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The coolest part of what I get to do is be around just the most awesome people on the planet, right? Like just sitting back and watching Elon Musk and President Trump talk about consequential political issues. Like, what am I doing here, right? Like, I didn't go to college. I'm a kid from Chicago. It really goes to show that this country still has meritocracy at its core. And I think that is a testament to why this country is so great. That if you prove yourself, if you have the right work ethic, if you have a little grit and resolve, you can end up around the kings of today.

Charlie Kirk, founder of TPUSA. My dude, you've built an actually enormous thing. Congratulations. Seriously amazing. Thank you, Ben. It's great to see you and thanks for being here. And yeah, it's been kind of a wild journey. You're one of the few people I could say you were at the

foundational levels. Oh, yeah. I mean, I remember 18-year-old Charlie Kirk going around the David Horowitz Freedom Center at the Breakers trying to meet donors. And I remember saying to every one of those donors, this guy's going to be head of the RNC. And then you just basically built your own RNC. Yeah, you know, we kind of looked at the RNC and we said, maybe we could do something, you know, in our own likeness and image. But no, I mean, glory be to God. It's amazing. And this election cycle was...

A big test for us. And we were thrilled at the result. I have to say, it's actually incredible. So there is a tape of you from election night when it was announced that President Trump had won and you got really emotional. And I was moved by it because I know how much work you've put in over the last,

10 years just to get to this point and to be so influential in this election. And listen, I mean, you were handed an enormous responsibility and that's a super hard thing. I mean, they basically said, okay, why don't you just handle voter turnout? It's like, what in the world? So explain to me how you even build that sort of machine that leads to President Trump being reelected. Well, it was a couple of things.

We had President Trump's back throughout the primary and the whole process. There weren't a lot of us that were kind of building this kind of machinery. And it turned out once we got to the general election, we must remember that the odds did not look great for his general election chances. I mean, from the lawfare to just kind of the party was not completely yet behind him. And so we volunteered like, hey, you know, we know how to do this on college campuses.

We want to do some voter turnout stuff. And because of an FEC ruling that happened this last spring, you're allowed to coordinate with presidential campaigns. It was an election ruling. Actually, Mark Elias sued the FEC and won, and he thought it would help the Democrats. And so we started working with a great campaign team, Susie Wiles, James Blair. And we said, hey, especially in Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, some of these states who really have grassroots infrastructure, we believe that we can help the campaign and fill the gaps in

higher bodies. And so we went out on a hiring spree. We hired 1,500 full-time people in the key battleground states, massive, like an enormous sum. And our hypothesis was this, was that we do not have to take the electorate as is, meaning we can make the electorate more in a MAGA image. The traditional Republican orthodoxy was that you have to win swing voters and they're the most important voters. And that's probably true in lower turnout elections,

But in high turnout elections, you can actually change the electorate to be a little more masculine, a little more rural, a little more gun-owning, a little more muscular class, a little more MAGA. So we said, how do we turn Trump supporters into voters? Because one thing to say that I like Donald Trump, I like the vibe, you know, he's great. I watch him on TikTok and then turn him into a voter. That's where we came in. So the second part of our hypothesis is that we need to dominate early voting month, which is that we as Republicans...

are foolish to not engage in those 30 days of early voting and act as if everyone should just show up on one day. And so we and Elon and a couple others on the outside built this force that was really underestimated and scoffed at and smeared and honestly slandered by the media. Oh, Charlie Kirk and Elon Musk kind of doing this voter turnout operation.

It turns out that what we did worked. And actually, the credit really goes to President Trump because it was the easiest get-out-the-vote operation ever because we were talking to people that already liked him, that knew him, and his name ID had full saturation. We just needed a term that support

from yes, I like him to a ballot in a box. And we did that hundreds of thousands of times over a 30-day period in the key battleground states. And not to get too much ahead of ourselves because this is an enormous victory, but looking forward four years, these were, as you say, many of these are low propensity voters who love President Trump, who's a unique political figure, the most unique political figure of our lifetime, a historic political figure, probably the most historic American political figure of the last century. Given that fact,

Are these people that can come out again? Are these people that you can reach again, duplicate again for another candidate, say J.D. Vance?

more college educated people that might not have liked Donald Trump's approach or tone or whatever excuse they would give. And even if we get some of those low propensity voters to engage in the process, you have the best of all worlds. And so what we have proven, though, is an Obama style get out the vote turnout machine can be built on the right. And that was always the question is we as the right. Like, can we win celebrity culture? Can we do the thing where we change the electorate?

