Charlie Kirk Reveals Why Financial Literacy Is Never Taught in Schools and How to Actually Build Wealth

Pressure is a beautiful thing. You want to have a debate, but you actually don't debate. Shut up or shut up, Charlie K. It is easy to interrupt and to scold and to insult. You know what's hard? I have to go to a college campus and defend ideas that are in the minority of a lot of these kids worldview. I mean, I don't like any elite. One of the things that I've been confused about is why financial literacy is never taught in schools. If you want to like have people remain super poor and dependent on the government, don't teach them financial literacy. It's it's inexcusable. Why do you think conservatives generally stay silent on wealth inequality? So the question shouldn't be like how many rich people are. The question is how easy is it to move up the socioeconomic ladder? That's the more important metric and that's actually becoming harder. So that's a really important conversation. Here's the key. Poverty is human norm. Wealth is the exception. How do you get wealthy is the most important economic issue in front of us. If you want like the secret to get rich there, it's actually like not super hard. Charlie Kirk, thank you so much for coming on the Ice Coffee Hour. Thank you guys. I'm I'm a big fan. I've seen a lot of your clips and so it's great to be sitting down. That means a lot. In 2012, when you were just 18 years old at the Republican National Convention, you approached billionaire Foster Freeze. Yes, I did. And you asked him to help you out with your idea, Turning Point USA. What was the conclusion of that conversation and what did that teach you about life and risk? Wow, it's a great question. Um, so I was just recently graduated from high school. Um, I wanted to go to West Point before that. Didn't get in. Uh, and it ended up being one of the greatest things that never happened to me. And so I went to the Republican National Convention. I studied like all the major donors. I had to kind of like sneak my way into the RNC grounds, if you will. And I at the fourth day, I was so demoralized. I was like, "Oh, this is not working. saying, "I have this idea for Turning Point USA," which basically the idea was to try to win over young people around conservative ideas. And I was in a stairwell, literally a stairwell, and so and then I saw Foster Freeze doing like a podcast interview with this major cowboy hat on and I gave him the stairwell pitch. You know, people talk about the elevator pitch. I gave him a stairwell pitch and he told a couple jokes. He was the sweetest, most godly, incredible person ever. He was actually took me seriously cuz here I was 18 years old, no money, no connections, no idea what I was doing. and no reason that he should be listening to me. And this guy, for the people that know, Foster Freeze started from nothing in uh rural I think it was like Rice Lake, Wisconsin, became like the top mutual fund manager for like 30 years. The Brandine Fund out of Delaware, like legendary stuff, right? So, he's someone that gets pitched all the time. His life is to listen to pitches. 10 times a day, top companies would come in and try to pitch Foster Freeze. Can you have your couple billion dollars assets under management to buy Coca-Cola or to buy United Airlines? constantly getting pitches. So, here I am pitching a guy, a legend, about, you know, this organization that I wanted to start, Turning Point USA, and he took me so seriously. Um, and he wrote me a $10,000 check. And that was like the seed funding. Uh, it wasn't shares. It wasn't like equity. It was just a donation cuz we were 501c3. And it might as well have been $100 million, right? It finally was enough for me to be able to start a website, to have gas in the car, and then Yeah. And then from there the the journey just started and he became a bigger and bigger donor. What do you think he saw in you? Well, he probably saw someone that was passionate enough and crazy enough and honestly he probably saw someone that was really like naive to a great extent that I still wanted to get into this like broken political space, but I didn't know any better. Um, and in Foster's own words, he said he saw someone with focus and determination and a Midwestern work ethic. So, he was from Wisconsin. and I was from Northern Illinois. So, we kind of had that in common. And look, I live in Arizona now and I love Arizona, but I have like a huge Midwestern bias. I think Midwestern work ethic is like the best on the planet. And nothing against other people in the country, but there is something very special about u how we're raised in the Midwest and kind of that idea that we're going to outwork everybody. And that's always been who I am. I'm going to do more events and more speaking and more podcasting, more radio interviews, and more donor meetings. And that's kind of been the ethos. So, yeah, I mean, I don't want to put words in his mouth. He passed away unfortunately a couple years ago. Um, and so but no, he was a great friend. And you asked the question, what did it teach me about risk? Is is that right? Risk in life. Yeah. Well, I honestly I had nothing to really risk because I had nothing to lose. And so that's like Well, that's I mean that's a nerve-wracking thing. A lot of people are presented with opportunities to talk with someone, get their foot in the door for some opportunity. So what are you losing though? Like your own like getting over the embarrassment of rejection. I know. But like it's not losing anything, right? I mean that's in life if you think about it like okay if you're actually if you're second mortgaging your house like some entrepreneurs are I don't have like one of those stories right I'm sure you guys talked to some of these people I was on the second mortgage my house and I couldn't feed my kids that's actually not my story that is something to lose this is like the only thing you have to lose is your own sense of comfort that's kind of weird when you think about it right oh I'm not going to ask that girl out why because I'm comfortable in my own corner comfort will not bring you success actually it won't bring you excellence like only in that place of uncomfort and discomfort do you actually get to the next level you know this so why do so many people believe the exact opposite of that that they feel like that's a big risk for them to go and do that like why don't more people think like you cuz I agree with you I think first of all like I mean it is risk in the sense that we as human beings do desire comfort and we want to kind of be in a place where we can have certainty above uncertainty and going and asking a question or go going and asking a top billionaire for money you have the probability failure and we are very failureverse as a species and honestly we should be like you think about 5,000 years ago you have you know two kids and you're living in like Mesopotamia and you're like well I hope there's food over that hill and if you're wrong your whole family could die so like that's embedded into our our species right God designed us in a way where there was not a lot of food all the all the place so now you kind of extrapolate that kind of genetic wiring where we used to be in in the wilderness to foster freeze and you think you're like wow foster tells me no my whole life's going to actually no you're going to be fine like you could go and still eat food and you're not going to die and so I think we have to overcome our genetic hardwiring where so many people think that it's like a life ordeath situation