trans people are tyrants and zealots and need to be repudiated from decent and civil society. You get to now be part of something that is not just rebellious, but honestly it's exciting. It's exciting and it should be because you're fighting for things that will honestly decide whether or not the civilization continues. And it all happens in the high schools and the college campuses.

You are the left's worst nightmare. If you did not exist, which, again, Turning Point USA, it's 11 years old. When we first started, it was like three of us. Not three staff members, like three of us. And now we are a movement where we have 270,000 donors and millions

of members and thousands of chapters, and it's like beyond comprehension. And before I got any first, Further, I refuse to take credit for it. You are blessed to have the best staff in the conservative movement that work their tail off to make what you do possible. From the events team, for your regional managers, to your directors, to the people that show up on campus that are relentlessly nagging you.

Come on, let's go table, let's do this event. They deserve your gratitude. And we give you our gratitude as well, and I'll get to that, because what you do is very good. that because what you do is very hard. But now you're part of something that is not a question of if it will be. Turning Point will be in the history books. Okay? Turning Point has already played a massive role over the last decade as now being this unexpected force that's bigger than all of us to defend the values of Western society and civilization. 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, pre-born 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. $80 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 833-850-229 or click on the pre-born banner at charliekirk.com today. That's 833. 850229 or click on the preborn banner at charliekirk.com today. And we don't know how this story is going to end. We have no idea. Are we going to win or are we going to lose? I have no idea. No idea. But here's what I can say. And here's what you'll be able to say is we gave it everything we possibly could. And we did not sit on the sidelines as these people decided to try to ruin our home and destroy the country. Because I'm sure you have a lot of friends that are enjoying their summer right now. Losers, you get to be part of something important. And they're going to be complaining to you in October, November, when you go back on campus, like, my life is no purpose.

Get me more antidepressants, or let's go do another weed or, like, think of weed or whatever. Whatever. And you're like, okay, hopefully you don't engage in that. But you're doing something here at the Turning Point USA, Chapter Leadership Summit that is good for your soul. It's good for who you're going to be 20 or 30 years from now. And never before has it been as important as it is to then send all of you back to your high school and college campuses to say that's a bad idea. No, there's only two sexes. No, I'm not going to call you by those pronouns. No, America's actually a great country. No, I'm not going to

to allow the chemical castration of children. No. George Washington was a badass and I really like him. No. Like, I'm not going to go take down a statue because you're offended by history that you don't even understand. No, I'm not going to stop saying that life begins at conception. I'm not going to stop doing that. And if every one of you take that cheerful, joyful attitude back to your campuses, we are going to be in a much better spot.

I'm not going to say we're going to save the country because I don't know. we're up against some big forces. You know it, right? But there will always be a remnant. Even if the bad guys win, we're young and we're going to have to live in this country. And we're going to build something beautiful. Whether it's now or in five years or 10 years or 20 years or in 30 years, I've no idea. I don't know what this country is going to look like in 10 years. I hope we can turn some things around. Some ways it looks like the country is just like so far apart and people don't want to work anymore and all this. But then I say, wait a second, there's a lot of

goodness happening in the country. We have 600 people under the age of 22 that are super activists that are deciding, you are all voluntarily doing something where you're saying, I want my life to be harder. It would be easier. Any one of you,

if you were here and, you know, instead of Turning Point USA, it was like transing the country, USA. You would get corporate donations. You would get sponsorships with beer companies. You would get Target.

would want you to go model for them. Your administration would give you special privileges. You would be on the website of whatever godless college that you go to. What college do you go to? Suffolk. You would be on the front page of Suffolk. If you transition to a woman right now and war address, you'd be on the front page of the Suffolk University website.