And it turns out, yes, we can. And that, again, we were just kind of benefiting from the draft of the president, right? Meaning that he had such a life force behind him and so many people knew him and wanted to support him. And it was so illuminating because we hosted the president with Bobby Kennedy back in August when that endorsement happened.

That was an amazing event. Bobby gave an amazing speech. It was terrific. And we were honored to be part of it. And we asked the campaign, we said, hey, can we do voter registration? Because, you know, we don't want to step into it. They said, yeah, of course you can. So 18,000 people show up. We registered 900 first-time voters.

900 out of 18,000 were Trump supporters willing to stand in line in the Arizona heat for three hours and they weren't registered to vote. And so all of a sudden we said, guys, not everyone who buys a MAGA hat is even registering to vote. And this is the forgotten country. These are people that make the country work. The plumbers, electricians, the welders, the carpenters, the police officers, the firefighters.

And so our theory of the case worked. Everyone doubted us. And the secondary part of that was then dominate on social media. This is where the Trump campaign deserves the enormous credit from putting Donald Trump on Joe Rogan, on Theo Vaughn, on these over the top type podcast situations that communicated the people that were lower propensity

And so then by the time we knocked on the door and said, hey, we need to collect your ballot. Yeah, I just saw President Trump on Theo Vaughn. I just saw him on Rogan. He's amazing. So we are going to the people that aren't watching CNN. They're not watching the traditional news channels and media. And we were able to then in Arizona chase over 200,000 ballots. Donald Trump won by 197,000 votes.

In Wisconsin, you know, Chase, 60,000 ballots of low propensity voters won by 30,000 votes. And so we're not taking credit for anything, but we definitely helped play the role. You played an enormous role. And I want to ask you sort of how you got to this point. So for people who don't know the story, I mean, I was here watching from the outside at a distance for a lot of the story. But for people who don't know sort of the Charlie Crook turning point USA story, why don't you explain where this came from? Because it is an amazing story.

Yeah, it's an only in America story. And I'm an entrepreneur at heart. You know that, you know, you built, you done a great job building the daily wire. And I've watched from afar on that and kind of see this become a beast. And at the turning point, it was A-side. I always felt like we could do culture better and we could definitely do the college campus, high school outreach kind of space better, that it needs some disruption. And honestly, I hated losing and I saw us losing. And I know you had a similar kind of drive to the left and that we weren't playing on their cultural terms and that we were constantly in retreat.

And so the idea was that can we bring entrepreneurial disruptive principles to a nonprofit space and create more chapters, create more high school experiences, create events like this? Can we do the grassroots thing better? And again, I have to give credit to President Trump. I know I sound like I'm repeating myself, but he kind of created an environment where politics and culture were almost indecipherable, right? And you know,

The old expression, Andrew Breitbart, you know it, a phenomenal legend, mentor of yours, and I followed at breitbart.com after him, and he was just amazing. Politics slows down super culture. Now it's closer like politics and culture almost- It's a merger. It's a merger, yeah. Exactly right. It's a merger. They're kind of one in the same, that you don't get politics without culture and culture without politics.

And so we at Turning Point would say, look at ourselves as a cultural transformation machine for our influencer network, for some of the voices that we've helped elevate and lift up from some of the things that we've done on college campuses and high school campuses. And it's just been 12 years of grinding. And a lot of people that thought we weren't going to last or that they could try to take us out.

