Transcript of The $20K Mistake 99% of College Grads Make | Charlie Kirk DSH #1017

Student loan forgiveness, are you for that?

No, absolutely not. No. Let me give you the reason why. Number one, I didn't go to college, and I've succeeded. So why should my taxpayer dollars go pay for somebody else's mistakes? Number two, let's look at all the amazing people that are plumbers, electricians, while there's police officers that didn't go to college. So they have to pay more taxes to go pay for somebody that did go to college, that's morally indefensible. What about kids that went to different schools to try to graduate with less debt? Are we punishing their good decisions? So no.

All right, guys, we are at AMFEST here with the man himself, Charlie Kirk.Thanks.

For coming on, man.Great to have you, man. We've been trying to make this work for a while, so thank you.

You've been the busiest man on the planet lately. Dude, thanks for having me. It's my first AMFEST, and it's-We'll have you back anytime. Yeah, it's been incredible. Thank you. Obviously, your take on college it's a scam. I want to take it one step further. Sure. Do you believe the Department of Education is a scam?

Yes, it should be eliminated.

Absolutely. Why do you feel that way?

Well, first of all, constitutionally, I'm not certain that it's even consistent with the constitutional intent that the federal government should have a role education. Number two, ever since the formation of the Department of Education, it used to be called Health, Education, Welfare, HEW, test scores have gone down, our schools are a disaster. Education is the most personal thing. It's the development of the soul. It's the development of the character of an individual. The federal government has failed miserably in the education of our children. We rank like 36 of industrialized countries when it comes to education. We are significantly behind many of our competitors. We need to send all the education back to the states and local municipalities.

What do you think parents watching this should do, something actionable?

Well, again, I understand that everyone has different financial pressures and sensitivities, but if you're able to do it, homeschool your kids. Take your kids out of the public education system, out of the government education system, and educate them yourself. Absolutely.

Are you pro-crypto? I've never seen you talk about crypto.

Very pro-crypto.

You got some Bitcoin?

I actually have better stuff than that. I am a significant investor in the plumbing of how crypto is made. Really? I won't say any more than that, but done some good private equity deals in the actual back-end on the technology of actually blockchain on how all these coins go public. Now, not Bitcoin itself, but of all the other types of coins. If you are long on crypto, I encourage people to understand that there is a needed multi-billion dollar infrastructure that needs to be there, actually, for all these coins to be able to go through process, to be made public, to go through ICOs. But yes, I'm very pro-crypto, and I got some coins.

I love it. What changes do you want to see in the healthcare industry coming up?

What changes do I want to see? Yeah. Well, the entire premise of the healthcare industry right now is a sick care industry where we are only treating ailments, not root causes. I'm so excited that Bobby Kennedy is going to be HHS Secretary. I want to start to see a couple of things. I want to make sure that we no longer allow pharmaceutical advertisements on television. There's no reason for that whatsoever. We have to understand that food can either heal you or destroy you and kill you. So food is poison or food can be nourishing. We need to get back to foundational ideas that there's protein, fats, and carbohydrates, all food will go into one of those three categories. We are way too carbohydrate dependent. The fats that we have are saturated fats, and they're monosaturated fats. Instead, when you get back to healthy, clean fats such as almond, olive oil, avocados, so on and so forth, and then have a much more lean protein heavy diet. That alone can help us with type 2 diabetes, obesity, help us with rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, and so many other things that people are experiencing autoimmune conditions that are playing in the country right now.

Then beyond that, we need to be far less pharmaceutical dependent. A pill for every ill right now is what they say. I don't think that's always the case. I think lifestyle changes need to be entertained before we try to prescribe pharmacological agents into people's lifestyle.

Because right now, they punish you for being preventative.

Correct. That's right. We need a preventative health care system that is not just educating, but also properly incentivizing people to eat healthy, move, get proper vitamin D levels, get good sleep, hydrate, and not poison their body.

Because right now, health insurance won't fund preventative MRIs, advanced blood work, all of that stuff.