I can't ask this girl out I can't go ask for a raise I can't go to my boss I can't assert myself and you have to overcome that because it's actually not that much risk now what is risk is like if there's a material material or a reputational thing you're putting on the line. Like for example, if like you're working for a company and they're like, you know, you're not allowed to express your conservative views and you're like all of a sudden wearing a MAGA hat, that's a risk. Like I totally get that. But if you're 18 years old and you have no money, no connections, no idea what you're doing, I had nothing to lose. And that's actually one of my main arguments for like why we have so few entrepreneurs nowadays or we have less and less entrepreneurial rate entrepreneurship rates are going down is we're sending all these kids to college and they're telling you to be riskaverse. Like the whole incentive structure in college is to not pursue big broad ideas is actually to stay rather cloistered in place. Speaking of that, that's where I first uh found your content was you on the college campuses debating. When did that start? And what was the most surprising aspect of that? Yeah. So I've been doing that for 13 years. I haven't been doing that on camera for 13 years. And so look, the Lord has been so amazing to to us and has blessed us in amazing ways. And so I never would have imagined like honestly ever since like I met Foster Freeze that we'd be somewhat of kind of like a household name. I don't want to overextend it, but I mean it there's some serious verality and some real punch behind what we're doing. So I started doing that without even filming it. And so like that's what people are like you have and that was before like mass social media 13 years ago. It was still there. Honestly, I should have filmed it. It would have went like the trajectory probably would have been even faster 2012, right? Yes. I mean like that was like raw internet and like it would have been really interesting. But that's how you know I actually believe this stuff is I used to go to bait kids when there was no incentive structure for verality. I just did it cuz I loved it and I love the battle of ideas and I did it to try to start like a turning point group on campus. And so I've been doing it for 13 years. We started filming it around 2017. We started perfecting the model really around 2021. And then 2023 is when all of a sudden it kind of became a somewhat of a cultural phenomenon. And then of course the last year seems like I can't get out of people's algorithm. So you mentioned that you like the battle of ideas. But one thing that I tend to notice is that whoever has stronger rhetoric, persuasion skills, you know, quick on their feet, quick on their toes, that's going to be the person to win the argument, the debate. Do you feel like these debates have turned into a battle of ideas or just who has stronger rhetoric? That's a good point. I actually have to think I I think about that a lot. So I try to do a couple things and I I fail. But if you notice, I've in the viral videos, I try to put my microphone down literally physically on the table when the person is asking their question because I want to try to give them uninterrupted time to be able to make their argument. Number two, there is an advantage that the person coming up to the mic has that they're allowed to ask any topic and I don't know what that topic is going to be and they could prepare profusely on it. But you're right, of course it's advantage to the guy that does it for a living, right? But understand like I have to go to a college campus and defend ideas that are in the minority of a lot of these kids worldview. I have to go to a college campus and argue against abortion. Most kids are not against abortion, right? Have you have you ever had your mind changed from one of these college camp? Oh yeah. I mean so mine changed as in over a period of time probably. Yes. I would say that I definitely have grown respect for like the thoughtfulness of a lot of international students when it has come to the Russian Ukraine war like definitely like I'm very against US involvement but like talking to and they're they're all public you can watch them like very thoughtful German students and like very thoughtful students from Eastern Europe like for them it's a very existential crisis what's happening and so like to hear that was something that was very let's just say different than what you would hear just on like the usual American political landscape. But yeah, look, I'd say over I would say that I learn a lot too and that's what's important. I do a 100 hours of this a semester. 100 hours in addition to two hours of podcasting radio, right? 250 speeches a year. I got to raise $130 million a year and I got a thousand employees. I got a lot going on, right? I still do 100 hours of content a year. So 200 hours of campus content. And I'm not just like I I try and I fail. Everyone would fail at this, but I try not to just be ready to say what I want to say next. I try to really learn and listen and then I try to listen back to the footage. And so this is one of the reasons why it's a little bit unfair when I go to these campuses because I've been doing it for literally a thousand hours and these kids are like a college, you know, freshman. So I try to have at least somewhat of a teacher role to them and try to be a little bit softer. Unless if they're coming after me and they're like insulting me and you you've seen it, right? Like they're just being like totally like blitz creek. It's nice because I feel like you do tend to do that where they might have a hard time articulating a certain philosophical argument, but then you take it for that strongest, you know, derivative or representation of that strongest phil And like it's like the ninth time they're asking me about Israel and I love Israel, but I'm tired of answering questions on Israel. Okay. Like I love it. It's fine. Like it's just but this is not the debate Charlie Kirk on Israel hour. And I'm like can we ask can we have another topic here? And I might get a little bit miffed. Who wouldn't, right? I mean that's just human. But I will say like I try to meet you at the frequency you're at. So if they're coming after me and they're like insulting my appearance or whatever, like I'm gonna I'm not gonna let myself get run over. But if a liberal student comes and they're like, "Hey, I really seek to understand this or help me know or I I try to I try not to like pummel them, if that makes sense, because I at least I think that's effective." Right now, if they come with like a uniquely grotesque idea, then I'm going to try to expose it to the audience and to the, you know, online community. But, um, yeah. No, look, I learn a lot and it try and I hope the audience does too. I mean the physical crowds are now 3 4 th 4,000 people almost every time we do this. Now in those cases when have you found that college is really worth it for someone? Yeah, it's a great question. So I'm a big proponent of Hillsdale College. So Hillsdale I think is America's greatest college because it's what college should be. Uh which is it's the development of the soul and character. So character is one of the most important things that you can invest in when you're 18, 19, 20, 20 years old. And I guarantee you if you go to most colleges, they're about preparing you for your career, but they're not about preparing your character. And character is really, really important, right? Character literally comes from the Greek word tattoo or to etch