Gavin sits down with 31-year-old conservative activist Charlie Kirk, founder and president of the right-wing student organization Turning Point USA.IG: @GavinNewsomTikTok: @GavinNewsomSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: Who are the hosts and guests of this episode?
This is Gavin Newsom. And this is Charlie Kirk.
By the way, what brings you to California, your favorite state? It is my, ooh, this thing's falling. It is my favorite state in the union. You're doing such a great job here, by the way. No, I'm honored to be on the show. Thank you.
Chapter 2: Why is Charlie Kirk visiting California?
You were just down at USC?
I was at USC yesterday, drew a big crowd.
By the way, I knew you were at USC early because my niece, who's graduating- She was the one with the MAGA hat on. She was, by the way, I do have to watch, but she was down there and she was like- You never know.
These kids are going to the right.
I'm aware. She said, this crowd's crazy. And the only reason she said it, she would have said it perhaps otherwise, but she knew you were coming on. The worst part though, Charlie, no BS, true story. Literally last night, trying to put my son to bed. He's like, no, dad. I just, what time? What time's Charlie going to be here? What time? And I'm like, dude, you're in school tomorrow. He's 13.
He's like, no, no. This morning, wakes up at six something. He's like, I'm coming. I'm like, he literally would not leave the house. Did you let him to take off school? No, he didn't. Of course not. He's not here for a good reason. But the point is the point.
You canceled school for like two years. Once one took one day.
The point is the point, which is you are making a damn dent.
Thank you. I'm kidding.
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Chapter 3: What is Charlie Kirk's influence on college campuses?
When did this whole thing, when did you start putting this together?
I've been at this for 13 years, and it's been a wild movement, really accelerated once President Trump kind of came on the scene. Right around, I'd say, 2021, we had a goal. Could we move the youth vote 10 points over 10 years?
And was it literally you sat down and put that numerical together?
Yeah, like, can we move it 10 points over 10 years? Ish, you know, approximate. Because our whole hypothesis was, and we, you know, we did this alongside President Trump and his great team, was that this demographic is disproportionately to the Democrat side. We believe Democrats were taking them for granted. We think that your side had no message whatsoever and an ideological monopoly.
We saw some of the fault lines there. And to President Trump's credit, he also harmonized with the strategy by going on podcasting and using TikTok. But yeah, I mean, we did it in four years, not 10, large in part, thanks to you guys.
And we'll get to that, and sincerely get to that, because I want to stress test some of those fault lines as it relates to the reality of our party and where we are today, vis-a-vis your ascendancy, not just individually as an organization. But where was that sort of moment for you? Because it's interesting. I mean, you're such a young guy, so it's not like deep biography here.
It's not like 20 years in the wilderness, writing his first book, getting a TV show that was canceled, coming back. It's more just this immediacy of ascendancy. Was it, I mean, were you sort of born and bred with an ideological mindset or were you more open-minded and you started to realize a lot of BS was out there?
Yeah, I've always been conservative. Obviously grown in that over the last, you know, 10-ish years. Was more libertarian, I'd say, in the first couple of years as to be expected as I got married and have kids become more conservative.
But no, look, just one of the things we saw in the last couple of years that the Democrats completely ignored and your side was basically not acknowledging it was happening was the crisis that young people were experiencing. That, I mean, just one, it's the first time in America's history that a 30-year-old is going to have it worse off than their parents. It's a breakdown of the social compact.
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Chapter 4: How did Charlie Kirk's movement grow?
Again, this is kind of a combination of exit polling. So it's really it's a difficult science to pinpoint.
So that goes back then. I mean, to your point, in order to do that, you've got to stand for something. You've got to assert yourself. You've got to have a strategy and you've got to implement it. You also have to not believe crazy stuff. And not believe crazy stuff.
I mean, and so for you, I mean, it's interesting, just, you know, this last week, I guess you were at USC, you were at University of Florida, you had thousands and thousands of folks. You get to your point, your crowds are growing. 2012, where were you? You were coming in and people were, I mean, you were taking, I mean, you were like getting threats.
I mean, you still get tons of threats, but it was, I mean, what was it like just to paint a picture of you walking to a college campus?
I had no money, no connections, and no idea what I was doing. Yeah, I mean, we were, I didn't even have a social media account. I mean, it was just the ultimate startup.
And wouldn't you just say, I'm available, and you started at this sort of debate format?
No, it was even more scrappy. I would literally show up to UW-Madison with a card table and a big cardboard sign saying, debate me. You know, like, here's some provocative statement.
So you're 20-something years old.
And I wouldn't even film it. I was 18 or 19.
