Charlie Kirk on MAGA and Young Conservatism

All right, Charlie, we are at the 2025 Claremont Statesmanship Award. They're going to give that to JD Vance. This is an incredible event. Claremont, of course, prides itself on statesmanship and the heart of what it does and what it teaches. This is something that you've been involved with now, really, we could say your entire life, right? I mean, statesmanship is tied to making this country great again and making this country great. And I feel like this is a word sort of a fancy word that people throw around and people hear that word and it just kind of can go in one ear and out the other. So what does statesmanship mean to you? Well, practically, I think we saw statesmanship on display from the president recently, where he was displayed with two options. The one was do absolutely nothing with Iran and just ignore it. The other one was, hey, go full regime change, John Bolton style. And the statesman first has to know what you want. You have to have what the telos is, right? Which is you have to have destination. And so President Trump had a destination, which is like, well, there's a problem here. We've been talking about Iranian nuclear weapons for 20 years, he has, but I want American revitalization and not a Middle East quagmire. So he had a very firm destination in mind. And I think so often is that people who think they are statesman or people who play statesman on TV, there is no aim, there is no destination, there is no final form or final product. Where President Trump worked backwards, he said, okay, I want this to be wrapped up with how do I do this, where I can have Iran have no nuclear weapons, but I also ran on a mandate of disentangling ourselves from these endless conflicts, from no more quagmires, and then, of course, resisting the calls for regime change. And so that's what I think it means practically, and we can talk philosophically, too. Well, yeah, let's talk more practically and work ourselves. Sure. The practical is more fun. Because as we both know, the philosophic definition can start in any abstract fantasy land. Well, you and I were talking off camera. It's like it's below the philosopher. Ultimately, philosophy in the Western tradition is higher because it's just simply knowing the truth about something. But the problem is people who call themselves philosophers are often suspect and talk in abstract terms. So let's talk about this a little bit more because we've both been around a lot of politicians and people who care supposedly about the country and that's their job, whatever the politician in America's job is. What differentiates the person who is the statesman in 2025? Well, first, I think when we're constantly trying to be held captive by ideology, it would be prudence, which would be practical judgment. And I think J.D. Vance embodies that incredibly well. You see, when you're in elected office, you have to be prisoner to the party dogma and the political expectations of the time. For example, when President Trump entered into the political space 10 years ago, think about it, you would never be able to talk about a border wall, let alone mass deportations. You would not be able to talk about trade or foreign wars. And so a true statesman is able to identify the problems and then with the proper amount of moral courage and with precision rhetorically, be able to address these things and then move the Overton window. You just look at 10 years from now, no one even talks about the wall anymore. We used to talk about the border wall all the time. And now 10 years later, we're kind of like, okay, yeah, we got the wall. Where are the deportations? You look at how in the Overton window goes from that, which is unthinkable all the way to public policy, right? It goes from like unthinkable to radical, I think, to neutral, to credible to popular. I'm approximating. How do you think that happened? How did the Overton window move? How did we get to the point where it was shocking that Trump talked about a border wall, right? And now all of a sudden, we're at the point where mass deportations or bust has to happen or he's failed this movement. First of all, we just have to recognize this is an unbelievable accomplishment. If he's done nothing else, but move the Overton window that dramatically, that's a legacy item amongst many others. I think it happened first and foremost because President Trump is who he is and he fed off of the opposition almost as an energy life force. I don't know if we could have moved the Overton window on immigration absent just becoming London if it wasn't for President Trump and really just his emphasis and his focus, his dedication, and then building popular consensus. It took 10 years. Even in the 2020 election, we were not talking about mass deportations. This has grown itself into a mass movement of public consensus, but President Trump also made the argument repeatedly. He was unafraid to go into the public space and to be able to contend with people of opposing views. I think J.D. Vance is of a very similar vein. What does it mean to be a statesman in the modern era, especially in the quote-unquote Republican Party? You must be unafraid to challenge your own political dogma if it's actually not benefiting the nation or the body politic. The three-legged stool of neoliberalism, which is endless war, invite the world, and import a bunch of plastic. Invade the world, invite the world, import plastic. Those are the three main core pillars of neoliberalism. Only a statesman can challenge those effectively. Now, talk a little bit about motivation here, because one thing I think about a lot lately is when you're evaluating talent, for instance, in a business or an organization, you want to know what drives people. And what happens when we grow up in life and we look around the cabin is that you notice a lot of people's motivation, especially in politics, is, as Bob Dylan once said, to get rich quick, get out of it, and get the money and chicks. There's a lot of congresspeople who are basically influencers at this point. And that's the world we inhabit. That's fine. It's always been that way. But when it comes to statesmanship, how do you think about the motivation of the statesman? And how do you form that? Well, it's incredibly important. President Trump's motivation is the nation. It is the country. It's the only reason why he ran again. Same with J.D. Vance. But most people in politics that masquerade or pantomime as statesmen, their ultimate cause is self-notoriety, popularity, power, prestige. And so, they will do whatever is necessary. If that is their final cause, then everything that is a