into you. Character will define every decision, right? From what you eat to what you drink, how you communicate to people to the decisions you make. Way more important than whether you have a skill. Having a skill is important. I'm not diminishing that. But wouldn't I mean, if you guys are building a business, wouldn't you rather have people of high character, high skill? Of course, you want people of high character. Skills can come. Character is the hard thing. And so, I think that we as the college world has done a really bad job of developing character. They don't even prioritize it. instead. Why why do you think it's failed so many people? Well, that's those are two separate questions. So, why do they not teach character? Well, first of all, they they don't think that's their reason for existing. Most of them, it depends. Like the super leftwing colleges, which is most of them, they're all like, "We're here to create global citizens for an everchanging world, like some sort of pabum, or they're like, "We want to have you very specific, you know, skill, like we want you to be able to like turn a widget, which by the way, if AI replaces that job, what do you have?" That's a cool thing about developing character. Like if AI replaces jobs, you still have the most important of all things, which is you know the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, beauty and ugly, right? You know the difference between the the most the high things and the low things. Like that's what we should strive for in higher education. That's why I think Hillsdale does a great job. But yeah, most I mean if you want to become a doctor or lawyer, of course you have to go to college, right? But you still have to go through this ridiculous environment of left-wing social indoctrination. But I I will say though that the and I I've debated all around the world though I debated at Cambridge and Oxford all across the country. The other problem is that they're not in the pursuit of wisdom. And this is one of the more important things like if you ask a regular college kid what is the difference between knowledge and wisdom. They like they'll just trip over themselves. And it's not a semantic thing but semantic means meaning. But it's not a semantic thing. It's actually important. Knowledge is just facts. Like okay I know the capital of you know California, Sacramento, whatever. Wisdom is the knowledge of things that never change. It's the understanding of things that never change. It's like what is human nature? What does it mean to be a good person? What is beauty? What is goodness? What is the best way of living? What is a society in its fullest form? Is it good to have children? Wisdom is is understanding that is even playing with the idea like is there a god? Like who are we? How did we get here? I think that's what college should be all about is the cultivation of wisdom. As a Christian, we believe wisdom starts with the fear of the Lord. But yeah, I mean I don't mean to talk uninterrupted for 10 minutes straight, but yeah. Um, I I think that college has has completely derailed its purpose. In terms of college as an application for the average person, uh, I think it's really interesting. Ben Shapiro claims to be wealthy in America, you need to do three things. Graduate high school, get a full-time job, and get married before you have children. All Yeah, that and he's right. And that's the Brookings Institution. He's right on all three. And do you think he's missing anything? First of all, I like Ben a lot. We disagree on some big things, but Ben's great, and he's been a good friend for a while. Um, yeah. Yeah, I would say like become a person of high character. Again, I'm going to kind of go back to a main thing. Do you think that that is essential to be wealthy in America? That's a good question. I don't think being wealthy is that important. Like, do you want to be wealthy of the soul or just have like a bunch of money? Like, well, that's that would be a different question, but I I I guess like the question is fine. Do you want to be rich? I can tell you how to get rich. Like, that's actually not that hard. I mean, you have to get rich like work relentlessly and solve a problem for people and like dedicate your entire life to it and like become an insane person. Basically, do you think it's possible to still do all of those things though and then not become rich? Of course. But like if you if your whole reason for living is to become rich, you will become rich. Most people that think like most people I meet that want to be rich, they actually don't want to be rich. They want to have the lifestyle of being rich. They don't actually want to be rich. They're like, you have to sacrifice everything to want to become actually rich unless you're born into it. Like no nights, few weekends. I traveled 3,000 days over a decade. I'm a million mileer American, Delta, United. I'm in all 50 states multiple times. Like it's thankless, gritty work. Like Shapiro hosted two radio shows plus like Breitbart.com and Truth Revol. Like not easy. So if you actually want to be rich, then there is a path for you. You have to like sacrifice in like immensely. I don't drink alcohol. Like Tucker Carlson doesn't drink alcohol. Donald Trump doesn't drink alcohol. That doesn't mean that like you can't be rich if you don't drink alcohol, but you must sacrifice stuff. Now it might be that you create a good widget or like you might a good social media app or you might get good venture funding but even those guys will tell you you have to fail a lot, you have to sacrifice a lot, you have to be really gritty. I I just challenge the premise of like what is the most important like I think if getting material wealth is the most important thing. I think there actually is a playbook for that absent of like committing crimes like being a really crappy person being sociopathic. It depends also what you define as rich. Like there is a way forward for if it's your number one reason for living to, you know, earn $500,000 a year. Like that's very conceivable in America. But if you're like, hey, actually most important thing is to have kids, which I think actually think having children is more important than having material success and I have both and I can tell you kids are way better than having money. Like honestly, not being poor is awesome. That's like the best thing I could tell you. like being super rich and I'm not super rich but I'm I would consider to be successful under you know American terms is great but up to a place it's kind of like you know you're you're blessed you're wealthy it's fine not being poor is the true blessing not worrying about like medical bills or being in debt is like really bad but yeah it depends on what you want if you want to be rich like actually like have your bank account big then America of course you can do that how much of people being poor is their fault versus just the circumstances of their life. It's both. It dep It's very case dependent. Um, a lot of it is agency. I put So, we as conservatives tend to blame free will, agency, and the person a lot more than circumstances. But of course, circumstance play a role. Of course, it does. Now, in business, they say that you could have better, cheaper, or faster, but you only get to pick two. 