Digital Social Hour
Backstage with Trump: Diet Coke, Snickers & No Water | Lauren Toncich DSH #1063
Sun, 05 Jan 2025
Go backstage with Trump and discover his Diet Coke & Snickers obsession! 🍫🥤 Lauren from Turning Point USA spills the tea on organizing massive conservative events and Trump's unstoppable energy. 🇺🇸 Get an insider's look at: • Trump's surprising backstage snack choices • The explosive growth of conservative events like AmFest • Behind-the-scenes stories of working with political powerhouses Lauren shares her journey from student attendee to VP of Events, revealing how Turning Point USA became a conservative powerhouse. Learn about Charlie Kirk's leadership, Trump's impact on the movement, and the challenges of organizing during COVID. Don't miss out on this exclusive peek into the world of conservative politics! Watch now and subscribe for more eye-opening conversations on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly. 🎙️ #DigitalSocialHour #TurningPointUSA #Trump2024 #ConservativePolitics #AmFest #trump #conference #charliekirk #virtualeventmarketing #eventmanagement #foxnews #theview #trump #newstoday #donaldtrump CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 00:23 - Lauren's First TPUSA Event 02:06 - AmFest Highlights 04:17 - Getting Into Politics 06:14 - Cultural Shift on College Campuses 10:59 - George Soros and Hot Ones 11:42 - Trump and Alternative Media 13:21 - TPUSA Inauguration Ball Overview 17:10 - Future Plans for TPUSA 17:35 - Thanks for Watching APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [email protected] GUEST: Lauren Toncich https://x.com/TPA_LT https://www.tpusa.com/laurentoncich LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/
Chapter 1: What was Lauren's first experience at a TPUSA event?
I was watching it from home that night. They said we won Pennsylvania. It didn't really click in my head. That basically meant that we won everything. And then I see Charlie start crying and I started crying.
Chapter 2: What are the highlights of AmFest?
I mean, you guys were probably working day and night for a year straight.
Oh, yeah.
Chapter 3: How did Lauren get involved in politics?
All right, guys, we got Lauren from Turning Point here. First ever podcast. Thanks for choosing me to come on.
Thanks for having me. I'm excited.
Chapter 4: What is the cultural shift on college campuses?
Absolutely. It's going to be fun to dive into the behind the scenes world of conferences and events.
That's what you do, right? Yes, I am. I'm like the vice president of events here at Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action. I'm doing it for about seven years now. I actually attended my first... I got into this whole world by attending SAS 2017 as a student in December. So almost seven years ago to the day. And my final interview there...
A few days later, they're like, hey, I want to move out to Phoenix. I've never really heard of Turning Point. I've never heard of Charlie, but I was a conservative. And then I was like, you know what? This sounds like a good opportunity. I was blessed to come in at a great time when Turning Point was growing and now kind of be a small part of the machine that Charlie has built. Phenomenal.
What was he like back then as a leader? He's always been such a strong leader. It's wild because I'm 29, Charlie's 31. Our entire staff is in their 20s for the most part. Super young. But Charlie, I really truly believe, is a once-in-a-lifetime leader. He really looks out for his people, but he also expects a lot out of us. We never settle for mediocre. It's always greatness.
Chapter 5: How has Trump influenced conservative events?
And he really pushes the bar. But I think that's why we've been so successful as a company, these events. And I'm very blessed to work for him. If he wasn't that strong of a leader, I don't know if I'd still be here. I'm really, really fortunate to kind of play a little small part in his little machine.
I keep hearing these stories of him, of people meeting him when he's like 18, 21, 24, and they're saying there's something special about him.
It really is. And I'm fortunate enough to kind of consider him a friend now. And his wife, Erica, who's absolutely amazing. But he's firm, but he also really believes in just... doing the best you can do and kind of expecting a lot, but also like recognizing and, you know, taking care of the people that put all the work.
Yeah. I want to dive into Amfest since we're here. Over 20,000 people. 20,000 people. The speaking lineup is probably the best I've ever seen.
Thank you.
In the political space. Thank you. What was the mission when Amfest was starting up?
When Amfest was started, like I mentioned, when I was a student, I was SAS 2017, and that was our kind of winter event. And then we just realized a turning point while we're, yes, a student movement, that's always our focus, that the movement was growing much bigger.