And the team deserves just such enormous credit. And there's been so many different inflection points and people that have poured into us and donors that believed in us. And here we are today, thanks to the glory and grace of God with 400,000 donors and hundreds of thousands of students. And this event, we have 20,000 people coming. They're thrilled to hear from you, by the way.

and the president keynoting this on Sunday, which we consider to be a great testament to the work and what we've done. And we can kind of look at the landscape now and we can say we are, as an organization, one of the more important organizations on the right

and something where the left never took us seriously. And I think that's what really... It's an understatement. I mean, you may be the most important organization on the right at this point. And when you look at also sort of what your life is like now, could you have imagined that that's what your life was going to look like when you were 18? I mean, first of all, I don't think anyone could have imagined Trump himself, right? I mean, he just came in literally from nowhere, wrecking ball, destroys everything in his wake. And you, on a daily basis, get to interact with President Trump. You get to interact with Elon Musk. This is a pretty cool life.

I mean, it's awesome, man. And it's just, I have to just say, thank you, God, for putting us in this situation. And you kind of know what it's like to be in the public eye. Obviously you do. And that's fine. That comes with a different life, a lot of death threats, a lot of derailments. The coolest part of what I get to do is be around just the most awesome people on the planet, right? Like just sitting back and watching Elon Musk and President Trump talk about...

consequential political issues. Like, what am I doing here, right? Like, I didn't go to college. I'm a kid from Chicago. I'm 31 years old. And it really goes to show that this country still has meritocracy at its core. I didn't go to a great school, obviously. I wasn't born to like a very prestigious family. Did a couple of things, took a couple of risks, turned out. And I think that is a testament to why this country is so great, that if you prove yourself, if you have the right work ethic, if you have a little bit of grit and resolve, you can end up

you know, around the kings of today. And I think that's really cool. See, I have to pinch myself all the time. I never could have imagined it.

I mean, I remember the first time I met President Trump, I was like, my life is set. I met a president, right? I'm all good. And, you know, now we are, you know, in 2024 going into 2025. You know, I have a great relationship with the president. He asked me my opinion on certain things here or there. And again, he believed in us as an organization and me when others did not. And that also speaks to him. He's fiercely loyal. We've had his back and he's at our back.

And he's always believed in us. And now, you know, everything here is largely testament to how he's poured into us. So looking at the next couple of years, at least before the midterms, what are sort of the big things on your agenda item? What do you think the big things should be on the GOP agenda item? What are the things that are also doable? Because obviously when it comes to politics...

I think there's a tendency sometimes to say, well, if we just have sort of a Nietzschean will, we can ram through anything we want. But as we can see from even this week, it's a pretty complicated process. It's a lot of sausage making that goes on. So what are the things that as conservatives we should all be looking forward to? It's not all will to power. Thus spoke Zalafustra is a dangerous political manual, to say the least.

I will say that as far as turning point action, we have a very simple ask on the political side, which is our goal and our hope is that we want the Republican Party to be as conservative as its voters. So we think it's unhealthy if there are senators from deep red states that act as if they are metropolitan Rockefeller Republicans. And this the first kind of test of this is can Donald Trump get his cabinet right? Absent any like bombshell, like earth shattering stuff.

Does an incoming president who won a popular vote, an electoral vote landslide, and won some of these states by 20 or 30 points, can he earn the trust of senators that keep on going back to the well every six years from their Republican voters saying, you know, keep on giving me political power? We at Turning Point Action think we're uniquely positioned to help make that case because we are not born out of the Republican political

party. We're an outside group. We're obviously loyal to the president. And it's going to be a test of can these senators who might get a little wobbly when it comes to people like Tulsi Gabbard or Bobby Kennedy or Pete Hegseth, can they say yes and confirm them? We hope we think yes. And we're seeing good directional energy there. And Kash Patel, I would definitely add to that list.

So we want to just try to make the Republican Party get into alignment with its voters. Very simple and easy ask. And then beyond that, we want to try to change the philosophy of the Republican Party, be a party to win and win long term, invest in long term infrastructure, invest on it on the ground, and then accelerate this kind of cultural transformation that we've seen. I think we're entering a golden era of this country. I think we're going to see amazing economic growth. I think we're going to finally have our allies back in many different ways. I think we're going to have a secure southern border. I think we're going to deregulate the economy.