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So, use the link in the description to try Helium Mobilebile today and enter the code coffee to get $10 in cloud points, which can be redeemed for gift cards to your favorite brands after 90 days. Thank you so much to Helium Mobilebile for sponsoring this episode. Why do you think conservatives generally stay silent on wealth inequality? Well, I don't know if we're silent on it. I mean, I think that we're finally starting to talk about it. I'd say that we would say that just don't throw rocks at the top of the building, fix the elevator. So, the question shouldn't be like how many rich people are. The question is how easy is it to move up the socioeconomic ladder? That's the more important metric and that's actually becoming harder. So that's a really important conversation. But I could probably agree with a liberal that it's not good to have like an entrenched permanent oligarchy that's running the country and that people have to go into debt and go into credit to pay for their groceries. Like I actually don't want to live in that country. So I can agree that we should talk about it more. Um but is there anything like inherently wrong with a billionaire? No. Like most billionaires actually have solved big problems for us. Like, you know, people love hating on Elon Musk. I like Elon a lot. He was He's become a friend. Um, I know there's been like a lot of social media talk about it, but I refuse to say anything negative about Elon. Like, okay, you tell me the next time you're able to launch a rocket and land it. Like, actually, that's pretty cool. Like, okay, you're able to revolutionize the electric car industry. Like, you deserve a lot of money if you do that. One of the things that I've been confused about is why financial literacy is never taught in schools. Like, you think that this would be something taught throughout middle school, high school, college. Why is that? I mean, if you want like an actual conspiracy theory, that's the best evidence of a conspiracy. If you want to like have people remain super poor and dependent on the government, don't teach them financial literacy. It's like it's inexcusable. And who do you think is in charge of that? No, I'm not I'm not like I'm just saying like I don't know who's like the designer of that conspiracy, but the incentives are aligned. I'm saying like if you want a generation to like have to go to the payday lending people and if you want to have them like filling out credit cards at 25% interest, don't teach financial literacy. I don't know who. I mean, it's convenient. I'm a big school choice advocate. I think that we need school choice. I think the public sector teacher unions and the public sector cartel have done a huge damage to this country, but yeah, I mean, look, there's how many young kids right now that are 17 can tell you the difference between credit and debit? They can't. So, one of the things I like about Trump's upcoming big beautiful bill is that every new baby board in America will get a $1,000 loan from the federal government in I don't know if you guys know about this, but in a investment account that they can't touch their 18 invested in the Dow Jones Industrial Average that they'll be able to monitor throughout the 18 years. It be it can be grown by philanthropists, family members, grandparents. So, they'll be actually be able to see their wealth increase. They're stakeholders. So if we have two kids, if we have another kid, that kid will immediately have a investment account that's only a one-way dropbox. You can't access this money until you're 18. So it actually creates ownership units for the next generation. I think it's a phenomenal. I wish they did that with social security. Oh, of course they should. We were told it was a lock box and it wasn't. Of course. But no, I mean looks there's so then if you want like the secret to get rich there, it's actually like not super hard. It's like live below your means, save your money, invest in good companies, and then find good ideas and read a lot. Like read a lot. If you just read a lot and you like all of a sudden you'll see trends and you'll be well informed. Again, I don't want to make it seem like it's super easy, but it's it depends what you define by rich. But I will say one final thing. People are so bad with money. Like again, if you if your top priority is getting drunk, okay, then go do that. Like I know a lot of people they're like, "I want to be rich. I spent $700 going out this weekend." Like, "Oh, yes, you don't want to be rich, okay? You want to feel good and you want to have a bunch of, you know, toxins go through your liver, but you actually don't want to live a life of happiness and contentment. And if you want to if you I'm not a moralist, if you want to drink, go ahead. It's a free society. Go do that. But then don't all of a sudden complain to me that you're not materially wealthy." It just seems like it's such low lift to to make a huge change in terms of wealth inequality if there was just one course taught in high school about financial literacy. And so like let's just say hypothetically I'm just a casual viewer of I mean I've been watching you for a very long time and I'm I'm how difficult would it be for you to just you know reach out to Trump or reach out to someone and be like what do we got to do to put some incentives into the school system to teach financial you know what it might hurt a lot of businesses if people were smart with their money. Oh it would totally the credit card companies would freak out. They would freak out. Could you imagine like Visa and Mastercard people are asking questions about 25% interest? I mean so how difficult would that be? Is there just way too much interest at play? No, no, no. It would just be difficult. It's very hard for the federal government to control curriculum but to apply incentives. Yeah, the states should do it. Like there have been some ideas to do this. I know that there's big companies that have tried to do this because they're like, "Oh yeah, we're giving money towards financial literacy. I'm sorry. Like it's not working. Whatever you guys are doing is not working. Okay? Whatever program you think that's going on financial literacy, you guys are all a failure. You should all be shut down because it's just not working. Because I I deal with the next generation. They know kaput about financial literacy. Like very little to nothing. And this is one of the things that I just want to caution everybody about, which is like I'm very very pro crypto, but I know a lot of people that have lost money on crypto. I'm sure you guys I'm very very pro crypto. I think there's a huge opportunity. I think it's incredible technology more than anything else. that like the best way to build wealth is over long periods of time saving money and doing boring stuff. It's not get rich quick. It's not big meme coins, right? It's not big spikes. It's just going to work, saving money, and living below your means. I know that's not the sexy answer everyone wants, but that's what Warren Buffett did. Warren Buffett's one of the world's wealthiest men. He started with like very little money 70 years ago. And the eighth wonder of the world, you know what the eighth wonder of the world is? Compound interest. Compound interest. And no one wants to hear that, right? They want to hear about like what's the next Nvidia. Okay. I I don't know. But I can tell you that in 40 years, if you put a hundred bucks a week into a moderately managed, you know, wealth account, you're going to be great. 