Or whatever godless school you guys go to. But you're saying, no. I think that's bad. because I know what's right and I know what's good and so when you say I want to start a turning point chapter leader all of a sudden I'm sure raise your hands

have you been graded differently called names smears slandered lost friends every single hand goes up guess what good that means you're standing for something that means that you are not a coward that means your life has purpose and meaning delight in them calling you names

find joy in the persecution because it will come it will come more. We live in a dark world right now. It's not going to brighten unless we turn up the lights. And the only way you do that is with courage. And so I could be like, oh boy, life is so tough and, you know, keep your head down and do all this and, you know, say, you know, just try to lie to get a good grade. Or I could tell you, you know what? Life goes by like this. And I don't want to live as a coward. And I don't want that for you either. Because you know what, you know what a coward is? A coward as someone who is somebody different in public than they are in private.

They're different. They have like a, like, well, I have to be somebody in my dorm room. And then once I'm outside, I have to pretend like I'm for all the SJW nonsense. What you're deciding to be is the same person in every environment, regardless of where you go all the time. And that's some, you know who that is? That's a person who's free. That's a person who's free.

where you don't have to self-censor. And yes, I'm sure we're going to get question after question. We're going to do questions for some time. But Charlie, how should I deal with a professor who's going to grade me differently? You choose. I'm great respect for this man, but I disagree with him. Ben Shapiro says you should lie your way through college.

He does. He says that you should lie to the professor and write essays that pander to them to just get good grades. Some of you might decide to do that. I think that if you lie little, you lie big, and you should never lie under any circumstances whatsoever when it comes to things that matter. I think grades mean nothing. I think courage and character means everything. Now, some of you are like, but I want to go to law school.

Go lie. Go to law school. Let me know how it goes. Go pander to the corporations. Go tell me how it works. The rest of your life, though, you'll be looking around the shoulder. I hope they don't find out that I like Trump. I hope they don't find out that I'm a conservative.

I hope they don't find out I'm a Christian. The earlier you proclaim to the world what you believe in, you won't have to worry about them coming after you. Before he ever stepped on to a debate stage or behind a microphone, Charlie understood something important. If you want to lead, you have to learn first. Charlie believed that ideas shaped character, conviction, and give you courage. That's why he spent years studying the classics,

the American founding, and the Bible through Hillsdale College's free online courses. These are real college courses taught by actual Hillsdale professors. One of those courses is Great Books 101, Ancient to Medieval, where you'll study foundational authors like Homer, Augustine, Dante, and Chaucer, writers who shape Western civilization and still speak to the deepest questions about human nature, virtue, courage, family, and self-government. The course includes Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, the epic stories of Achilles and Odysseus that have influenced the West for thousands of years.

In this summer, Hillsdale College, is releasing a brand new course dedicated entirely to Homer's Odyssey. Great Books 101 is the perfect way to prepare before the full Odyssey course launches in July. Charlie understood that learning isn't just about gaining knowledge. It's about forming the mind and character needed to face the challenges of life with wisdom and courage. You can enroll today, completely free, 100% free, just by visiting charlieforhillsdale.com. That's Charlie for Hillsdale.com to start learning today. Charlie for Hillsdale.com.

Learn deeply, think clearly, lead boldly, carry it forward with Hillsdale College. But you're saying, well, my parents, this, make your own decisions, guys. I'm not telling you what to do, but I will tell you this. If you think that you're just going to kind of slow walk, no one's going to detect me, and I'm going to go become a partner at this law firm, and I'm going to go to Yale law and all this, fine. If you can live that double life, but that's exhausting. Why don't you use that energy to go fight these commies instead of having to dodge their tyranny,

reject the terms on face value, and be who you are and what you believe? So, and when I talk to our donors and I talk to the people that support us, they say, Charlie, what gives you hope? And some of these people are afraid to voice their opinions to their neighbors or to their friends. So you know what gives me hope? gives me hope when thousands and hundreds of thousands of young people, the students

of Turning Point USA say, I will take the tough path, but I want a deep life. Here's one of the things I'm going to share with you today. You have a choice, and you've all made the right choice, but I hope you go even further in this direction. I encourage for you

to make a conscious decision to pursue depth over shallowness and to pursue things that matter over things that are easier comfortable. That's what you're deciding to do. Ease and comfort is just checking the boxes of what society wants for you.

