2,277 videos 1,364,597,333 views US Joined Aug 30, 2018
Charlie Kirk is the Founder and President of Turning Point USA, the largest and fastest growing conservative youth activist organization in the country with over 250,000 student members, over 150 full-time staff, and a presence on over 2,000 high school and college campuses nationwide. Charlie is also the Chairman of Students for Trump, which aims to activate one million new college voters on campuses in battleground states in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election. His social media reaches over 100 million people per month and according to Axios, he is one of the "top 10 most engaged" Twitter handles in the world. He is also the host of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” which regularly ranks among the top news shows on Apple podcast charts.
Charlie Kirk Debates a Legal Mexican Immigrant and Marine Veteran on Immigration, Democracy, and Assimilation
Charlie Kirk debates with an audience member who is a legal immigrant from Mexico and a Marine Corps veteran, using the conversation to dig into the numbers behind legal versus illegal immigration into the United States. The exchange quickly widens into a broader argument about whether diversity strengthens or weakens a country, whether Ilhan Omar represents American values, and whether progressivism has any place in a nation Kirk insists was built on fixed principles rather than changing ones. Kirk pushes the conversation toward a distinction he considers central to American identity: the difference between a republic and a democracy, illustrating it with the collapse of the Roman Republic and the rise of Nazi Germany through democratic means. He closes by drawing a line between settlers, who built the country, and immigrants, who join something already established, arguing that assimilation into a shared language and culture is what keeps that distinction from mattering.
A Legal Immigrant and Marine Veteran Asks About Immigration
An audience member introduces himself to Charlie Kirk as a legal immigrant from Mexico and a veteran of the Marine Corps, asking whether people like him would be welcome under Kirk's vision of immigration policy. Kirk confirms the man came to the country legally and calls that rare, since he says most people entering the United States from Mexico do so illegally.
How Many Legal Immigrants Actually Come From Mexico
Kirk lays out figures he attributes to the federal government, saying around eight million people crossed into the country illegally over the previous two years, compared to roughly 1.2 million green cards issued worldwide each year through legal channels. When the audience member points out that not all of those legal green card recipients are from Mexico, Kirk concedes the point, estimating that closer to one in eight, or roughly a million, would be from Mexico specifically. He argues that even that legal number is too high.
Is Diversity Always a Strength?
Kirk turns the conversation toward diversity itself, arguing that it can be a weakness rather than a strength if people share no common language or common ground.
"What if everyone's strangers with one another, speaking different languages and has nothing in common? How is that a country?" Kirk asks.
Does Ilhan Omar Reflect American Values?
Kirk asks whether Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has assimilated into what he calls the American experiment, suggesting that her progressive politics put her at odds with the country's founding values. When the audience member argues that progressivism has always been part of how a society changes over time, Kirk pushes back, asking what has actually been removed from the Constitution's Preamble or Bill of Rights since 1787. He argues that the American project is conservative in nature, built on what he calls eternal truths rather than progressive ideals.
Republic Versus Democracy
The conversation shifts to a distinction Kirk treats as central to American identity: the difference between a republic and a democracy. He argues the word "democracy" does not appear in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, and appears only negatively in the Federalist Papers.
"A republic is you have irrefutable, eternal truths that do not change just because the majority wants them to change: life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, property, separation of powers, an independent judiciary," Kirk says. "A democracy is this: I want to be able to take away their rights because I don't like them. Nazi Germany was a democracy. We don't like the Jews, give us power, we're going to take their rights away. Hitler was democratically elected."
He argues that democracy, left unchecked, tends toward tyranny, while a republic depends on the people choosing to preserve it.
Rome's Fall From Republic to Empire
Kirk points to the Roman Republic as the only historical precedent for what he describes, explaining that it ceased to exist not through outside conquest but because its own citizens stopped wanting it to remain a republic. He describes Julius Caesar declaring himself dictator for life, ending the system of one-year Roman consuls and ushering in the era of Roman emperors. When asked whether this compares to Donald Trump, Kirk rejects the comparison outright, noting that Trump won his position through an election.
Settlers, Not Just Immigrants
Returning to the original question about immigration, Kirk argues that a country cannot bring in people who don't share its values and still remain the same country, though it could become something else.
He draws a distinction between settlers and immigrants, asking the audience member to define each.
A settler starts something new.
An immigrant comes to something already built.
Kirk argues that America was founded by settlers, not immigrants, and that immigration has historically been a tool used to enrich what settlers built, citing the assimilation of Irish, Polish, Italian, and German immigrants as examples. He argues the country is now losing assimilation as a basic expectation of immigration.
Assimilation and the Language Test
Kirk asks the audience member whether more people under the age of thirty in California speak Spanish or English at home, suggesting the answer illustrates a broader erosion of shared culture and language. He clarifies that not knowing the answer doesn't make someone a bad person, but argues it points to a loss of what he considers the basic elements of a country: borders, language, and culture.
The exchange ends on a respectful note, with Kirk thanking the audience member directly.
"Thank you for coming to the country legally, and thank you for serving the country," Kirk says.
Comments
Be the first to comment on this video.