100 bucks a week, man. I can't afford that. Okay. Well, let's talk about how much money do you make? Oh, I make $91,000. You can afford 100 bucks a week. Stop getting your Frappuccino. Stop going out to drink with your friends. Right. I've been saying this. You sound exactly like I don't I mean the reason why we're called the iced coffee hour is because he had a joke on his channel called the 20 cent iced coffee and you could save $3 a day which is3 $100 a month. And if you just invest that into Yeah. A Roth IRA, you know, assuming 10% interest, you have some inflation, but when you're, you know, 60 or whatever, you'll be a millionaire. And that all came from a guy who was spending $500 a month at Starbucks. No, I'm probably that guy. You're that guy? Well, now I am. But like No, I know. It's terrible. It's It's not good. But you have amazing coffee makers upstairs. Aren't they incredible? Yeah, I know. Um I also drink a lot of tea and Starbucks like so when you travel a lot, the one thing about Starbucks is consistency, right? So it's just like I don't know what mom and pop, you know, place there is in Laram, Wyoming. I don't coin flip if it's good or not. Exactly. So the only the only argument for like mass proliferation of Starbucks when you travel is You do the rewards though, right? Yeah. Mikey does. It's funny. I I actually have coffee socks on, believe it or not. Good for Well, I like coffee is really good. I'm very pro coffee. So, I think coffee gets a bad rap. It's very very good for you, actually. Let's talk about the average American. Do you think it's possible to build wealth when you're making $40,000 a year? That's a great question, boy. Um, first of all, if you're earning $40,000 a year, you're in a tough spot. And I don't envy that. And you might be there because your own choices. You're an agency. That's really That's a really hard question. Depends where you live, depends your age, and also depends on your circumstances. And so if you have kids and $40,000 a year, it's very hard to build wealth. And that's a real problem that we have to tackle. But if you're 18 years old earning $40,000 a year and you're you have four roommates, yeah, you can build wealth for sure, actually. Like if you have four roommates and you're living in downtown Phoenix and your rent's a,000 bucks a month because you're splitting it four ways, you absolutely can build wealth. I mean, so it's a very case dependent answer, but if you have $40,000 a year with two kids, I don't know how you'd support two kids or 4,000. You have to go to government assistance, right? Um, which by the way, we as conservatives, we bash government assistants a lot. So, I'm a huge Oregon Ducks fan. Like massive Oregon Ducks fan. My dad went to University of Oregon, my uncle did, my aunt did. Like I I know every player. So Dan Lanning, the coach of I don't know if you care about college football or not, but the coach of or University of Oregon, like there was a moment in his life where he was like a what they call like an not an assistant coach. What do they say? Like you're kind of like a coach's assistant basically. He was on food stamps as a coach. He's like and it was like I was I was ashamed by it. I felt guilty. But he's like, "We needed it." And now he's earning like 11 million bucks a year being the University of Oregon football coach. And so I think that's like a great case case story of like, okay, we want this to be a safety net, not a hammock. And like here's a guy who really needed it. He had two kids. And so I if you're earning 40,000 bucks a year, um, you know, that's a tough that's a tough spot. So I always think about this study, this data where the US military during World War II and Vietnam War conducted aptitude and psychological evaluations showing that 10 to 20% of new recruits were only ever positively counterproductive in any sort of work. And then this is also backed by corporate research as well showing that 10 to 20% of individuals will only ever be toxic and contribute to less efficiency in the work environment than them just being gone in the first place. As someone that runs a massive company, how do you find these people and then seed them out? It's a great question. Um, they kind of reveal themselves. So, it's a really it's a really important question. So, we have highly intensive events, the best in the movement. I would say they are they are objectively the biggest 15,000 people 20,000 people. Last year we hosted uh the Bobby Kennedy Donald Trump event where Bobby Kennedy endorsed Donald Trump. We hosted President Trump six times. Last year we had our student action summit, our young women's leadership summit, Amfest, tons of campus stuff. So pressure is a beautiful thing. Pressure will reveal those 20% very quickly. They cannot hide in high pressure situations. What do you look for specifically? You're like, complaining, asymmetrical behavior, suppressive personality, uh, anti antisocial personality behavior for sure, gossiping, leaking, being late, trying to divide, um, things of that nature, disobeying orders, cutting corners. When do you know how to cut and maybe give them a chance of maybe they just had a bad day, they didn't sleep, um, so if there's a pattern, for sure. I mean, it it goes to like levels of defiance, right? if somebody is directly defying orders or if somebody has a really bad attitude. And again, events are a great way to flush this out. I always say when I have our all staff meeting, I said, "Some of you guys are going to move up in the company in the next 4 days and some of you guys might not be here in 4 days." And like there's a lot of silence in the room, but you know, when you have 700 people in a room, it's just the odds, right? And so, you know, we have very strict policies at Turning Point USA of certain things that we expect and certain things that drive success. And it's a great way to kind of see what people are made of. Now, when you say disobeying orders, how can you tell if they're truly just being defiant for the sake of being defiant or if they're an entrepreneur at heart and doing what they feel is the best move for the company even though it's not popular. So, let me give you an example. If there is a if there is a rule which is like uh during these three days, you are not to drink alcohol because you have to be on call and that we're hosting high schoolers. Totally appropriate. And we find out that you're at a bar drinking alcohol. That's that's disobedience, right? Defiance. Um whereas if they're trying to find a more creative solution, yeah, I mean, I'll be honest, like we kind of run our stuff like the military in the sense like the four days, we appreciate your creativity. We want you to kind of within bounds, but for example, if I'm hosting President Trump and I need like back bike racks up and all of a sudden, you know, you show up with cones, like I didn't need your creativity there, okay? I needed you to follow the orders, okay? Right? Like so or if you know if I'm hosting the biggest speakers in the movement and I need an intro video done and all of a sudden I see Dolly Parton like no no no I I need I need an intro video. I don't need Jolene. Okay. So like I appreciate the creativity but um you got to be creative within you know by the way we also have there's there's there's times to be maximally creative right but understand our events what our events team is the greatest in the in the country in the movement. They deserve so much credit. You guys should come by the way. You'll love it. It's it's unbelievable. It's lifechanging. And just from the audio visual to the music to the attendees to the experience to the exhibitors to the sponsors, it's unbel What we put on is second to none. It's just one of the many things we do. And like there's a long leadup, but it's like it's literally a military operation. It's a 24-hour