Depth requires work. Depth requires understanding why am I here? Who created me? Is there a God? Why does this country matter? Should I even care about how my fellow citizens are created? Or should I just kind of just go through the motions and try to get the most stuff and kind of keep my head down?

A deep life means you're going to have to work for things. But I think we all understand that your generation is the most suicidal, depressed, alcohol addicted, drug addicted, and pornography-addicted generation in history. Why? Why is that the case? It's because we have told a generation of young people no need to dive deep into big ideas. Stay shallow. just kind of do what you're told put on the mask 15 days of slow the spread take the shot

disagree you're an anti-science bigot where's your black square you don't support Ukraine what are you a Russian puppet take a knee or else you're a bigot that's not a deep life that's a boring simple robotic regime programmed life

you have a different you have an opportunity to say, you know what, I want to pursue what is good, true, and beautiful in the world. I want to pursue what things that make my soul activated, not just that give me immediate pleasure or pursue licentiousness. The mission that is in front of you, the charge for all of you, is to go through your life in the next couple years, and Turning Point will be a partner with you on this, is to say, you know what? I want to be a leader in my community, a leader in my life, but I'm not just going to do the thing that is the most immediate or that of ease.

And so what does that look like practically? It looks like, first and foremost, understanding that if it makes you feel good immediately in a quick rush, it's probably bad for you. It's saying no to hookup culture and that trash that goes alongside of it. It's understanding that

if you're staring at your screen for hours and hours a day, that you're nothing more than a product of people who hate you and they're programming your behaviors and manipulating your brain neurochemistry from their dopamine, the noroperephrine, to your hormonal reactions, decide to be a human being.

What a concept. And putting the things that matter that will matter in eternal consequence. Last thing I'll say is this, and I want to just tell you my gratitude and how important you are to what we do for your grit, for your hustle, for your stamina, and for your commitment

is one of the reasons that I'm not a big fan of college, and I know it's kind of weird because you guys are half in college, but just I'm honest, is because college does not, unless you go to, anyone go to Hillsdale? Do you have any Hillsdale people here? No, one, no one. Oh, there you go. You guys are exempt from this. So two out of 600, okay? Good. Unless there's another good school, any other good schools here? Liberty's actually pretty good. Anybody else? UCF?

Yeah, University Central Florida? I don't know about that one So we'll find out I'm speaking there I think this semester I'm not I don't know University Georgia Here's the question What do you mean by a good school

In their mission statement at Hillsdale I'll brag on Hillsdale They say that Our job is to make you wise and full of good character Most schools that you guys go to here in this room That is not their mission statement It is to create

worldly citizens, activists for a lifetime. What is wisdom? Wisdom is the knowledge of things that never change. Wisdom is to understand, are human beings naturally good or bad? Is there a natural law? How do this universe come into being? Not everything can be decided through a study. Not everything can be decided by scientists. There is a thing called philosophy. Now some of you probably are like, oh, I take philosophy. Yeah, it's probably trash. You're probably learning Jacques Derrida, Herbert Marcoza. We're going to go learn Machiavellian Friedrich Nietzsche. We're going to go learn about how the ancients and the classics were all wrong. Like, how about you study the ethics closely? Plato's Republic, Aquinas, Augustine, understanding the

thinkers that built Western society. Where does wisdom come from ultimately? Wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord. More Americans are starting to ask an important question. Why is it so difficult to get access to medications you may already know you need? If your health is your responsibility, why are outside systems deciding what you can have and when you're allowed to get it? That's one reason I recommend all-family pharmacy. They make it super simple to order a wide range of medications online from everyday maintenance

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We are not raising a wise generation. We're raising a cocky generation. We are raising a fragile generation. We are raising a comfortable generation. We are not raising a wise generation. A wise generation is a threat to tyranny everywhere. You know why? Wise people say, no, we're not locking down schools.

