The Charlie Kirk Show - What Gen Z Thinks About Israel — Thoughts From Our SAS Focus Group

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

There's a lot of commotion about Israel online, but how does Gen Z really feel about one of the most heated issues online, in media, and amongst the next generation? Charlie and Andrew sat down with different groups of students at TPUSA's Student Action Summit in Tampa, Florida to ask them about Gaza, AIPAC, US involvement in Israel, and more. 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.

Hey everybody. Charlie Kirk here live from thebitcoin.com studio. What do young people think about Israel? Israel has a disproportionate amount of time and attention in our media. So I thought we'd go straight to our Turning Point USA students and ask them, what do they think about Israel? Are they supportive? Are they against? What do they think of all this rise and this disgusting, repulsive Jew hate? We moderate a focus group at our Turning Point USA event in Tampa, Florida. I think you'll love it. Email us as always free. Freedom at Charliekirk.com. That is Freedom at Charliekirk.com. And subscribe to our podcast. That is the Charlie Kirk Show podcast page. Buckle up, everybody here. We go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here. Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks. I want to thank Charlie. He's an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job. Building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA. We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here. See, we're going to play a word association test. What's the first word that comes to mom when you hear Israel?

Judaism. Aid. Netanyahu. Tax dollars. Liability. Sacred. Tax dollars. Conflict.

Complex. Controversial. Scary. Strategic. Massad. So, Massad, of all the different things that would come to mind, And why does their intelligence service come to mind? Reminds me of the CIA.

You know, it has the CIA, you have the CIA involved with RFK. I mean, there's rumors going around. Maybe Mossad was a part of the Epstein files. Maybe Mossad was a part of things that we don't know about. And they're just like the Central Intelligence Agency, they are out there doing things that none of us know about. So to say Mossad first, that would basically imply your first impression is one of doubt. Is that fair to say?

Yes. Okay. When you hear like Epstein, right, do you connect the Epstein issue initial, like immediate, like first connection in your mind, that's also connected to Masada and Israel, or are they, they feel separate in your mind? I think, I think there's a growing consensus that there's a connection there. Yeah, I think that's definitely gaining velocity. Who used the word aid?

You did. Why did that come to mind first? It's very similar to our support for Ukraine. We're sending a lot of money over there. not really getting, in my opinion, a huge return on investment. And so that's like the first thing that comes to mind because when people talk about their distrust or dis support for Israel, that's the first thing that usually comes up is all the money that we're sending them.

I think we have a lot bigger issues at home. I think we should be spending most of our tax dollars on securing our border, keeping our home people safe rather than, I mean, we've seen illegal immigration that Joe Biden let through our southern border come in and we've seen thousands of Americans die because of it, I think we have a much bigger problem on the home front rather than sending money into foreign countries. I think it's critical that we remain friends with them. They remain our ally. I just don't think we should be subsidizing them as much as we are. When you talk about return on investment, I think that's an interesting way to frame it. The supporters of Israel

will say they're doing a lot of America's dirty work from intelligence gathering, things like that. Within the Middle East, is that compelling to you? Are you persuaded by that argument? The reason why I'm not super persuaded is especially, it's mostly because of here recently. We were kind of drug into it. We were negotiating. We were having negotiations. And then they struck. They killed the people we were negotiating with.

And it kind of derailed everything and sped up the conflict a little bit. It was the state department's stated goal that we were working on negotiations with Iran. You can say they wouldn't have panned out. You can say that maybe they were imminently about to. to collapse. But we were still in active negotiation, and yet Israel launches Operation Rising Lion to go in and strike Iran while we are mid-negotiation. How many of you guys would say you think Israel got us into that conflict? You would say yes? You would not say so much? I think we were willing to join that conflict. I don't think we were pulled in unwontingly

as if we were dragged by a leash, you know, in more uncertain terms. I think we have the authority and the say of whether or not we want to be involved in that conflict. And I think we saw the prosperity that we would unleash if we joined the conflict. When you think about Israel's history in the region, and even with Hamas or Iran, these nations have sworn to destroy and annihilate the nation of Israel, right? At what point does it become, given the context, at what point are you going to be okay or would you never be okay with the U.S. defending Israel's right to exist and essentially saving the country? think they absolutely, I mean, first and foremost, they have a right to exist. They have a right

to defend themselves. That's not my issue with it. I can kind of give an analogy is that our house is burning down, and so is our neighbors, and we're trying to put their fire out before we put ours out. That's kind of how I view it. So when you guys find out, and I don't know if you're aware of this, but when you find out that we're basically every year we send about almost $4 billion to Israel, does that make you upset or do you understand it given that they're under sort of crisis ongoing? I would say upset, and the amount over since 1948, it amounts to 319 billion adjusted to inflation.

