Charlie Kirk Reveals How a High School Essay Exposing Liberal Bias Launched Turning Point USA

[00:00] It all started with an essay that he

[00:02] wrote as a senior in high school that

[00:05] described the liberal bias in textbooks.

[00:09] So, how Charlie did that essay lead you

[00:12] to where you are to to the head of um a

[00:15] large conservative activist

[00:17] organization?

[00:18] >> Great to be here, Dr. Bob. Yeah, I I

[00:20] wrote that essay when I was a senior in

[00:22] high school. And I came across an AP,

[00:26] which means advanced placement textbook,

[00:28] economics textbook, that was called Paul

[00:31] Krugman's economics for the AP. And Paul

[00:35] Krugman is an economist for the New York

[00:38] Times who's been wrong about basically

[00:39] everything for the last 30 years. And I

[00:42] opened it up and it was one chapter

[00:44] after the other of why private property

[00:48] uh needs to be uh put into question, why

[00:51] collectivization of property is actually

[00:54] more efficient. Uh more of kind of the

[00:57] Cass Sunstein model of organizing

[00:59] society. And there was one chapter in

[01:01] particular that was wrong. It was wrong

[01:04] in its interpretation of history and

[01:07] wrong in what it was trying to teach the

[01:08] readers. And it was teaching students

[01:11] that the 1980s was not a period of

[01:13] economic growth. It was a period when

[01:16] the middle class suffered and that poor

[01:18] people got poor. And Dr. Bob, you know,

[01:20] you're entitled to your own opinion.

[01:22] You're not entitled to your own facts.

[01:24] You know, the 1980s that thanks to

[01:26] Ronald Reagan and tax cuts and

[01:27] deregulation that the economy soared.

[01:30] And so I challenged this to my teacher

[01:32] and kind of wrote it up. And this was

[01:35] when Andrew Breitbart was still alive,

[01:37] right before he died, like a month

[01:38] before he died. Breitbart.com took that

[01:41] essay and was the first essay I ever

[01:43] wrote. I was I just sent to them as a

[01:45] tip and they said, "Why don't you try to

[01:46] write this?" And it ended up going

[01:48] totally viral. It was published on

[01:50] hundreds of websites. Uh I ended up

[01:52] going on Fox News over it and all of a

[01:55] sudden I kind of realized, hey, this is

[01:57] what it feels like to be an activist.

[01:58] You know why? Because of the enemies

[02:00] that I made because of that. my teacher,

[02:02] administrator and principal,

[02:04] superintendent, head of instruction,

[02:06] they hated the fact that I would go and

[02:08] expose the fact that they are teaching

[02:11] this garbage in these classrooms. And so

[02:13] from there, I kind of I kind of got the

[02:15] um got the the itch, you could say, to

[02:18] try to do something to save this

[02:19] country.

[02:19] >> Mhm. And that led that article in

[02:21] Breitbart led to an interview on Fox

[02:23] News. That's right.

[02:24] >> For a high school senior.

[02:25] >> That's right.

[02:26] >> Pretty good. So, I was on I was on Fox

[02:28] News in the morning at like 6:00 a.m.

[02:30] Then I went back to class and it was all

[02:32] over the internet. And this was pre

[02:34] Twitter. It was still kind of getting

[02:35] online. And my my teachers were say,

[02:37] "Did I see you on television this

[02:39] morning?" And that was the that was the

[02:42] beginning stages of kind of what became

[02:44] Turning Point USA. And it's I got to

[02:48] thinking kind of the entrepreneur in me

[02:50] kicked in. I said, "There must be

[02:52] millions of other young people

[02:54] experiencing exactly what I saw in that

[02:56] textbook." And that was just one

[02:58] isolated incident of Dr. Bob of teachers

[03:00] that would go out of their way towards

[03:03] framing Marxism in a positive way and

[03:05] kind of the beginning stages of what was

[03:07] wokeism all the way back in 2012.

[03:10] >> Now, I know you did try to get into the

[03:12] Air Force Academy, US West Point. Uh

[03:16] they for some reason they turned you

[03:17] down and that was probably a good thing.

[03:20] you can learn what's necessary by doing.

[03:22] You don't need to go to college. So, I

[03:25] think it was it was very lucky that they

[03:28] turned you down because you wouldn't be

[03:31] here today if you spent time uh 4 years.

[03:34] >> I totally agree. And it would have been

[03:35] four years plus 5 years military

[03:37] service, right? So, I I would just be

[03:40] getting out right now and who knows,

[03:42] maybe I would be in some Afghanistan

[03:43] debacle after that whole humiliation. It

[03:46] was the best thing that ever happened to

[03:47] me. And that's my lesson to young people

[03:49] is my whole life was about going to West

[03:50] Point. I was an Eagle Scout football

[03:52] basketball captain, good grades, you

[03:54] know, member of the community, got every

[03:56] letter recommendation you could imagine,

[03:57] got my congressional nomination, but

[03:59] when it came for appointment to the

[04:01] academy, I didn't get in and it was

[04:03] crushing at the time and I I couldn't

[04:05] quite process it or understand it. And I

[04:08] was kind of left with this decision,

[04:10] what do I do? And that simultaneously

[04:12] that kind of essay was written right

[04:14] near that denial letter. And I realized

[04:16] that there was a much more important

[04:18] path that I was supposed to be on.

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