2,387 videos 1,376,944,188 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's Advice to Trump: Go to Camp David, Reset, and Launch Shock and Awe 2.0
Charlie Kirk addresses the mounting tension within the Trump coalition over transparency issues, particularly surrounding Epstein files, and argues this is a testing moment for the movement. Kirk outlines his strategy for the administration: retreat to Camp David for a weekend reset, then return with a massive wave of executive orders focused on mass deportations and dismantling the administrative state. He emphasizes that Trump is at his best on offense, setting the terms of debate, and warns that the movement weakens when forced into defense. With 88% of the Trump administration still ahead, Kirk insists the focus must remain on the two fights that will determine success 50 years from now.
President Donald Trump won a popular vote majority, building a multi-ethnic, multigenerational, multi-viewpoint coalition. But when you construct something that broad, it's inevitable that you face moments like what's happened the last couple of weeks. You're not going to be able to keep everyone happy, including many in the base right now.
It's been a very instructive week. By the time I'm 35, I'm going to be able to say I've been through some stuff. I'm going to be able to teach a master class. I learned a lot this week, particularly about how you don't handle PR when it comes to a story that is as complex, as sensitive, and as high-profile as the Epstein thing.
It started on a Sunday night. The whole thing was so perplexing because the president signed the one big beautiful bill on Independence Day, and then on a holiday weekend going into a newsweek, the administration decided to leak it to Axios that it's like case closed, don't ask any questions, there is no list. The whole thing was profoundly confusing.
A Story That Won't Go Away
I don't want to talk about Epstein every single day, but it's been very interesting because this week, sometimes news stories go away, sometimes you have a one-day cycle. This is a rare occurrence where the news story is actually getting bigger. Sometimes they have legs. And it's not just on social media. Social media is a little bit deceiving, especially X, which is very goofy and wacky lately. But it's not just online.
It's as if something just happened. I started getting texts from people that are not necessarily politicos, Trump voting adjacent mid-propensity voters that might listen to a podcast once or twice a week. They are not like you in this audience, the Charlie Kirk faithful. And they started to text me: Charlie, what is going on with this Epstein thing? I'm confused. It doesn't make sense. What is going on?
This story started to grow and it had legs. The last 48 hours, this has been building to a crescendo. And I would much rather be talking about what we should be focused on, which is mass deportations and dismantling the administrative state, curtailing the size and scope of government.
The Transparency Crisis
When you build a coalition like President Trump won in a popular vote majority, you're going to have different viewpoints. But an undercurrent of the entire Trump movement was that we demand transparency from our government because we were lied to during COVID, we were lied to about the Hunter Biden laptop, we were lied to about 51 intel agents, we were lied to about Ukraine. We were lied to about so many different things that we want to try to rebuild trust in our government.
What's been very interesting and instructive to me is that this is not only a young online libertarian transparency push. Instead, this seems like it's spanning multiple generations. And this audience has been emailing me at freedom@charliekirk.com very ticked off and very confused. This is going to be a testing moment for all of us.
What we do next is going to be critically important. Radical transparency has always been the hallmark of the Trump administration and I believe it can and will continue to be. People panicked over tariffs, they panicked over Iran, and some are panicked over Epstein. Right now the people who love and defend the president want more information.
There is breaking news: the Department of Justice reports to court that they are still reviewing Epstein records for possible release, according to Judicial Watch. We're all over the place. We're back and forth. That is a positive step, though. It shows that this has been a bigger grassroots push than I think people realize. It shows that people are listening.
What Really Matters 50 Years From Now
Let's take a broader step back though. Fifty years from now, the most important two fights that will determine whether or not this administration and this presidency will be a success are whether or not we can recalibrate the administrative state and dismantle it down to the bone and to the core, and whether or not we can have 15 to 20 million deportations. That is what will determine the future of the country.
This is where coalition politics matters. Some people are upset because we're sending more arms to Ukraine. I'm certainly not thrilled about that. Some people are upset because of what happened between Israel and Iran. Honestly, I think President Trump handled that beautifully and I think that was a masterclass in a third way of foreign policy.
But all of this is happening at such a time where the fault lines, and every movement has fault lines, are being exposed in a rapid period of time. It's as if this is compressed into a short 10-day window. And no movement can sustain that. No movement can sustain within a 10-day window flushing out all the fault lines.
The tragedy honestly is that a week ago, President Trump signed his hallmark piece of legislation that deserves a lot of attention. And a week later, no one's talking about the big beautiful bill. It should have been a week of celebration. It should have been a PR week all about this. And instead, that is not the case.
The Camp David Solution
What happens next will determine whether or not this is just a moment or whether this is a long-lasting multigenerational movement. And there are two major things that need to happen. Here is my advice to the administration both privately and publicly:
Take this weekend and go to Camp David. That's my first piece of advice. No reporters. Put your phones out of the room and get yourselves back in the room. Go to Camp David. Get out of the White House. Get the senior staff. Get cabinet officials and go to Camp David. Cancel all your plans. If you're coming to SAS, still come to SAS, but then go to Camp David.
We need to have a little bit of a pause button here. It's been a fast six months. You got to have the president, the vice president, get Marco Rubio, get everyone in the room. That's number one.
Shock and Awe 2.0
Number two, plan out another wave of shock and awe. Have a couple days to kind of have some fun, have some laughs. Can you believe how much we've been through the last six months? And then what we need is we need the shock and awe again. Plan out another 100 executive orders. Draft them. Get them ready to go. Go quiet for a day or two. And then boom, come out and have President Donald Trump in the Oval Office and just start signing 100 executive orders.