Wise people say, why do I need to take the shot? That's weird. Wise people say, no, I'm not putting a mask. Because wisdom is the knowledge of things that never change. You could be full of data, full of studies, full of meaningless crap that they teach you in these colleges. But if you have no understanding of what is a human being, are you inclined to terrorize another?

What is good? What is evil? Where does it come from? Is there a hierarchy to the good? Define courage, prudence, temperance. Name five people before the year 1900 that were heroic, brave, and courageous. Name a founding father that wrote something you can quote. If you can't say those things, you're not going to an institution that is instilling you in wisdom, going deep. But you could do that yourself. You don't have to go to college to do that. You could be self-motivated and autodidactic. You can listen to my podcast. You could read the great books. You don't need to go $200,000 in debt.

To do that, you could decide to do it today. To go find an answer to these questions that dwell on the deeper things, where you stop in awe and wonder of things that are beautiful, that which is perfected in being. What I'm getting at is the rest of your life, commit yourself to wanting to pursue wisdom. Because we need you wise, everybody. We don't just need you activated.

We don't just need you motivated. We need that. We don't just need you energized. We need you to be able. able to tell good from evil quickly because it's coming back and it's here right now. We need you to be able to be like, yeah, it's kind of weird that we're chopping off the genitals of 12-year-olds. Shut up, bigot. No, I, like, that's not right. Well, who are you to say what is good or evil, or right or wrong? That moral subjectivism that is being force-fed in many of the colleges that you go in.

And isn't hilarious that the moral subjectivists, they're always actually the most moral absolutists? because then you say, wait a second, is there a moral standard? No, of course not, but you're a bigot. Okay, you call me a bigot means that there's an objective moral standard, obviously, because by some grading scale, you're calling me less than desirable. You're a hater. By what standard? Everyone is using a standard to judge something every time.

By what standard is the most important question? And so, therefore, we need a wise generation. Now, some people will say you can only get wisdom through life experience. that is wrong. You can get wisdom through study of the great thinkers and philosophers. Philosopher literally means the love of wisdom. Philos, Sophos.

Sophos wisdom, philos love. The love of wisdom. You should all love wisdom. You should all yearn to wonder and to know and to dive deep in the things that capture your imagination. Because when you do that, that will only intensify your resolve

to fight to win this battle, to start a turning point group, to recruit more kids. And then you'll find something that your counterparts on the left will never find. I believe the scriptures will lead you to this. You'll find joy. You'll find peace. And that is right there in front of you.

My message is not an easy message. I'm not here to tell you to go, follow your heart. Bad advice. Don't do that. Do what you want to do. No, don't do that either. Press pause and realize you're young, but you're willing. And I want to figure out if somebody before me wrote something that could,

be helpful to me. It's kind of cool. How often does a college tell you, hey, you're young and somebody 2,000 years ago might have been able to write something down so you don't have to suffer as much? No, instead they'll say they're white, so don't read them.

It's probably a bad idea. You guys are on the front lines. I'm honored to fight alongside of you. You are America's best hope. The country is not in a good spot. We're going to talk about that in the coming days, and I know you guys are coming to Actcon. It's going to be pretty amazing.

Tucker and Bongino and all of that, it's going to be great. But you know the number one reason why these speakers want to come? When I talk to Tucker, when I talk to President Trump, when I talk to Bannon, when I talk to Bongino, when I talk to Megan Kelly, it's because they say, Charlie, there is a grittiness, there's an energy, there's a focus, there's an optimism with the turning point students that we don't see anywhere else. They said, we're coming out of our schedule in the summer to Palm Beach

because we want to speak to your students to tell them how important they are to save this civilization. And I agree completely. You guys are America's last best hope. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.