I think we're gonna be able to have a mass deportation force. I think we're gonna see all these promises made and promises kept. And my hope is that we can kind of make the Democrat party a minoritarian party for a generation, the same way FDR made the Republican party a minority party

for like 15 to 20 years. And it's really on us. Like it's for us to screw up, to be honest, and for us to mess up. And so, and then from there, we have to do something dramatic with education. That's the core of everything we do at Turning Point USA. And one of the things that's really fascinating about President Trump as a political figure is just how pragmatist he is. I mean, I've spent some time with him. You've spent way more time with him. And the thing that when people ask me about President Trump, I always say is that his only metric is winning.

When you're talking about a meritocracy, when you're talking about the thing that he actually cares about, it's just winning. And so that means that if a policy is tried and it doesn't work, he is not going to do that policy anymore. And it also means that he actually is going to be able to judge by results. And so all these people who are out there suggesting he's going to be an extremist or that he's going to pursue crazy policies, he's going to tariff everybody 75%, it's like,

That's not what he's going to do. He's going to do the things that win for the country, which is why we have such an opportunity going forward. Yeah, and I will say this, that out of the gate, he's going to do what he campaigned on. I was talking to a reporter recently. He said, well, do you really think that President Trump's going to do mass deportations? I'm like, well, the American people knew he was going to do it. So yes, I mean, it's not that surprising. Like, yes, he's going to keep men out of female sports. Like, he's going to drill baby drill. He's going to have Israel's back. Like, he's going to keep Iran in check. Like, he's going to do his best to try to end the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. These are things he campaigned on transparently. And...

it's unique because in politics, like for example, when Kamala Harris said, oh, I'm for fracking, we all knew she was a liar. And look, there's a lot of complaints people throw at President Trump. The one that I want to make sure we're clear is that

he tells like the blunt truth so directly that it like almost makes you disoriented. Where he's like, I'm sick of losing, we're gonna win again, we're not gonna allow men in female locker rooms and I'm gonna defund every single school that does that. He means that when he says that, like we're not gonna put up with that anymore. And as far as like the extremists and the unshackled thing, I just kind of think it's laughable

because everything he's talking about in the cabinet he's putting together is directly symmetrical and mirroring what he campaigned on. And it's not as if there's been like some surprise, not he's like, oh, surprise, actually amnesty for everybody and green cards. And so it was the most transparent campaign pledges and promises, 20 points. He said, the American people, this is what you want, this is what you're going to get. And you're right, he cares the most about the country succeeding and thriving.

And the first term, he did a wonderful job. And I think and I'll make a final point. I'd love your thoughts on this, too, Ben. I actually think the four years of exile was good for us. I think us being out of power made us ask, who are we? What do we want to do? Who are the best people to do this job? And I think it was good for him. I think it was good for me. I think it was good for everybody around him for us to really kind of say, no, we want this and we're a better version of our former self and that the second administration will be much better than the first. I think that you're exactly right on that. I also think that

President Trump being out of power, I think one of the things that it did is it meant that he is coming in with a vengeance. He's not a lame duck president. He is somebody who's going to come in with a real agenda, and it's going to be like he has a second first term. I mean, normally we have a second term president. The second term, nothing happens, right? Second term of George W. Bush, for better or ill, nothing happened. Nothing good. Exactly. When it comes to President Trump, not only does he have an agenda, he's treating this...

running on the ground just like that. And I think that that's a wonderful and unique thing. I also think that because the Democrats have lost their minds and because they've swung so far to the left, what that means is that what we are actually seeing is something that I've described as the normie revolution. What we're seeing is this just, it is now subversive to just be normal. I think one of the best examples of this was the

bizarre attempt to paint J.D. Vance as a weirdo by Tim Walls, who is legit a weirdo. And J.D. is one of the most normal people in the history of American politics. Married, has kids, served in the military, comes from a not particularly wealthy background, made something like he is the American story embodied. And somehow he was a weirdo

who was having relations with, and meanwhile, these people who actually would have relations with couches and try to actually marry their couches are saying that there's something weird about us. And so what you're seeing is, I think, a surge of just, can we go back to normal? And Trump feels like normalcy now. Yes, it does. And that's what's so unique is because we've been propagandized, believe that Trump is the abnormal and that like,

I don't know, like transgender strippers in front of the White House is normal. Like everything's fine or like cocaine in the West Wing is fine and actually it's good. And so and that's what's so unique about the President Trump's agenda is so much what he's talking about is actually just a rebalancing to the center of gravity where we once were. It's like, OK, a border like we're not going to send all this crazy money to people that hate us.