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Chapter 5: What role did Donald Trump play in Charlie Kirk's rise?
And you're not modeling yourself at anything because the flatness of the surrounding terrain, meaning where are the Democrats? Are you looking at other organizing states?
We were modeling off of some of the ballot chasing, ballot harvesting practices of the left. Yeah. But I mean, there's again, that's a that's a self-limiting principle. You can't ballot chase if no one wants to vote for you.
That's right.
So, I mean, you could have the best organizers in the world. You have 2000 people chasing ballots in Arizona and you're running Kamala Harris in Arizona. What you actually was and what we end up tracking through our data is that the Democrats were chasing for us. is that they were chasing low-propensity Hispanics thinking that they were all for Kamala.
And in fact, we were looking at the precinct numbers of areas we didn't hit that moved like 20 points in Trump's direction. We're like, well, thank you very much, Kamala campaign, for getting out and chasing our ballots and for all these Hispanic men that are mechanics. We appreciate it. Thanks for... making sure that we also won Dave McCormick's Senate seat.
Right, right.
So again, chasing is only one part of the, like Democrats, of course, are better organizers than us. I mean, it's in your blood. Barack Obama was a community organizer. We make fun of it. It's who you guys are. You guys have labor as a backbone, clipboard and tennis shoes.
Labor less and less.
We can talk about that in a moment. But what we always felt that we had is we felt we had better ideas and a better message and all that. The idea was, can we combo a little bit of organizing practices with a mass movement, which is how you get a national popular vote victory and a overwhelming electoral landslide.
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Chapter 6: How does Charlie Kirk view higher education?
Yeah, no. All right, I got to get back into the classroom. I got six million kids. You got to get your educations up. 1,050 school districts, the largest school system. You got a lot going on, I know that. No, but no excuse because these things are important. And by the way, it's the reason we're having this conversation.
This is very illuminating and helpful to me to understand sort of the animus. What is it about... I joke with people. I say, you guys don't like DEI, CRT, ESG, DOJ, FBI, IRS. It's all the acronyms. It's all the damn three-letter acronyms. What the hell's the issue? What's going on with all that?
You know, I can, you missed some.
Which ones? Which others? What have I missed? EPA? Of course you don't like, yeah, you can't stand EPA.
The Employment Prevention Agency. Jeez, oh, okay.
You're about to get that 65%. That's what Lee is calling for.
Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, look, I mean, the, so it's not just acronyms that we dislike for the record, but it's what they- Feels like that sometimes.
I mean, how about the book ban stuff? On a serious note, 4,240 books or titles, libraries and schools are banned in 2023. Right. Is that not as a conservative? Well, it depends.
I mean, like, I think we can both agree pornography should not be taught to nine-year-olds. Fair point.
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Chapter 7: What are the key political differences discussed in the episode?
So if you seek to understand why young men are rebelling. Right. It's like, no, I'm not going to go along with this anymore. Like maybe I'm going to say, for an example, maybe I'm going to send out a stupid tweet when I'm 17 years old. When I'm 26, I shouldn't have to get fired because of that, right?
I would do that, 100%. I've never liked this cancel call. I mean, I'm glad to hear you say that. I remember back when I was lieutenant governor, I think Bill Maher was trying to get on the UC campus or something. They were saying Bill Maher was too conservative voice. And we called that out at the time. It completely said, but it's equally insane that people are boycotting Bud Light.
I mean, how is that not called out? Because I don't drink, but yeah, I mean like- You don't drink at all? I mean, no. By the way, I'm just, that's interesting. You don't? No. Never have?
I have, yeah.
What happened? A couple of years ago, you stopped? I stopped, yeah. Why'd you stop?
I just wanted to be more successful. I love that. What were you drinking? Napa Valley wine. Oh, Jesus Christ.
Here we go. Right? Are we going to get a little- I'm going to stop using my Lord and Savior in vain like that, man. By the way, forgive me. I deeply respect you. And by the way, do respect your faith. I'm serious. It's like the fourth time. I mean, come on. Okay, I appreciate it.
No, but no, I don't drink. But yeah, I mean, look, but first of all, we have the agency to boycott whatever we want, but understand- No, but I mean, in that cancel culture in reverse, I mean, a lot of cancel culture on the right right now. Something completely different. First of all, cancel culture is someone in power using their power to cancel somebody that doesn't have power.
That's cancel culture. Time out. Hold on. But Bud Light was people that don't have a lot of power, consumers using their agency to say, no, powerful corporation, I'm not going to voluntarily associate with you. But cancel culture has always been the incumbent person with power, a governor, a principal, a boss, a CEO, a corporate board going against the weaker.
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