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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 Remembers David Horowitz: The Former Communist Who Became a Mentor to Conservative Movement
Charlie Kirk pays tribute to David Horowitz, the former communist turned conservative titan who passed away. Horowitz was instrumental in shaping modern conservatism through his Freedom Center retreats, where he introduced countless young conservatives, including Kirk himself, to donors and taught them aggressive tactics for fighting the left. Kirk credits Horowitz with connecting him to Turning Point USA's biggest donors and inspiring the confrontational campus activism that became his signature. Alongside figures like Andrew Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh, and Stephen Bannon, Horowitz held the line during the dark Obama years when the country seemed headed left. Mike Cernovich joins Kirk to discuss Horowitz's profound impact, his understanding of leftist tactics from his communist past, and why his fighting spirit remains essential for conservatives today.
David Horowitz was a mentor and a friend, one of the original people who believed in the vision of Turning Point USA. He was a titan of the conservative movement, a former communist who wrote prolifically and possessed an incredible mind. Being a former communist, he understood what motivated the left in ways few others could.
Horowitz hosted events called the David Horowitz restoration weekends, almost always during the second week of November. They would occur every year, but became most famous for being held after elections—whether midterm or presidential. These gatherings served as either a time to be amongst friends if conservatives didn't like the result, or a time to celebrate if they did.
The Man Who Opened Doors
Charlie Kirk and Horowitz hit it off from the beginning. Kirk would attend the restoration weekends where Horowitz would introduce him to donors that he had no business knowing at such a young age. Horowitz had created a gathering place for donors, and as Kirk looks around the Turning Point USA complex today, building after building is named after people who donated—all of whom he met at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
The biggest donors to Turning Point USA to this day are people Kirk met at David Horowitz's donor retreat. What made Horowitz remarkable was that he never cared that Kirk was there trying to meet donors. He would say, "Charlie's doing good work. The more the merrier." This approach was extraordinarily rare. Most organizations are protective of their donors, trying to block access and maintain territorial control. Kirk learned from David's example: no territorialism, no gatekeeping.
Horowitz was genuine and grassroots in his approach. He would tell people, "Charlie's doing something great for kids. Let's do something for him." This generosity of spirit stood in stark contrast to the many people who attack others for being too protective of their donor relationships.
The Aggressive Campus Strategy
Kirk remembers sitting down with Horowitz back in 2014, when Turning Point USA was only two years old. After Kirk cast the whole vision, Horowitz told him: "Charlie, you got to be aggressive on these campuses. Make the liberals come to the mic. Make the communists expose who they are and put it on the internet."
Horowitz was one of many people who inspired Kirk to take a hyperaggressive approach—to go right into the belly of the beast. What Kirk does now on college campuses, Horowitz was doing long before. Back in 2010, when Kirk was still in high school, Horowitz would go to college campuses and do open mic events. He understood the left because he was raised as a communist.
In one powerful exchange from 2010, Horowitz confronted a Muslim student at a campus event. When he asked if she would condemn Hamas, she deflected repeatedly. She claimed that answering would put her on a cross, that she might be arrested by Homeland Security. When pressed on whether she condemned Hamas as a terrorist organization engaged in genocide, she continued to evade. Horowitz pointed out that the head of Hezbollah had said he hopes Jews will gather in Israel so he doesn't have to hunt them down globally. He asked her directly: "For it or against it?" Her response: "For it." That chilling moment demonstrated exactly what Horowitz was trying to expose about radical elements on college campuses.
Essential Reading from a Prophetic Voice
Horowitz wrote extensively throughout his career. Just before his death, he completed a powerful book. Among his most important works are "The Black Book of the American Left," one of the greatest books for understanding the left, and "Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey." He also wrote "Hating Whitey" all the way back in 1999, putting him ahead of the curve on issues that would dominate American discourse decades later.
The Generation That Held the Line
Mike Cernovich joined Kirk to discuss Horowitz's impact. Kirk placed Horowitz in a small group of people who predated his involvement in the national conservative movement—a group that included Andrew Breitbart, Stephen Bannon, and Rush Limbaugh. These were the people who held up the conservative movement during the dark period of 2008-2011, when Obama looked ascendant and the country appeared to be moving inexorably left. Horowitz was one of the few people to hold the line.
Cernovich pointed out something crucial that set Horowitz apart: he actually resourced young conservatives. Most people assume people got into MAGA for money, but Cernovich remembers the early days—at the RNC in 2016, for instance. Early MAGA was completely under-resourced. There was nothing. Cernovich himself was buying a lot of dinners for activists.
Horowitz wasn't even a billionaire, yet imagine the good he would have done if he had been. Even with the resources he had, he would help young conservatives, give them things to do, support them here and there. He had his Freedom Fellowship and would promote people. In 2025, people take this for granted, but there was no way for a young conservative to become politically active back then. This is why the right-wing was losing the culture.
Patient Zero for Deplatforming
Cernovich reminded listeners that Horowitz was patient zero for deplatforming. Mastercard deplatformed him. Patreon banned him. His site Jihad Watch was constantly under attack. The Southern Poverty Law Center smeared him relentlessly. He withstood devastating hits but kept building people up.