operation, right? From the security to the students. We have 5,000 students that we have to look after, right? High school kids from AC come across the country. So, yeah. I will say I'm extremely impressed. I mean, we've filmed with a lot of different businesses, corporations, etc. I mean, you do run a tight ship. We do run a tight ship. That is a good way to put it. But for those people that aren't able to be a deck hand of a tight ship, those people that 10 to 20% of people that will only ever be positively counterproductive, what do we do with them as a society or you can't just let them job hop for their entire life, right? If they're like if they're never going to make it out of poverty, poverty is just not good for anybody. Some of them end up in prison. I mean, that's an honest answer. Unfortunately, I mean, there there is a um antisocial component to going to prison. I I don't know the answer to that, honestly. Some of them end up getting married and they don't reenter the workforce. So, that's an answer. But, um, look, this is not a this is not a problem unique to America. It seems as if it's built into the species, right? Mhm. I I don't know. Now, you've started making quite a lot of money going from the beginning to where you are now. How very blessed. How have you handled your own personal finances? um very carefully. I mean I I'm a big investor. Uh I have a great team that does it. So I mean for just to be clear, I didn't I didn't take a salary from turning point you say the first 5 years. So and I I didn't want it. I mean all the money went back into the company. And so I my test of a founder is always like what do you pay yourself the first couple years? And unless you have kids at home or else you have like a family to support like you know a mom that's sick, you should not be taking money out of the company. like it all should be going back in because I mean it's just it's so precious at that point in that period of time. And so I I would say that probably over 75 75 80% of all the money I make is invested. What do you invest in? I mean it's very diversified from private equity, which is great. So once you're able to make enough money, you're able to kind of get access to private equity deals, which is great. I'm super boring with some stuff, too. I'm just like, "Hey, you know, buy this mutual fund, buy, you know, buy the Dow, buy this index, and just kind of put it aside." Um, I I went all in and bought the dip during the the tariff stuff and CO. Fantastic. During CO, I bought triple leverage, triple Q. No, you did. Yeah. What do you mean? Of course you did. I mean, like, what are you doing? You should become a financial adviser, man. You got to start having fun. Okay. Why was that so obvious to you to go triple leverage? It was the easiest bet I've ever made in my life. Why? You're in a bet against America. By the way, I think the argument was that it could get a lot worse and we know that there's going to be$2 trillion dollars printed into first and I was against that. But I mean, my whole premise at the time was this is so self-inflicted. We decided to shut down the country. A meteor didn't strike. It's not an alien invasion. We could reverse this immediately. And so I said, and by the way, I'm investing for the next 30 years. You're trying to tell me the Dow's going to remain about 17,000 points for the next 30 years. So basically, I was like, I'm buying triple Q, triple lever. I mean it was like kind of ballsy when you think about it back. I guess what you don't know is that how far can it go before businesses start flat out to be clear I did I started I started to buy when I started to see a little bit of signs of hope right like I tried to see the bottom and if I remember correctly it went down to like 17 18,000 like um and then yeah just kind of plowed a bunch of money into it. By the way I was like fine. I wasn't even married at the time. I had no kids. Do you manage your own money or do you have No, I I I I have a great guy that does, but I I call a lot of shots. Like I'll I will I make macro decisions, not micro decisions. That's the way I say. I'm not a good micro investor. Buy this company, buy that company. The only thing I'll say is like when Elon's company went on Tesla, I want to buy Tesla just as kind of a symbolic philosophical thing because I thought he was being treated so terribly. But like macro stuff I'll get involved in. So, for example, if there's like, hey, I want to invest in, you know, more artificial intelligence or, you know, I think that, you know, oil is undervalued, you know, we'll have a conversation. The guy that does it is a guy named Doug Degroot. He's phenomenal. Um, and so he's just a great family office, really sweet guy. And what about Bitcoin? Oh, yeah. No, so I don't buy individual Bitcoin, but I I like I bit I'm an investor in a thing called anagram, uh, which is the, uh, fundamental technology below crypto. So, it's kind of like buying the plumbing of the crypto industry, if you will. And so, like Salana and all these companies, anytime they wanted an ICO, you have to basically have the fundamental technology beneath it. I don't even understand it that well, other than um you're kind of buying a philosophy, if you will. And then, look, I'm in a very unique, blessed place where there is a lot of deal flow that comes my way where a lot of people want to, you know, have me invest in stuff and I say no more than I say yes. Um, and then I'll do a little bit of real estate here or there, but no, I mean, look, in terms of rental properties or what? No. Um, like flipping homes and stuff like that. Um, do you have like guys that you work partner with to flip homes or Yeah, I mean I do. I have a couple guys and they've actually been very successful. Um, did a couple in Chicago, trying to do a couple here in Arizona. Where do you have the time for that? Look, I mean that's the thing is like it seems to like it just takes away from everything. It does. But like I it's I mean if you time is a very interesting thing and if you meticulously plan out your day, there's so much waste in people's schedule, right? How much time do things actually take? Do you really need two hours for a meeting? Do you really need an hour and a half for that? And so I'm I'm like a time efficiency maximalist. And I still get 9 to 10 hours of sleep at night, amazingly. So now really quick, when it comes to personal finance, I've noticed that most people think they know where their money is going every month until they look at their statement and it becomes a wakeup call. That is where our sponsor, Rocket Money, is there to help. Rocket Money is the best personal finance app that helps you find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps you lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Rocket Money shows all of your expenses in one place, including the subscriptions you forgot about. 