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Chapter 6: What are the future plans for TPUSA?
And there was a really strong earning for the adult and the young adults to kind of come in and also have something that they can be a part of. And so we moved our Student Action Summit to the summer and then made Amfest here a
in phoenix which is where we're actually based out of um as the all-encompassing all ages event was still obviously a like student focus um but to really just be the largest gathering of conservatives um to provide an opportunity for media outlets like such as yourself to like come and be around passionate patriots to have sponsoring organizations amazing speakers all of our students and really cultivate a you know like much larger movement than what we have
Yeah, because prior to AmFest, it was just R&C, right?
There was no other big... R&C and there's CPAC, which is, you know, they're all amazing organizations. We all work together. We all support each other. But, you know, we were kind of known for our flashiness, how exciting it was. And the Student Action Summit name, people always were like, well, I'm not a student. Like when we did have adult tickets, we wanted to keep that very student focused.
So we're like, well, why don't we make something that, you know, is for everybody, not just that student base. And now with like Turning Point Action as well, which is more of the... young adult, adult crowd. It really just merges the two organizations together very well.
Absolutely. You think Trump's going to make everyone do a Trump dance tomorrow during his speech?
I think he should. That'd be awesome. Benny did that yesterday and he was telling me about it backstage and Benny's a great friend and my husband for like years. He was telling me yesterday, I was like, that's actually a really cool one. So they got like all the cameras wide shot. You saw everyone doing their dance. I was like, I love this. I think Trump should. I'll tell his team.
That's awesome. Have you done the dance yet yourself?
Oh, of course I have.
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Chapter 7: How did COVID-19 affect event management?
I haven't done it yet.
You haven't? No. Such a good like...
Okay. I might have to break it out tomorrow.
And then a little golf swing that he's been throwing in lately.
Yeah. He's got moves. He's been doing that dance for a while.
It's his signature iconic thing. It's great. I love it.
When did you first get into politics?
Really, when I started working here, my family grew up in communism. And so first generation American from Croatia. And my parents was always super conservative growing up. I was like, okay, dad, stop talking, stop talking. And then when I was in high school learning about politics, I was like, okay, one side kind of makes more sense.
And then when Trump ran in 2016, I think that was a pivotal moment for a lot of people, especially like our generation, when it was like, there was something that clicked or something exciting. And that's when I kind of got more interested in it. And my dad and I went to Trump Rally in San Diego, which is where I'm from.
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Chapter 8: What is the impact of events on student connections?
Oh, yeah.
Tables have turned a lot. So it's exciting. But that's kind of what kind of sparked my interest in the movement. And I went to SAS and kind of fell in love. And now I never thought you could work in politics without like running for office. But I was very, very wrong on that. There's so much you can do within politics that isn't, you know, being an elected official. And it's been a blast.
That's beautiful. I've seen my mother's journey too. She grew up in China. So communist. And we grew up then she moved and I was raised in New Jersey. So super liberal state. So we grew up Democrat. But now she's, I think she voted for Trump.
That's amazing. Even my mom, like she was born in like Croatia and then moved here when she was 12. And she's always been, you know, conservative. My dad's very conservative. But over the last, you know, six years, I watched her turn from a, yeah, I'm voting red, to a, I love Trump. He has to win. And it's so fun because she's like, where's her MAGA hat? She ran into Charlie not too long ago.
I wasn't even there. And she asked him for a picture. And it's just so funny to see how much, you know, how invested she is now and just kind of what Trump's done for the movement and done for our country. It's absolutely incredible.
Yeah, this election was probably the biggest shift I've ever seen.
Oh, and seeing it, you know, especially firsthand, like, you know, again, like, Turning Point's done so much on the event side alone. We did, this will be our seventh rally with President Trump, so we've done a lot with him, a lot of big events, but that's just one small part of what Turning Point has done.
We have our campus tours, which did, like, 24 stops, pulling thousands of students on every campus, and seeing those videos of these college students on these liberal campuses swarming Charlie, wanting the MAGA hats, and, like, some of my favorite clips post-election were the ones from, like, NBC and CNN that were, like,
they're not thrilled about it, but they're standing there and they're like, well, you know, actually Charlie Kirk changed a lot of these minds and to be a part of that and just see that cultural shift was absolutely amazing.
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