Like, we're going to have a social contract where our people come first. We're going to have a booming economy. I don't think that's radical. I don't think it's revolutionary. I think it's reasonable. And I will say this, that the one issue where the Democrats really went all in on, and they thought they could break the will of our movement, and Matt Walsh deserves such credit for this. I've said this publicly and privately. I sent out a tweet, and I meant it, sincerely.

is on the trans issue. And I think that Matt Walsh was like one of the like quiet reasons that we won this election because him holding the line on the trans thing, he started this like sea of courage with myself included saying that this is insane. I'm not going to put up with this. The most successful political advertisement that President Trump ran this campaign, the most successful, you know, this was the

illegal immigrant transgender surgery funded by taxpayers. It was like so outrageous, right? Like Kamala bragging about how- People literally didn't believe she had done that because it was so crazy and she had totally done it. And what I love is the Trump campaign, brilliant from Susie Wiles. They ran it like during NFL football.

It's like, we'll be right back. Two minute warning. And it's like, wait, what is this? And then Charlemagne on his show, The Breakfast Club, comments on it. They run another ad of his reaction to it. The Trump campaign spent $75 million on that ad. They did not spend a lot on ads. That one ad they went all in on. Now, what was it about that ad that animated people? It was so outrageous that it fit this vibe

Like, oh, she is as radical as people say. And she's bragging about it. It's not like it was like some like secret recording. It's like she was out in the open being like, I am going to use your taxpayer dollars to chop off the parts of illegal aliens in prison. And and it just it was like and then the ad was like Donald Trump is for you. Kamala Harris is for they them and kind of played into that kind of pronoun police stuff.

And President Trump was kind of a revolutionary back to normal. I think that's totally right. And one of the things that you're seeing, even when he's talking about the candidates who are considered out of the box, say RFK Jr., one of the things that he said in a press conference this week, he said, listen, I'm not getting rid of the polio vaccine. I think the dirty secret of this campaign is that Donald Trump ran as a moderate. They treat him as though he's an extremist. He's actually a moderate extremist.

on virtually every issue that you can name. From should we shut down the energy industry? The answer is no. To should we trans the children? The answer is no. To should we lower taxes? The answer is yes. These are all like 80-20 issues. And for some reason, Democrats have decided to take the 20%. It's insane. I think that's such a smart point.

because the only thing like immoderate about Donald Trump was just like how the media portrayed him and like the rallies. Like whatever, fine. But like you think about you actually, if you just like, hey, these are the 20 things that Donald Trump stands for. Okay. Like the only one that I think that might be quote unquote radical was like maybe what he wanted to do with immigration was a little bit like different than the status quo, but like not that much different than what Bill Clinton would have said in 1996. Also the answer was not anymore because here's the thing is a total reaction to what if we leave the border wide open for 30,

three years. I mean, I know that you know, checks. I mean, you live down here. I went down to the border and I actually looked at the board. It's legitimately wide open. There were no agents. I mean, there was a drone from the Mexican drug cartels flying on our side of the border. And the border patrol agents were telling me they could not shoot it down without explicit permission from Alejandro Mayorkas. So, yeah, I mean, the reaction that from the American people is going to be like, maybe we should glue this thing shut. I mean, that's not exactly a wild reaction. Yeah. And so and then President Trump always said I ran. He ran on common sense. And this is what's so important is that

that as we lose our sensibilities of our Western culture, which is Judeo-Christian in nature, we don't actually have a bearing on what common sense actually is, is that who is to say that men in female locker rooms is wrong if you don't have a shared Western morality that is derived from the Bible? Like, who's to say it's wrong that you shouldn't chop off kids' body parts? And so what Donald Trump was, is he was this

this unapologetic force to bring us back to foundational Western morality, which I don't think anyone really appreciated, right? - That's exactly right. - Which is like, okay, we're gonna have sovereignty, we're gonna have borders. And when you look at a 35,000 foot view, you're like, this is actually the most sensible political agenda ever. And they're the radicals. They're the ones that are calling about banning fossil fuels and getting rid of, we're gonna clamp down on corporate price gouging, insane stuff, right?