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And everyone who joins gets free credits just for participating. All you have to do is go to opus.pro/clipip-enthe future right now to learn more and enter the contest. Again, that is opus.pro/clipip-enthe future or click the link down below in the description. Seriously guys, I could not recommend it more. Thank you so much to OpusClip for sponsoring this episode and I still get 9 to 10 hours of sleep at night amazingly. So yeah, I mean we were talking with your team and they were saying you work crazy hours and I was like why does he work so hard? And their answer was he's just extremely mission focused. Yes. Correct. I'm very driven. Yeah. Does it does it exhaust you ever to the point of regretting it? Oh, no. No. I mean, so I I'm writing I'm actually finishing a book. So I actually don't week I work one week day out of the week. So that's I take a Sabbath every Saturday. Turn my phone off. No work, just kids, just family. It's an amazing blessing. So I every Saturday totally off. It's amazing how much work you can get done in six days though. And so I wake up early, you know, I wake up around 600 6:30. Um, you know, again, I usually feel really good in the morning. Um, I don't have any hangover or any of that stuff, right? And I just get straight to work and I do my show from 9:00 to 11:00 local time in Arizona. Uh, once I'm done, um, I try to just kind of, you know, uh, just eat a little bit, maybe take a 10 minute, 15 minute nap, maybe. Um, I try not to do more than that. It's amazing like the power of like a 12 to 15 minute nap. and then I'll just work all day and then I'll try to train a little bit, go for a walk. Uh, but again, I'm in a very blessed position where things really come to me where I used to have to go to things. Have you always been this way? Like you've had laser laser sharp focus. You you've never felt like you dealt with poor motivation? No. You've always just been that way. You don't do anything to try to cultivate this motivation and laser focus. No, I that's a really good question. Um, no. I've always been very driven. like very very dri um so that's a really interesting point I thought when I first started this everyone wanted to be equally success like everyone had equal drive so I thought that was like an equal equally distributed ingredient amongst the population and that was that was my nay I didn't realize that like motivation and like drive and grit and hustle was actually like an exceptional quality and so then quickly I realized like whoa I'm just going to outwork everybody like I'm not the most charismatic person. You know, I can speak. I got a good thing going, but I'm not the most. I'm not the smartest person. I go to Harvard Law, right? Um, I don't have the highest IQ, but I I can compete with the best of them. But I am going to outwork you. Like, I'll put in more hours. I'll read more books. I'll listen to more podcasts. Like, I will do more meetings. I'll travel to more cities. Like, that I can do. Have you done an IQ test? I did when I was young. Yeah. And what did it come back at? It was It was well above average. Um, I don't want to misspeak on the spec on the but I think it was like I don't want I don't I don't want to say a number because it's gonna get cut up and all that, but it was 300. No, that wasn't that high. No, it wasn't that high. No, but it it was it was not like quite ment. But it was high. Like I mean I have a good memory, but like I'm not like I'm not like an international chess champion, right? I'm not like a perfect SAT guy. I had good ACT scores, right? We took the ACT where I was from, you know, 31 32 was respectable. Wasn't like a 36, but so I'm not dumb. I mean that's not but I I I'm I'm a unique combination now that I'm I can see it which is you know I'm like a heat-seeking missile towards what I want to achieve and that and that alone can be an incredible differentiator in this space. So what are some of the sacrifices or compromises that you make because of that heat-seeking missile nature that people may not recognize? My life's configured now in a way where the biggest sacrifice I have to make is not being home with my kids. And that like that's that sucks. I don't have to do that as much. I get to say no to a lot of stuff. And by the way, thank you guys for coming to Phoenix. It's one of the main reasons why this was like Thank you for doing this. Absolutely. By the way, I'm going to do this more with more shows. I'm like, you want to interview me? Come to Phoenix. Yeah. Because my kids are my most important thing in my world. My wife, my kids, my relationship with God. Top three things, right? God, wife, kids in that order. And so that's a sacrifice that I just am not willing to make. So, I'm just saying no to a lot more stuff. And so, but in the early days, it's so interesting like people think like, oh, you know, you had a bunch of donors that wanted to give you money. Like, yeah, that's that's not the story actually. Um, the story was I was going to find a lot of donors and tried to had to scrap and hustle and get like elementary funding because we could barely make payroll for the first five to six years, right? We could barely pay the bills. This building that we're sitting in right now was not even open till our sixth year. Okay? We barely had an office the first couple of years. And so, yeah, I mean, like, you want to be successful? You think it's easy? Okay, I'll show you my flight logs. 200 redeye flights. You want to go do that? 200 redeye flights where you have to go sit and perform and give a speech and be on and go all day and be interesting. 1,200 cable news interviews. Fox News at 3:00 in the morning. Fox News at 3:30 in the morning. get up, get on a flight, conference calls, remember the donor's name, write a thank you note, show up, report for the donor. They have questions, they're critical, they're skeptical. Like, fine, okay, it sounds easy, right? And I'm not here to like brag on it, but like there's a lot you have to sacrifice for all this. And it's really easy to look at Turning Point USA cuz people think they can like recreate it. Like, oh yeah, I can recreate. It's fine. I mean, look, it's the Lord's blessing and providence of all this, but like I'm telling you, man, like there's a hustle behind the scenes. And not just me, it's our team, too. our team works their tail off cuz now what's so cool is like my like maniacally driven purpose is now shedding off on people and like not everyone can sustain it. They're like this is too much for me. I'm I'm going to go work for an insurance company. I'm like that's fine. Like cuz the pace here is first class. That's why we get more done. That's why we have more chapters. We have more donors. That's why our budget is bigger. It's because we're just going to keep on growing. We're going to keep on expanding. Um because we do not settle for med we do not settle for mediocrity here. Excellence is the only thing that will settle. What do you do now to save as much time as possible? So, I'm a huge scheduler, big time, and and so I schedule out days in advance. Um, and so, and I will block out like this is when I'm going to have conference call time. This is when I'm going to have this is when I'm going to train. This is where I'm going to eat lunch. Like I I go down to like the 15 interval, 15-inute interval. Um, and you know, this is the time that I'm going to go try and, you know, go see this friend. This is the time where I'm going to go just turn my phone off and go for a walk. So I'm very very precise with time. And then the biggest hack and you guys know this nothing new. It's called layering. You know this. So anything you're doing try to fit two or three things on top of it. So if I'm traveling to go speak, listen to an audio book, right? I mean obviously. So then all of a sudden I'm getting two things done at once. If I'm if I'm training or working out, okay, I'm also going to be trying to listen to a podcast that I need in preparation. I take all my calls on the treadmill. 