Remember how that was? Remember how good that felt? That could still happen. Remember the first couple of days when President Trump was signing stuff and people were all over the place? That is the type of energy that we need.
Go to Camp David. Reassess. Take a breath. You guys have been through a lot. You guys have been to Qatar and Saudi Arabia. You guys have been to the UAE. You've been all over the country. Marco Rubio is in Malaysia. We got the Russian-Ukrainian thing. No one slept during Israel and Iran. You got to pass the big beautiful bill. The border is completely secure. You guys have been through a lot.
By the way, this is all on the heels of a very high pressure transition after the highest stake presidential campaign ever seen after President Trump got shot. These guys are on fumes of fumes. Take a well-deserved long weekend at Camp David. Take a deep breath, have the senior staff together, and then plot out and plan out shock and awe 2.0 because we still have a lot of stuff that we can do.
Executive Orders Still on the Table
There are hundreds of potentially drafted executive orders and it's time to wind up and go right back into the arena. I get it. I get that this whole thing can grind you down and can wear you down, but the executive orders must be focused on two things: deportations and dismantling the administrative state.
By the way, think of all the stuff that we can still do. We got Department of Education stuff that we still have to fight. We have MAGA promises that we still have to fulfill. We could restore trust basically across the board. We have to break up the college cartel. We're breaking up the publishing cartel. No pharmaceutical advertisements on TV. I mean, we have dozens of campaign promises.
The NGO cartel. We got to go after the actual Mexican drug cartels, the Sinaloa drug cartel. We have 88% of the Trump administration left in front of us. And I get it. It can wear you down. And people say it's breaking up the coalition. The coalition only breaks if you allow it to break.
My advice to President Trump and his team: take a breath, take a pause, go to Camp David and plot out shock and awe 2.0. And part of that shock and awe is that anything that is not proprietary, anything that does not involve the trafficking of kids, at least give us some of the elements of the Epstein stuff. I think that's the least you could do. Or give us who the cellblock partners were where Epstein was.
The Transparency Blitz
During shock and awe 2.0, which President Trump has to do, declassify all documents from 9/11 and before. Go on a transparency blitz. Literally sit at the table at the Resolute desk once it is planned out and just go on a transparency blitz. We're declassifying this. We're declassifying this. We're declassifying this. Boom. Boom. Boom.
MLK, RFK being shot, one after the other. Let the American people see it. We're declassifying the COVID stuff. We're declassifying Russia gate, Crossfire Hurricane. And then do a series of executive orders. Go further to break the college cartel. Authorize some sort of military cooperation against the actual cartels.
And then sit at the Resolute desk and say we are now marshaling back our focus to this hemisphere. You want to get your base excited? Panama Canal and Greenland. Hemispheric dominance is very well received by your base. Have dominance over the Panama Canal. Kick the CCP out of core institutions in our country. Reverse all of Obama's consent decrees.
We need President Trump back into the arena where he is at his best. But I think it starts with a Camp David retreat. I think it starts with just a little bit of a reassess and a reset. And that's okay. There's nothing wrong with it. Some people say it's because people need rest.
No PR, no publicity, no cameras, no press pool, no X live streams, just camaraderie, reflection, reorientation. Presidents past, Ronald Reagan and many others, would go to Camp David at very high stakes times. And I think this administration deserves it.
The Team Deserves a Break
Look at all they've done. Do you understand that when they fly in Air Force One, the entire staff doesn't sleep when they go? They're literally sleeping on the floor. I mean, this is a tough job. And then they got to come back and they got to be sharp in front of the press, in front of the world. They deserve just a weekend to take a breath and be like, wow, we won the election, we crushed the transition and here we are.
You got to find some way to address this Epstein thing in a new way. You got to figure that out in some way. But that's just one thing. Again, I don't want to get too emphatic. It's important, but we got to stay focused on civilizational implication issues. How are we going to get more deportations?
Go on Offense Against Sanctuary Cities
Plot out a potential indictment plan of all of the sanctuary city mayors that are getting in the way. Go indict Karen Bass, Brandon Johnson. Boom. In one day: you're getting in the way of ICE, we are going to indict you. Shock and awe.
What matters 50 years from now is whether or not we take back control of the administrative state and we have mass deportations. What is the common denominator between Crossfire Hurricane and Epstein and all this stuff? There is a super government below the surface that we need to exert dominion over, that we need to exert control over.
That is the fight we have been focused on since day one. The real fight is not Republican or Democrat. It is going to be bureaucrat versus citizen. It is going to be deep state versus the Constitution. It is going to be serf, which is what they want you to be, against oligarch, the technocratic state, the council of experts.
Trump is Best on Offense
And then I want to see President Trump right back in that Resolute desk just firing off 100 shotgun executive orders. Don't even tell anyone it's coming. All of a sudden say, I'm calling a press conference. And you have folders stacked and within an hour and a half he's casually with his Sharpie signing. People have been waiting a long time. Do you remember how good that felt?
The momentum. Here is a rule of MAGA, and I've been around for 10 years so I can say this now, and I wrote The MAGA Doctrine: Trump is at his best when he is on offense. He sets the terms. He's able to frame the debate. We as a movement are at our weakest when we are on defense. Russia gate, January 6. We are at our weakest when we are backpedaling.
You see those folders? I want to see that again. I want to see White House aides flood into the Oval with the most based, crisp imaginable executive orders on every possible topic: border, deportations, sanctuary city mayors, college cartel, school choice, public sector teacher unions.
We need to keep President Donald Trump right back there on a transparency blitz and an executive order blitz. Reorient, recalibrate, and reassert dominance over the executive branch.
