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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.
Free Speech Clash: A Liberal’s Exchange with Charlie Kirk
A self-described liberal woman engages Charlie Kirk in a candid discussion about values, free speech, and partisan differences during a campus Q&A session.
“Hello, so I am a self-described liberal and I honestly did not think that I would be so nervous, but I am,” began a woman in the audience. “I wanted to kind of clear up some things you had said earlier that it’s easy—you asked if it’s easy to hold liberal beliefs, and ‘Oh, it’s easy because the rest of society agrees with you.’”
She continued, “However, that’s not why I find it easy. I was liberal before it was cool. I find my beliefs easy to hold because I believe them in my soul, and I feel like a lot of conservatives are the same way. Your beliefs aren’t subject to acceptance or disacceptance.”
“Honestly, if it were about what would be easy, it would be if I wanted to make my life more comfortable—I would change and become conservative, because my husband has been caught up in and has changed his way of thinking to be a conservative person over the past couple of years. That caused absolute disarray. So if it were something where I could just say, ‘Oh well…’”
Finding Common Ground
Kirk interjected, “So let’s try to make some progress. What do you believe and why do you believe it?”
“Well, I believe actually a lot of the same things you believe, just maybe in a more broad sense,” she responded. “Like I believe in freedom. I believe in free speech. I believe in free speech for everybody. I believe in freedom of expression. If you were born with a [penis] and you want to wear a dress, have at it. It’s not my life, and I don’t get to dictate to anybody else what’s right or wrong.”
“I don’t believe that man is above nature, because then is man unnatural? If man is separate from nature, is man unnatural?” she questioned.
“Man is made in the image of the Creator,” Kirk replied. “But I do want to zero in on one thing here, which is—so you say you don’t care what other people do. Just curiously, do you think it should be okay for adults to perform in front of children?”
“It depends on the nature of the performance,” she answered.
“We agree on that,” Kirk noted. “And by the way, most liberals don’t, just so we’re clear. So you’re a big fan of Ron DeSantis, then?”
“No,” she replied.
The Free Speech Divide
“Well, he did that and he was attacked by Disney, and he was attacked by every major left-wing group as harsh, anti-gay, ‘don’t say gay.’ I think you’re actually more conservative than you are liberal than you give yourself credit for,” Kirk suggested.
“No, no, no. Hold your applause. I am not, because where we differ is in how we define what is profane,” she clarified.
Kirk redirected, “I guess we agree on that. What I’m trying to get at though is why you believe what you believe, and we could spend all night doing this. You say you believe in freedom and free speech, right? So which side do you think—the American right or the American left—currently is doing a better job of protecting the idea of freedom of speech?”
“Actually, they’re both sucking pretty hard. They’re both being absolutely horrible at it,” she responded.
“How has the right been horrible at that? I’m curious,” Kirk pressed.
“They’re both being horrible in the exact same way, and it’s who are they protecting or standing up for free speech for? Like, free speech for who?” she explained.
Campus Speaker Double Standard
“Can I ask a theoretical question?” Kirk continued. “Do you think if a liberal came to speak at University of Kentucky, they’d give an open mic like I just did to a conservative and had a discussion like this?”
“I certainly hope they would,” she answered.
“No, they wouldn’t, because speech is not a left-wing value,” Kirk countered. “That’s why Chuck Schumer went on the Senate floor yesterday and called for the censorship of a cable television program. That is why they have to deploy shock troops called Antifa to go after everywhere I go. When I go to University of California Davis next week, there has to be 120 police officers because of the threats, the violent threats of liberals that want to disrupt our events.”
“There are no right-wing hecklers that come to events like this. Michael Knowles, Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro, myself, Candace Owens need 24/7, 365 armed security to prevent ourselves from the violent threats from the left. And so I think it’s rather clear there’s one side that is trying to do everything they can to shut one side up, and one side that’s trying to open up the marketplace of ideas, and I think that’s rather self-evident. But I do want to thank you for coming here tonight.”
First Amendment Debate
“I totally disagree with everything you just said,” the woman responded. “I don’t discount that you’ve received threats or anything like that.”
Kirk shifted gears, “So how about this—public approval polls show that a majority of liberals do not believe the First Amendment is absolute. What do you have to say about that?”
“It’s—I mean, it’s not absolute. There are restrictions to the First Amendment,” she replied.
“Such as?” Kirk challenged.
“There literally are legal restrictions to it outside of incitement. What would one be? Okay, let me think back to high school civics class,” she pondered.
“You think hate speech should be disallowed?” Kirk asked.
“‘Fighting words’ is disallowed,” she answered.
“Not fighting words—it’s—I mean, it’s called that, though,” Kirk responded.
“No, they’re very much not disallowed actually,” she insisted.
“They are disallowed if your speech is considered by a reasonable person to—and they harm you because of what you said,” she continued.
“What do you mean, hurt their feelings or physically harm them?” Kirk clarified.
“No, I mean—okay, if you intentionally provoke a person with your speech, that is not protected speech,” she stated.
“Yes, it is,” Kirk countered. “The American Civil Liberties Union protected Nazis to be able to march in Skokie, Illinois around Holocaust survivors. Grotesque, outrageous speech is absolutely protected by the First Amendment.”
“I’m saying that—I can’t really explain it right now, but there is a limitation on that,” she insisted. “Another limit is like, you can’t—speech that—like you can’t yell ‘fire’ in a theater.”
“You actually can, but that’s a separate constitutional issue. That’s incitement, that’s a separate issue,” Kirk clarified. “But I thank you for being here tonight, and I don’t think we made any progress, but we certainly see where we disagree.”
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