Whereas President Trump is running on stuff that is 90/10 issues and did so in a cultural transformational way. And then secondly, and we could talk about this forever, he was also the most masculine political figure

in a hyper-toxically feminine culture, right? So he was just like the absolute opposite. We were living under like, you can't say that, feelings first, reason is dead. And he was just like, nope, we're gonna be unapologetic. If you had a line chart and zero was sort of gender neutrality, and so on the far left, you had Tim Walz and Doug Emhoff. Bingo. On the far right, you have Donald Trump. That's right. That's exactly right. And so it's just like, that is, it's hard for people to articulate that, but that is kind of just something that people sense.

And from Donald Trump's like red tie to his alpha posture, you know, it's like that's a guy that I want representing me, not, you know, whatever walls is. Yeah, exactly. Well, speaking of these gender issues, you guys at TPUSA, you're working with us. We're working with you to release this brand new documentary, Identity Crisis, which is all about the detransitioner movement. We're really excited about this. It's going to be released on January 10th.

for free on X for a couple of days and it goes to Daily Wire Plus exclusively, which we're also very excited about. Tell me about the documentary. - Yeah, we've been working on this for a while and we're so honored to be partnering with you guys on this. It's perfect partnership. Look, Matt Walsh did "What is a Woman?" And in some ways, this is not like a sequel, but this is a good accompaniment to that general idea because this goes deep into the severity and the graphic brutality and the medieval nature of what transitioning actually is.

And in some ways, it is the result of if you can't answer what a woman is, you're going to start chopping off 12-year-olds' breasts. Then we get into the movie in great detail on the parents that lose their kids through divorce settlements and medical kidnapping. This is not just a one-off thing. This is happening with great detail across the country. And Matt Walsh will say it best, that the T in LGBT really is tyrannical. It is

It is that it is full totalitarian control of your speech, of your children, of your body. And that's what's so interesting is that it cloaks itself on its surface, the trans agenda as live and let live. Just let me wear a dress and you be you. And honestly, my temperament, I'm fine with like, okay, I guess like,

I don't think it's right. I think it's weird. But like, okay, if you want to wear a dress in your living room, I'm not going to have a public policy measure against that. But it's never been about that. That's always been okay. Instead, it's like, no, allow me to propagandize your 13-year-old child and then put them under general anesthesia and chop off their breasts.

because it's good for them. So we are going right at the heart of what I hope is going to lead to a consensus that we can ban this in every state in the country. My like little pet, one of my pet projects, I got four or five of them is for this incoming Trump administration to sign executive orders and launch a DOJ legal blitzkrieg

in every gender-affirming care center in the country, from Lurie Children's in Chicago to Mayo to the Nashville one that we need. We need criminal investigations, civil investigations. Dr. Ethan Heim at Houston's Children is under federal indictment for this. I know that you covered it on your show. This is one of the moral crimes of the century.

We're exposing it in this movie, Identity Crisis. People should check it out. And hopefully we want this to eventually get to the audience, White House staff and government officials to build a consensus 10 days before Inauguration Day that this can be a public policy agenda so that we can end this in this country once and for all. Folks, stay tuned for that on X. That's going to be available exclusively on X on January 10th and then a few days later over at Daily Wire+. Charlie, I really want to thank you. Say congratulations. Very few people outside the president and the vice president-elect

Outside of that, very few people in this country have had more to do with the success of Donald Trump's reelect effort. And I think this may have turned around the entire country. So you deserve enormous thanks, enormous kudos. Well done. Well, thank you. I'll throw it back to The Daily Wire. I love The Daily Wire. You guys are doing great work. And you guys really have the president's back when it mattered most during the summer and fall. I remember you texted me, said, I will climb through broken glass.

to do whatever it takes to get Trump elected. And it really helped a lot, mattered a lot. And this is a victory for the American people. And glory be to God, we have four great years and maybe beyond that with J.D. Vance and more. But it is a reprieve from the terror that we're living under right now. Charlie Clark again, thank you so much. Congratulations. Look forward to the rest of this amazing event. Thanks, man.

It's criminal.