And I'd say that I can think of multiple things that we could have spent at home that would have been a better allocation of our taxpayer dollars. And I feel like this money could have been well spent in supporting an economy that would support our generation being able to afford homes rather than military strikes for Israel. Making America great again starts with making America healthy again. Charlie Kirk here, I lost 40 pounds with the PhD weight loss and nutrition program.

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What would you want to see from their government? If their government came out and said, we have a five-year plan to decouple from USAID, would that help people's view of Israel? If they said, hey, we want to be self-reliant. Yes, absolutely. Do you think that would help? Yes.

If they're like, thank you for the help since 1948, we're a rich country, we've balanced our budget, we have money in our sovereign wealth fund, which they actually do. Thank you. We're now going to decouple over the next five years and basically transition. Do you think that people would think higher of it?

Or at least we'd stop talking about it so much. Yeah. Would you put that like as a primary? Yes. I would say like that can kind of follow up with a lot of other things. Like a lot of other like even European nations, like I feel like they were kind of like

even Trump had to like kind of even out NATO so that everyone was kind of paying the same, not the same amount obviously. Five percent. Yeah. But it just because like everyone, Nobody wants a lot of Americans do not want people freeloading off the United States. And as you said, 319 billion being sent to Israel over all these years, that's comparable to the amount we've sent to Ukraine.

And there's been a lot of controversy over that, and yet not as much over Israel. And people are judged very heavily if they critique that aid that is given to Israel. I think I'm pro-Israel. I support them. I believe Israel has a right to exist. I believe that they are the only state in that region with the right to exist. But why are we treating them differently than any other ally? Should we not be judging them, holding them to the same standard? Your view is articulated by a lot of young people and held by a lot of young people.

Because let's now take a step back and let's now broaden it. How many of you guys think when a lawmaker and a man I respect like Ted Cruz uses the Bible to justify aid to Israel? It doesn't even know the verse. Do you guys think that's like not the best way to approach this? Raise your hand. Okay. I think Ted Cruz is Genesis 12.3. I think a lot people see that was offput.

when you look at the new test. Why? Because I think a lot of people, they look, especially at the writings of Paul, where he talks about how the new flesh is not the same as the people in the old covenant. The new flesh is everybody, as everyone's included. You're talking about Romans 9. Yes. 96, yeah. Are you Catholic? Converting Catholic from Judaism? Yes. Oh, wow. So you're ethnically Jewish. And you have concerns about APEC. Yes, I do. I'm told that by some people that if I criticize APEC, I'm anti- semi-Semitic. I think it's ridiculous. I feel like it's great to have a concern for your country. Do you think that the, that APEC represents, again, I'm not saying I believe this, but I think this is what you're saying, that it represents a kind of cutting in line of prioritization away from the American people. Yes. Would you guys say that's a fair summary? Meaning that like, okay, we vote. We're citizens, but a separate group gets higher priority because of whatever reason. You look like you want to chime in. The entirety of the idea of a PAC is to represent a group,

but the fact that we're allowing a group that doesn't even represent American interests to influence the people who are supposed to be representing us, I have a huge problem with. And that's why I've said this before, and a lot of people don't like when I say it. I actually think there's probably like 20 representatives between Senate and the House,

who I think are actually fully doing the work of the American people and don't have the interests of some group. pulling their sway. But when you hear that lots of other countries also are lobbying, do you think, I mean, that you probably don't know the names of those countries, but it's happening. Does that upset you equally, or is APEC just get all the press because it's so top of mind? If those other ones are doing the same thing, of course, I do not think that other countries should be telling us how to spend, you know, telling our representatives and people who are here to represent all of us that they should be focusing outside of the United States. America first. Thank you. I find prophecy as policy generally to be

theologically problematic. I mean, there's plenty of things that the Bible says that have been done throughout parts of history that certainly a nation state doing today we would see as a bit of a problem. When it comes to sending these, what, you said, $300 billion? $19, yeah, just the inflation, yeah. To any foreign country, all I can think about is across our own southern border. We have an actual military in the form of the cartel that kill thousands of people. And that's leaving out the hundreds of thousands of Americans that have died to drug overdoses due to drugs that have come across our southern border. And it's insulting that that money goes anywhere else because we have such a huge problem here. Yeah, I want to kind of flip this word association game around just slightly because we haven't done it yet.

When I bring up Gaza, Gazans, Hamas, let's just keep Hamas out of it, Gaza and Gaza, what comes to mind? Complicated. Life. Destruction? I'd say differences. Parrish. Parish. We're honored to be partnering with the Alan Jackson Ministries, and today I want to point you to their podcast.