Health insurance companies are not my favorite.

What do you think the biggest threats to America are right now?

Well, I think that within America, it is the Intel Agency agencies in the deep state. That's why I'm very excited for Tulsi Gabbard to become director of National Intelligence. Our intel agencies have been configured against the American people for far too long, and we need to do something significant and real to make sure that the intel agencies come to heal. The Chinese Communist Party is an existential threat against the American people and against the West, and we need to try to restrain them and keep them in check. Then I will say the American left. We beat them in this last election, but they're going to come back, and they're They are a force to be reckoned with.

Yeah. Doge getting rid of a lot of jobs. You're excited about that?

Government jobs, absolutely. I think that 80% of the federal government shouldn't exist. I'm thrilled about it.

Only 6% of them show up to work.

Yeah, that's right. What they do, they're probably taking second and third They're not even showing up, as you say. When they do work, they're doing actively harmful things to our freedoms and liberties and the well-being of our country.

Absolutely. What have been your favorite college campuses to visit?

That's a really good question. No one has ever asked me that, actually. My favorite. We had a great time at University of Georgia this last cycle. 5,000 kids showed up. I always love Arizona State University, just wonderful people. I'm trying to think back this last semester at 25, I've done well over 160 in the last decade. I visited almost every major college campus. There's the Power Five, right? Well, it used to be this way. We got rid of the Pac-12 because of stupid conference realignment. It used to be Pac-12, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, SEC, Big East. Now it's all messed up. There's 60 Power Five. School is about 60, 65. I think I've done 62 out of 65. Wow, that's impressive. University of Georgia was awesome this last cycle, as I mentioned. University of Wisconsin, Madison was great. Unc Chapel Hill was incredible. University of Texas, Austin was fun despite it being liberal. I could keep going through the list.

Which campus treated worst?

That's a good question. Believe it or not, the one that was the worst to me was Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. They abrupt me off campus. They pulled our microphone. They didn't follow the permitting. Of all the campuses across the country, Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas was the worst.

Wow, that's a surprising answer.

For whatever reason, that administrator had some ax to grind with me.

I would have thought somewhere in LA or Washington.

No, UCLA was awful, but they were transparently awful. Leading up to it, they told us this is our criteria and all this. Kansas State just broke all the rules they told us that we had, and they treated us terribly.

Do you think tuition should be massively lowered?

Well, yes, but not by government. First of all, I don't think as many people should go to college. I think we need more competition. I think we should stop subsidizing student loans of taxpayer money. Yes, of course, we need to try to drive down the price of tuition, which I think we can do through robust competition, more schools, more trade schools, more technical schools, and stopping subsidizing a failing scam, which is the four-year college education system.

Student loan forgiveness, are you for that?

Absolutely not. Well, let me give you the reason why. Number one, I didn't go to college, and I've succeeded. Why should my taxpayer dollars pay for somebody else's mistakes? That's number one. Number two, let's look at all the amazing people that are plumbers, electricians while there's police officers that didn't go to college. So they have to pay more taxes to go pay for somebody that did go to college. That's morally indefensible. Then finally, what are the kids that were student athletes, worked second jobs, got scholarships, got good grades to try to limit their student loan burden? What about kids that went to different schools to try to graduate with less debt Are we punishing their good decisions? No, for those reasons, I'm against student loan forgiveness.

Are you for flat tax?

Oh, yeah. Ideally, I think a 10% tax across the board. I actually would love to get rid of income tax. Really? Yeah. I think it's possible. I think you can do it through national tariffs and a national sales tax. People don't like that, but I think that there is something to be said that the income tax is somewhat immoral. The government does actually not have a right to your property in that way.

Well, we used to not have those. That's right.

We funded our government through tariffs.

Wow. Do you think we could go back to that system?