second or third or tertiary effect from there will be like, well, I have to take this vote because the most important thing is not the nation, but it's power, it's prestige, it's popularity. And then so you extrapolate that over 30 years, you're like, well, okay, that's one of the reasons why we're in the problem that we're in. Right, right. And yeah, so this is so important, I think, for people to realize. And it's not as if, it's not like, you know, it's not as people say a black pill. It shouldn't be depressing. It's just, this is human nature, which the founders understood. Of course, we're sitting here at this Claremont event. And they understood this. And there was a great book called Fame and the Founding Fathers by Douglas Adair, where he talks about how their fame was tied. They harness their ambition to do great things for the sake of the country, for the sake of the common good, rather than, you know, the gram. Yes, exactly. But that requires a detachment from the immediate and a elevation of the transcendent, which modernity has been so firm at not allowing the transcendent. I mean, you look at the tech companies, for example, tech companies got away from any sort of emphasis on a national project. And basically all of our brain power in this country goes towards how can I customize an app that can better self-indulge your narcissism? And you think about like the Manhattan project, you look at where the brains used to go, used to go towards these compelling world-changing projects. And now the best and brightest that we have, they will go through, how can I make, you know, how can you order a gizmo better or a widget, or how can you customize your face on a filter? That's all fine. I mean, it's a free society of the agency to do that, but there's nothing transcendent about that. And so in order for it to be more than the gram or TikTok, it requires for you to then elevate something that is actually above us as humans. And we believe that to either be God or a transcendent purpose. Yeah, yeah. The laws of nature and nature's God, as it were. We're just celebrating the 4th of July. That's the birthday that we're celebrating right now. Yes. Yeah. So when it comes to the future, you know, I don't want to be too optimistic, but my- Because I do, I know. I should be relentlessly optimistic, right? I mean, that's the lesson. But when I look at the people that I hang out with, again, self-selection, but let's sort of Claremont Fellows or just the Publius Fellowship, I feel as if a lot of these younger people are much more in tune with statesmanship in the sense that they actually want to make the country better and they don't care about the old prestige structure and all that. Well, you think about it, though, if you're young and you want to get involved in politics or being a statesman, that means that you are likely forsaking higher, more money and more wealth in another field. You think about it, similar to the technology example, but where the brain drain that has quietly been happening here domestically is that our best and brightest went away from politics and into business the last 30, 40 years. And the virtuous and the good and the noble, you know what I'm saying? And so then you have kind of a slop that has infested our politics. That's why President Trump stood out so much is that he was a legitimately high performer outside of politics. So what you're seeing now, at least we see it at Turning Point USA, and I know you see it at The Blaze and Claremont, is that the high IQ, high driven, virtuous people are now saying, you know what? Okay, fine, I could go make $200 million at Goldman Sachs, but that's not deep. That's not fulfilling. Instead, I would rather go be a statesman. I would rather go work in the State Department. These are people that could go make a ton of money elsewhere, which means that just monetary gain is not the most important, it's not the driving factor or motivator of so many in this generation. That, by the way, is closer to the World War II generation, the greatest generation, which puts sacrifice and a transcendent ideal above immediate satisfaction, and also the founding generation. And that's where you get amazing accomplishment. When all of a sudden you say, it's not going to always just be about my comfort or my satience, I'm actually going to put something above. What is that transcendent ideal? And if it is a nation, if even 5% of our brain powers are to dedicate themselves to our nation, not just creating the next social media app, what are you doing if you're creating another social media app? It's fine, again, you can do that, but imagine if all of a sudden the people that have the capacity and the wherewithal dedicated itself towards a national revival. So true, so well said. So for a lot of people in the audience, a lot of people I talk to throughout the country, they wonder, they get frustrated with the people who aren't statesmen. The fact that we, so you say statesmanship by the United States Congress, and it's sort of a laughing matter at this point. It is a joke, yeah. So they're frustrated, and they just want people who care about their country, and that's why they voted for President Trump, because they know that he does. I mean, why is he doing it now? I mean, even the last term, you could come up with excuses for, well, maybe he wants to do this or that. He's just dedicated to saving this country, that's clear to them. But how do they select the leaders who will replicate what Trump is doing? How do you form these people, and how do you select them? Because there's a lot of people, they're voters, they're good citizens, they're concerned about their country. So what do they look for, and how do we form these people? The binary that must be created is, is your elected official shallow or deep? And people think President Trump is shallow, but he's actually a very, very deep person, incredibly so. And what do I mean by that? Do they think about the deeper things? Are they willing to challenge pre-existing dogmas? I mean, J.D. Vance is objectively a deep person. He reads the great books, he understands philosophy. So you break that into kind of two different categories, and then you look at some of the people that have infected our congressional space. I would not think deep would be a word that we would use. And so I think we need people that are deeper, that are thoughtful, that are there also for the better worldview and the better view to win, not just who's going to be able to get conference chair. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can say that a thousand times, and it won't be enough. I mean, it's astounding to me how the simple things matter, and the simple things are, why are you trying to do what you're doing? Political will. This is where Trump, I think, showed us so much, and you've been a part of this the entire way through, where in the last year, we've just seen him say, no, we're not going to do that. And then the political will is there, and then it happens because he's doing it for the right reasons. Is that too simplistic? No, it's not. And one of my depressing, but also I would say optimistic revelations, both depressing and optimistic, is that almost every major problem facing America is a failure or a success of the will. We just didn't want to have a border under Joe Biden. We put up with violent crime in our cities. Not that there's some sort of like, we don't know how to solve it, actually. And we put up with the idea that you can't walk the streets of LA at 2 a.m. That is a symptom and a consequence of conscious decision-making. And so it really comes down to the will. And I mean, you guys taught me, you have a will to power, a will to pleasure. Do we have a will to our nation? And if we do, then we're going to have a country again. And that's where President Trump has this sometimes just awe-inspiring, some people would say metaphysical force that just doesn't stop. And because he has the will to act and the will to point towards ultimate purposes. Yeah. It's amazing what a will to do good for your country and your fellow citizens can do. That's right. As long as you're pointing to the right thing. Because you can have, you can think you're doing the right thing, but you could have will to catastrophe like FDR. Yeah. Or Hitler. Yeah, exactly. I try not to say or Stalin. He was a little on that, a little bit that way. That's right. So we're sitting here, speaking of goodwill, we're sitting here at the Claremont Institute's event, which is a great event, giving an award for statesmanship here in the year of our Lord 2025 to J.D. Vance, who we have to say is a young politician. He's phenomenal. He's young compared to a lot of the old people who run this country. And he's, remember they called him weird? Oh, I remember. Yeah. Tim Walz calling him weird is really, you know. So what would your short pitch be for why it's obvious, just right and fitting that J.D. Vance obtains this award this year? Well, first of all, I mean, J.D.'s a great friend. So I'm, you know, incredibly biased. I was the one of the first people to endorse him for Senate, like right out of the gate. I was like, I was basic. I was day one or day two. And it wasn't that I knew that he one day would be president. I knew that this is what we need more of. A deep thinker understands the issues. Also a really wonderful family man, an entrepreneur. And so it's just been the hand of the Lord to see him ascend now to the vice presidents and maybe one day to be president of the United States, if that's, you know, the Lord's will. And I'm going to be working hard on that any way I possibly can. But there's a lot of work you have to do here. But look, I mean, he's, again, I'll go back to this. He's a very thoughtful person. And having dealt with him now as the vice president, he is constantly courting other people's opinions, very similar to President Trump. He understands the philosophical, but also the real. He doesn't just live in the clouds. He also lives in the weeds and the real life implications. And as a true statesman, he never forgot where he came from. He never forgot that he came from rural Ohio and Appalachia. And that is a connective tissue of his politics, which almost always reverts back to, okay, would eight-year-old J.D. Vance benefit from this? And the answer is yes. Then, okay, he'll work his way through that from not another unnecessary war, right? From restrictive immigration, from better trade policies. And J.D. Vance is someone, as a statesman, you must also be able to be made for the moment. Some people cripple under the moment. They crumble under the moment. And look at this. He was vice presidential nominee. He was barely a senator for two years. And he's excelled in every single way. He's also a man of phenomenal moral courage. I mean, I wouldn't want to go straight to Germany or the NATO meeting and call them all. I mean, that takes some chutzpah, right? There's some guts there. But for all those reasons, J.D. Vance is more than deserving for that award. Oh, yeah. I mean, just what you say, like to have someone who's actually thoughtful in politics. I mean, it's very rare. I like to say it's just good to see Twitter mutuals do well for themselves. Exactly. Someone that actually has more to say than just, you know, vote for me. And so J.D. came to Claremont very early on when he was looking for President Trump's endorsement because he was trying to make the argument because he'd said some things like many people did. He didn't quite understand Trump at first. And he came to Claremont and was just very convincing. And that's when we all got to know him. And I think everyone was just blown away by how thoughtful he was, by how serious he was. And now here we are now at this award. So, you know, a lot of people don't even know about the Claremont Institute. They don't even have no idea what the Claremont Institute is. And those who know, they know. That's why I'm here. Yeah. So what is your thought about what Claremont is and does and the importance of this award? It's the intellectual home of the new right. And it is of the youth, young, inspiring, sometimes provocative boundary pushing, you know, philosophical momentum in the movement right now, which is why we're talking about mass deportations. And the most important thing, by the way, that Claremont has led on for 20 years is dismantling the administrative state. That is something that Claremont has never, ever lost focus of. But the fellowship was one of my most favorite weeks of my life, even though it was in Vegas. But it was really it was really a fun time. It was COVID time. Yeah, it was. That's right. Usually it's here. But it was it was really a remarkable time to just learn from the brightest minds and just go all in and just think for an entire I think it was like 10 days about, you know, why we are here and what is good government? What does it mean to be a good person and the true and the beautiful? And so, yeah, I mean, Claremont is a powerhouse that punches way above its weight. Yeah, it was a pleasure to have you there. It's a pleasure to be part of this network myself. I'm also grateful. Our friendship started there. Yeah. And that's that's where it all began. And may it long continue. Thank you so much. Thank you for being with us. Thank you.