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You can find out more about Pastor Allen and the ministry at Alanjaxon.com forward slash Charlie. What is the impression that you guys have of what's been happening in Gaza? It doesn't have to be a singular word. I would say like a severe loss of life. I feel like that's always a bad thing, no matter which way you look at it, no matter who's, I mean, yeah, basically no matter who's, dying. It's never really a good thing. It's not good. And you say that on social media, you see a lot of maybe kids dying or death and

destruction. Is that getting fed into your algorithms a lot? Yes. And actually, on our school's campus, they'll have these little missing kid posters. And in those posters, they'll read about these kids who have died to, you know, they try to have us to have more sympathy for them. And it's like, at the end of the day, as you had mentioned, you know, they are humans. We already have sympathy for them. So on campus, now let's do something we haven't done. Has there been any awareness for the Israeli hostages?

Is that? No. I think that's also important to talk about, right? Or the 1,200 plus that were massacred that day. Yeah, the 12, I mean, nearly 1,300. So that's a factor because I think we need to have a balanced conversation about it. We're an association game. One issue you wish we were focused on instead of Israel, what would it be?

All right, we have to say, continue on the border. Border. Deportations. Housing. Housing. Families. How many of you guys at least get the impression that Israel matters more than having young people be able to own homes? Raise your hand.

It's dividing conquer. We can do a lot of things. This is why there's so many cabinet secretaries. This is why we have a government that can do a lot of things is because we can focus on foreign stuff and we can also focus on domestic stuff. I personally am pretty all right with a lot of what we have been doing, but I do understand where a lot of Gen Z is coming from with a lot of this, because, like I said, we can't buy homes. We can't afford anything.

We can't really afford anything. Do you guys see Jew hate increasing amongst your generation? I think that there's a lot of collusion between criticism and hate. I think that there is legitimate hate out there, but a lot of criticism is being framed as hatred or you don't support this because you're criticizing it, and that's like, I think that that's a little inseparable from what the left does. Yeah, do you guys think it's anti-Semitic to say you don't like BB Netanyahu? No. No. I don't believe so.

There is a rise of Jew hate, but it's not the majority mover. I think the majority mover of Gen Z and Gen Z conservatives is exhaustion. Precisely. Would you guys think that's a fair categorization? Yes, for sure. Again, there is like an isolated, like, weirdo, I hate Jews. We don't like that. No one like, no one in decent society wants that. But instead it's kind of like, can we just, I don't know, make it so I can buy a home or like deport people? Yeah. Is that, does that resonate with you? Oh yeah. Exactly. You're not anti-Israel. You don't wish them harm. You're not, you know, like cheering on Iran. No, I support Israel. I think there are allies. I want them. But you would be called an anti-Semite by some people for saying this. And I think that's ridiculous. I don't hate Jews because I think a nation should

defend themselves. Exactly. Like, I think that's the most ridiculous thing ever. I feel like it's becoming like the word of racism. Like, we just disagree with them, so we just have to call them a name. I don't think they're actually anti-Semitic. I think people just can't agree with them and they can't prove them wrong. So they just throw a word out and be like, you're anti-Semitic for because you think

that we should stop sending our money there. Something that I see amongst the people around, I do see more like general disdain towards, I mean, just being honest Jewish people. That's correct. Just because. They're constantly being told that you hate Jews and it's like, fine. If you're going to say I hate Jews over and over and over again, like if I'm going to be convicted of the crime, I might as well do the crime. I fear the same thing happens with all the talk of race.

The more we talk about it, the more we're going to bring it up. The more racism actually happened. This is like, I try to tell. Thank you for saying this. Because like this is, I try to tell these people and they're like, we must get more aggressive. And so like, let me ask a question. If we were to say, if we were to remove, like if people said what. Tucker said is anti-Semitic.

I don't hold that view. But it's like a lot of people on Twitter are like calling us out and like, whatever. That's not going to happen. But if we were to cancel Tucker, would anti-Semitism increase or decrease? I think increased because that means any supporter of Tucker Carlson's statement, therefore makes them anti-Semite. Exactly. And association. 100%.

Exactly. But the binary that's presented is that if you don't passionately talk about it, you are a hater. That's probably destructive for everybody involved. So for me, I'm trying to find this new path, which is, I love Israel. I visited there. My wife and I had the best experiences ever. I saw where Jesus rose from that and he walked on water. But also, I'm an American. And I represent a generation that can't afford anything and that we are like flooded with illegals and no one speaks English and our hospitals are clogged. I think we need to have the prudence to reject the Jew hate Like, okay, we're not going to put up with that. That's dumb.

But also, if you call everyone an anti-Semite, if they don't take a puritanical view of the Netanyahu government, then I think that's, it's bad for everybody. If you guys have private student loan debt, this is the best way out. They are phenomenal supporters of our Student Action Summit, America Fest, our campus tours. Many clients are not able to make the minimum monthly payment on their private student loans when they first contact YREFI.