100%. It's amazing, right? Or like so I I try to, you know, do a I'm a big walker. I think there's a couple health hacks out here that are right in front of us that nobody ever wants to talk about, right? I'm a huge big I'm a huge believer in sleep. Like massive believer. I think it's totally undervalued. I'm a major believer in walking. I think we don't talk about walking enough. Just walking. Not running, not deadlifting, not cold plunging, just walking. Okay. I'm a big believer in fasting. I think fasting is like untapped power. And then I just think like not eating terribly is, you know, not those four things, you're actually going to be pretty relatively healthy. Yeah. We used to come up with our best ideas taking walks. Oh, walking is a one two mile walk. There are studies I think that show if you have forward movement like if you're walking your brain actually functions at a higher capacity than if you're sitting sedentary. My best ideas are when I'm walking. My best ideas are when I'm moving. And I go for walks with my kids. So that's another layering, right? So I mean you want to talk about like a triple layering. When my my daughter was six months old, she can't yet communicate, but she'd want to go for a walk and she'd fall asleep. So, I'd listen to a podcast while getting a walk, while spending time with my kid. Like, that's that's the trifecta, right? Um, and so I'm really I'm really big on that. And and so, as far as time, you just also have to be able to say no. There's so much wasted time. And look, I'm also in a very blessed position. I'm incredibly blessed. Most people don't have this, but a lot of entrepreneurs do. I don't have to sit around at a desk and do just like wait for stuff to come to me. I constantly can set the terms of my own schedule. Now, it comes at great cost and great consequence, right? Because with, you know, great freedom comes phenomenal responsibility and enormous responsibility in terms of your own material success. Where is the money coming from in terms of like percentages? Because I know you have like a store, you have a for-profit merchandise company, you have your nonprofit, you have, you know, your YouTube channel, all of these things. Where where is the money coming from? very small percentage is my salary at Turning Point USA. So Turning Point USA is 120 Turnpoint USA turning point Action$120 $130 million budget. My salary there is about $300,000 a year and I donate $350,000 back to Turning Point USA. So it's basically a wash, right? So it literally is a wash. And you might say, "Well, why do you donate it back?" Well, my wife and I, we're, you know, we try to be charitable. We try to give 10% of our income a year. What better place than to give it back to Turning Point USA, right? Why even take a salary? Honestly, there's that's a really good question. Number one, um it's very important from just an IRS standpoint. If the CEO is unpaid, it just kind of looks very weird on the form, but also I do believe in like different buckets for different things. I still think I should earn a salary for my work here and then if I want to give it back, then so be it. It's a psychological thing more than anything else. Like it comes in and then if I want to give it back, I can give it back. I know that might sound like strange to people, but I get it. I'm thinking just wasted payroll tax. No, it's fine. It's true. I mean, all the FICA tax money going out the window, right? It's better to go back into the company than not. No, the the revenue streams uh is the show. The show is a for-profit entity. Charlie Kirk show podcast. As of the recording right now, we're either number two or number three in all of Apple News. Incredibly blessed. Uh we stream on Rumble every day, on X every day. We're on 250 radio stations. um on over 400 affiliates. Um we are on Real America's voice every single day which is a great uh fast channel which is also on Pluto and Roku. It easily estimates two to three million people a day tune into some part of the Charlie Kirk show. We cut it up. We socialize it. Uh and then of course we have a beast of a YouTube channel. Uh we do very very well on TikTok. Um and so you kind of compile that all together. And then of course I do speaking. I try to write a book a year. uh which you know I'm able to make personal money on. Has life gotten a lot better since becoming wealthy? Yes. I mean look the my life has gotten a lot better since I got married and I had kids. I will tell you the best thing about being wealthy is not being poor and not having to worry about money. Like just like not get to a place where you don't have to worry about money. It's funny when you get to a place where you have like billions of dollars, you're actually worrying about money all the time cuz you have like lawsuits and it's like your identity. It's I'm not joking. like they it's kind of like a weird like horseshoe which is like you have no money, you worry about money all the time and you have a ton of money, you worry about money all the time. It's best to be like somewhere in the middle where you have like a lot of cash flow. The best thing is this. I have purpose in what I'm doing and the money is a nice reward. Like it's not money is not the number one driver for me. It's not like I mean that like I have the skill set where if I quit all of this right now, I could probably go start a company right now and after 10 years I could probably sell it for like a couple hundred million bucks. That's not I mean that's not like an crazy thing for me to say. The fact that we've started Turning Point USA in action. We have $130 million years in revenue, right? I have the Charlie Kirk show. If it was all about getting rich, I could go start some app and probably go be successful. What makes me so happy is I get to impact people's lives. I get to speak truth. I have purpose. I get to help save the civilization. And then I also get to make some money while doing it. And and that quite honestly is the most enormous blessing. I have the greatest job in the world. I'm the happiest person in the world. I mean that. Now, in terms of disclosures like this and being so open about your your finances, AOC recently disclosed that she has no individual stock holdings. Tim Waltz famously said he doesn't have any investments. Do you think this is just financial irresponsibility or do you think it's a good thing that they don't have a financial interest in maybe some of the measures that they're putting forward? So, I mean, I'll talk about the Tim Wilson AOC thing. I don't know enough about it. She's young and but like Tim Wallace, it's very interesting. It's like so on one hand you're like wow he can't be bought. The other hand is like wow you're like really bad with money like like you're kind of old and like you don't have any stocks. Well he has a pension. Okay fine. But I mean like okay I get it that he was a football coach or whatever but I mean is that a good example? I guess I mean I just kind of the idea which is you're of that age you haven't played into compound interest. you haven't like really tried to I mean by the way you could have you could have blinded trusts and you know different ways of building wealth. I don't think you should go as far as Nancy Pelosi and basically like trade stocks after committee hearings. I think that's probably a little ambitious, right? But I actually prefer my politicians to be successful. I know that's a weird statement, but people that own nothing like own nothing. It might be like really appealing on the surface, but then I wonder, do they know how wealth is created? Indicative of something deeper that could be I think so. Again, I there's plenty of good Republicans, I'm sure, that own nothing and they run for office and that's great, but gen