Potentially, yeah. Look, if you shrink the size of government, you don't need as much Look, tariffs are great. We should use them more. Our government is afraid of tariffs. They say it's going to raise prices. That's half true. It's not necessarily always true because companies can read domicile back in the United States and then sell their products here and therefore avoid the tariff. But Yeah, I think a flat tax across the board in the interim would be a phenomenal idea.

Do you think the US dollar can get back on track? Yes.

I think that President Trump is going to break apart bricks one by one. Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. South Africa is just the DEI in there. They have no business being in the bricks. Then Brazil, they'll do whatever we tell them to do. But yes, right now, I think 47% of all the world's reserve currency status is the US dollar. I think President Trump will get that back to 60%.

Should we get involved with Syria?

No, absolutely not. Stay completely and totally out. Not our fight, not our struggle. And honestly,Assad was good for Christians. Yeah. Assad was a bad guy, but what's replacing him is even worse. We have no role whatsoever.Assad was good to the Christians of Syria, and people are afraid to say that.

Tucker went back to Russia. It seems like they're preparing for something catastrophic. Did that worry you at all?

Well, I'm glad he went. I'm glad that he kept diplomatic channels open with Serge Lavrov. But yeah, look, I actually don't know why we hate Russia as much as we do. I don't like Russia. It's not a free society, but I'm curious about Russia. I think we should all be. It's an incredibly powerful country. It's a very complex country, very diverse country, the largest country. Phenomenal body of literature that's impressive, from Tolstoy to Dostoevsky. They're not a dumb people. They're in some ways a great people. Again, I'm not Russian. I have nothing to say for it, but I don't know why we hate them so much and why our entire American foreign policy regime is so insistent about getting us closer to a thermonuclear war with Russia.

Absolutely. China owns the second most farmland in America. Does that concern you at all?

Is that right?

That's what Kali means interesting. He said Bill Gates was first and China was second. We'll have to fact check it.

Yeah. Well, I think what he means is outside of family farms, right? Because if he means private owners, wow, of course it does. It shouldn't be allowed.

They're all by military bases.

Yes, it should be forbidden. The Chinese Communist Party should not be able to buy farmland anywhere in the United States, let alone near military bases.

They're going all in on AI and drones. It seems like they're advancing very quickly.

Yeah, that's right. Look, we need to win the artificial intelligence race. I think we do that actually by decentralizing AI, not centralizing it. The Biden way of doing AI, they wanted three or four companies that they just controlled. I actually think more competition in the AI space is going to be better.

What do you think of the drone stuff in New Jersey, New York?

Everyone's been asking me about it. We had this whole show. Andrew, I said, cancel everything. Let's do the whole show about drones. Two hours. We had every expert, and I learned nothing. No one knows anything. I learned about their credentials. I learned about their guests and their speculation. No one knows anything. It was a much a bluster for two hours. Nice people. Well, I think it could be this. Well, I could do that. I have no idea, and nor do the people I had on my show. I love it.

I got two names.

I'm wondering- This guy's great. I love this. It's actually thoughtful.

I'm wondering if you would debate these people. Okay. First name is Mark Cuban.

I've actually debated him before, and I'd be happy to again.

Was that before he went on that whole- It was back in '20.

That was the event you missed. That was 2017, 2018, actually. It was with Adam Rubenstein, a shadow of me around.

2018. Okay. He's had some hot takes since then.

Yeah, I debate him. It's fine. Of course.

Would you debate Dean Withers again?

Yes, I would. Not Parker. Is that Parker? No, he's not a good faith actor. Dean, I like. I think Dean's a good kid who's very confused. I don't even want to say debate. I'd have a discussion with Dean. I think that would be really fun. I think Dean is legitimately intellectually curious. I think Dean thinks deeply about the topics, and he's a good faith actor.

I love it. What's next for you? I know you got a book.

What else? Turning Point is growing like crazy. Podcast is going great. Going to continue our campus tours, trying to help the President any way I can. I love it. Thanks for coming on, man. Love it. Thank you. That was great. Yes. That was fun. That was the best interview I did today. Oh, really?