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Call 8888.8.Y-R-R-R-R-R-E-FY.com. That is Y-R-E-FY.com. May not be available in all 50 states. So go to YREFI.com. If you have distressed or defaulted private student loans, they can get you out of debt. So if you know anybody in your life that might have student loan problems, private student loan problems, check it out right now at YREFI.com. That is YR-E-F-Y.com. So would you guys all basically safe to say welcome us not talking about Israel nearly as much?

Yes. Every day. A cope that is often found. in broken institutions. And I found this now over 13 years. It's a great truism. You guys learn it for the rest of your life. Anybody that tells you we have a messaging problem,

you should go a step deeper and ask another question. Being like, what are you actually doing something wrong? Or are you bad at messaging it? Because people that are doing bad stuff will sometimes be like, well, we're just not presenting it correctly. Sometimes that's true. Or sometimes there actually might be something beneath the surface that you're not doing it. So do you guys think that it's a,

messaging problem or that it's a like an actual material concept problem so values and priorities problem yeah it's definitely a messaging problem these politicians they don't need to be car salesmen you know we need we need the truth we need the direct truth and nothing but the truth but these politicians they're not they're not truthful you know they're digging gen z down in the dirt who represents you best outside of trump well thank you that's great and i don't do that just for the sake of it either i mean you're here involving us for a reason because we are the important group, we're going to inherit all of these issues. No, again, again, the reason I'm doing this is that the reason we're doing this focus group,

and Andrew will attest, I've been trying to tell them that there is an earthquake coming on this issue and in the country, and they don't believe me. So I'm like, why don't you just hear it from people themselves? If we don't get young conservatives in, we're going to end up losing to the Democratic Party because they're starting to get the younger generation involved within their representation. And it's just if we don't start getting these young people from our generation or the next generation above us into Congress, then we're going to start losing. When this debate pops up on your social media feed or on campus, what is the most persuasive pro-Israel point that you have seen or heard? Talk about more about how they help us with intelligence, especially

with this new conflict with Iran. If you want to use that, say like, hey, Israel is very helpful. us deflecting with Iran and giving us influence over them because we can have more intelligence. Do you find it persuasive when the Israeli Tourism Board is bragging about how many gay pride parades they have in Tel Aviv? Does that make you more pro-Israel? No. So what else is persuasive for you? I would try to educate about Islamic terrorism. I think that's major, especially with the fact that we live through 9-11. I think a lot of people in my generation don't understand how big of a situation it was. We know nothing about it for the most part.

I think maybe one other point maybe is about the Holy Land as well. He could make a point going to the Holy Land and filming me doesn't say Israel is a better protector of the Holy Land than if there was a Palestinian state. The argument I make more than anything else. That's my biggest argument. Keep going. When the United States is a mostly Christian country,

not all Christian, obviously, but a mostly Christian country, a lot of people can sympathize that that is the Holy Land, that is where Jesus Christ lived and with Christian. And rose from the dead, yes, sir. Islamic terrorism is, that's a better messaging because it kind of, it connects Israel. It's a threat to Israel and the United States together at the same time. So it brings it home to people. One of the conversations we've had is that this Holy Land thing, there is a hunger for the Holy Land, the old things.

Yeah, the old things, the ancient things. I think so much of modern life feels very transient and new. And also just the stability of it for being there for 2,000 years. and also the fact that it's really just been the bedrock of traditionalism. And I think you talked about in your speech about how there's a lot of liberal, evangelical churches. So it's like, how can I get to a more traditional style of life? I mean, I'm Catholic as well, and grown up Catholic. And one of the biggest things that I do like is that Israel holds the roots of a lot of Western religion.

And that it is critical for us as Americans to keep them. So this is very important, and we're going to have to close here, is that American evangelicals tend to be very pro-Israel. Younger Catholics tend to not be. But what you're both doing, you know, soon-to-be Catholic, current Catholic, you're saying that, hey, if you talked more about the Holy Land, the place, the environment, the reality, the artifacts, right, the discoveries, the where Christ our Lord bled on, you know, in the Catholic Church, the Via della Rosa is a big deal, right?

it's huge on the stations of the cross catholicism is a very tactile religion you think that that actually is more persuasive than any theological argument being like this holy land must be protected so we can access that we can worship that we can prove and we don't want a bunch of Muslims taking this place over like they did with bethlehem do you think that is a winning argument for evangelicals for Christians more so than gay pride parades in haifa absolutely absolutely yeah 100%. Thank you guys for your time. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Email us as always freedom at charliekirk.com. Thanks so much for listening and God bless. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.