Horowitz understood something many still don't grasp: if other causes are dear to your heart, the best thing you can do is help young conservatives. Then when you want to talk to them about a cause near and dear to your heart, they're willing to listen. It doesn't mean they'll agree, but they'll be willing to listen. He wasn't a finger-wagging moralist like so many others have become.
The list of people who got their start at David Horowitz Freedom Center retreats is extensive. Stephen Miller was an upstart anti-immigration speaker, and David Horowitz was his mentor—one of many people Horowitz elevated.
Understanding the Enemy
Horowitz understood the left at a time when the Vichy French Mitt Romney Koch brothers mentality dominated the GOP. In 2012-2014, when Kirk was first getting his start, the prevailing attitude was: "It's a battle of ideas, and if we win the debate, we'll win the country and decency will prevail."
Horowitz would always say that was nonsense. He insisted: "These people want us dead. They want us in prison. They want the country burned, and we must fight them. All they understand is power." His insistence on the right tactics to fight the left came from his experience as a former communist himself.
Cernovich noted that it's interesting to bring up the Koch brothers in this context, because they were anti-MAGA and funded libertarian causes. Before Horowitz, everything in conservative politics was about commerce, not about culture or the spiritual dimension. In 2025, if you're new to politics, you don't understand that the GOP worshiped at the altar of money.
David never cared about that. He talked about Islam, the trans agenda, and race before anybody else. Jihad Watch got him in all kinds of trouble. He and Robert Spencer understood cultural issues when the GOP was primarily the party of money—focused on unlimited free markets and open borders, not caring if your spiritual life suffered or if you had to move away from family to get a job. Americans were treated as economic widgets. That was the prevailing orthodoxy that Horowitz was fighting against, the same orthodoxy Trump fought.
The Ragtag Insurgency
Kirk emphasized a profound point: probably five people kept America from a liberal takeover of the country—Trump, Rush Limbaugh, Bannon, Breitbart, and Horowitz. Trump is the inheritor of much of Horowitz's philosophy. Trump loved David Horowitz. Kirk once put them on the phone together, and Trump said, "Oh, I love David. He's so good for me." It was one of David's favorite moments of his life to talk to the president.
The early movement was so ragtag, like an insurgency guerrilla army. This was before Turning Point had anything substantial. Kirk and Cernovich were out in the streets arguing. This was before all the trappings, before MAGA was even a thing. David was the backbone of so much of that.
Cernovich found an old video of Kirk from 2016—just Kirk with a megaphone. In 2025, people think of MAGA as this established thing, but back then people just showed up with megaphones. There was no Charlie Kirk Show podcast. At the RNC, there were communists protesting, and Kirk and others just said, "Let's go get a megaphone and defend our guy." They weren't even filming it initially. Cernovich happened to be Periscoping it, and it went viral.
People need to understand and appreciate that right now, as we speak, there's a cabinet meeting and conservatives control the government. But America was inches away from becoming like Canada. David Horowitz stood in that gap and said, "Nope, here's how you fight."
The Fighting Spirit
What lessons can conservatives learn from David Horowitz today? Cernovich emphasized what he and Kirk had been talking around but hadn't put into words clearly: the fighting spirit.
The left gets in conservative faces, and too many respond with, "Oh, I don't feel safe on campus." That's totally unlike the David Horowitz way. Horowitz wouldn't say, "I don't feel safe at Columbia." The idea that young people in the prime of life don't feel safe walking around an Ivy League campus would have been absurd to him.
That strain of Paul Ryan conservatism is reinfecting the younger generation. The Horowitz way, the Breitbart way, is what Cernovich demonstrated by posting that 2016 video: you walk into a group of communist goons at the RNC with one guy alongside you. No army, no Navy SEALs for protection. Nothing. You just walk into the fire, as Breitbart said.
A lot of this comes down to energy, vibe, and aura. Traditional conservatives struggle with this concept. It means getting in their faces. When Congressman Jamie Raskin recently appeared to incite a mob against Jack Posobiec because Posobiec went to an event and asked why Congress wasted money on impeachment, that was the kind of thing early MAGA did—tactics created by the zeitgeist that Horowitz, Breitbart, and others established on the right.
Go on Offense
The lesson everyone should learn is this: conservatives are not potted plants or wallflowers. They don't run from the left. They don't cry or throw temper tantrums. They use the same tactics the left does—going to their events and confronting them.
When Hakeem Jeffries sat on the Capitol steps for six hours doing impeachment theatrics and standing up for MS-13, why didn't young conservatives go ask him why he loves MS-13? If there were two Republican Congress members on the Capitol steps, leftists would be there immediately asking questions. Why doesn't it occur to young conservatives to do the same?
The tactic that OG MAGA was great at, the wisdom that's getting lost: Make them answer the allegation. Make them defend themselves. Why is it always conservatives playing defense? The Horowitz way requires being on the offensive, literally getting out of the studio, going to college campuses, being around people who don't agree with you, and setting the tone.
David Horowitz embodied that better than anybody else. His legacy is a call to action: more people need to be like David Horowitz.
