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Charles J. Kirk (born October 14, 1993) is an American right-wing political activist, radio talk show host, and internet personality who often espouses views rooted in conservatism. He founded Turning Point USA with Bill Montgomery in 2012, and has served as its executive director since. He is the CEO of Turning Point Action, Students for Trump, and Turning Point Academy, Turning Point Faith, president of Turning Point Endowment, and a member of the Council for National Policy. Kirk has written four books. Early life and education Kirk was born in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, Illinois, and raised in nearby Prospect Heights, Illinois. His mother is a mental health counselor and his father is an architect. Kirk was a member of the Boy Scouts of America and earned the rank of Eagle Scout. In his junior year at Wheeling High School in 2010, he volunteered for the successful U.S. Senate campaign of Illinois Republican Mark Kirk, to whom he is not related. In senior year he created a campaign to revert a price increase for cookies at his school. He also wrote an essay for Breitbart News alleging liberal bias in high school textbooks, which led to an appearance on Fox Business. At a subsequent speaking engagement at Benedictine University's "Youth Empowerment Day", Kirk met Bill Montgomery, a retiree more than 50 years his senior, who was then a Tea Party-backed legislative candidate. Montgomery encouraged Kirk to get engaged in political activism full-time. He subsequently founded Turning Point USA, a "grass-roots organization to rival liberal groups such as MoveOn.org." At the 2012 Republican National Convention, Kirk met Foster Friess, a prominent Republican donor, and persuaded him to finance the organization. Kirk briefly attended Harper College, a junior community college near Chicago, but dropped out without having completed any degree or certificate. Leadership of Turning Point organizations Turning Point USA Kirk has been CEO, chief fundraiser, and the public face of Turning Point since its founding. He co-founded the organization in 2012 at 18 years of age. According to The New York Times, he has turned the organization into a "well-funded media operation, backed by conservative megadonors like the Wyoming businessman Foster Friess." TPUSA's activities include publication of the Professor Watchlist and the School Board Watchlist. In 2020, ProPublica investigated the finances of Turning Point USA and claimed in their report that the organization made "misleading financial claims", that the audits were not done by an independent auditor, and that the leaders had enriched themselves while advocating for Trump. ProPublica also reported that Kirk's salary from TPUSA had increased from $27,000 to nearly $300,000 and that he had bought an $855,000 condo in Longboat Key, Florida. In 2020, Turning Point USA had $39.2 million in revenues. Kirk earned a salary of more than $325,000 from TPUSA and related organizations. In 2021, Turning Point USA announced an online academy targeted towards students in schools "poisoning our youth with anti-American ideas." Turning Point Academy was intended to cater to families seeking an "America-first education". Arizona education firm StrongMind initially partnered with Turning Point USA with plans to open the academy by the fall of 2022 and assessed its "potential to generate over $40 million in gross revenue at full capacity (10,000 students)." The partnership ended after StrongMind received backlash from its own employees and key subcontractor Freedom Learning Group, who prepared course content for the academy, also backed out of the academy after learning that it would be run by Turning Point USA. Turning Point Action In May 2019, it was reported that Kirk was preparing to launch Turning Point Action, a 501(c)(4) entity designed to target Democrats. In July 2019, Kirk announced that Turning Point Action had acquired Students for Trump along with "all associated media assets". He became chairman and launched a campaign to recruit one million students for the 2020 Trump reelection campaign. The unsuccessful effort led to TPUSA and the Trump campaign blaming each other for an overall decline in youth support for Trump. Turning Point Endowment Turning Point Endowment Inc., formed in 2017, is a self-described "supporting organization" whose "mission is to support and benefit Turning Point USA's charitable purposes and long-term vitality." Turning Point Faith After Liberty University did not renew Kirk's contract with the Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty in 2021, Kirk founded Turning Point Faith, an organization dedicated to "recruit pastors and other church leaders to be active in local and national political issues." Its activities include faith-based voter drives "and educating members on TPUSA's core values." According to TPUSA's 2021 Investor Prospectus, the program—with a budget of $6.4 million—"will 'address America's crumbling religious foundation by engaging thousands of pastors nationwide' in order to 'breathe renewed civic engagement into our churches'." Council for National Policy and CNP Action Kirk is the William F. Buckley Jr. Council Member of the Council for National Policy (CNP), a group "that has served for decades as a hub for a nationwide network of conservative activists and the donors who support them," according to the CNP's September 2020 membership directory leaked in February 2021. He is a spokesperson for CNP Action, the political arm of the CNP. Mount Vernon Project According to Kirk, the Mount Vernon Project is a movement to "recruit leaders to serve on the (Republican National Committee) RNC and at the state level who wish to better represent the grassroots voice." Talk radio host In October 2020, Kirk began hosting a daily three-hour radio talk show, called The Charlie Kirk Show, on Salem Media's "The Answer" radio channel. In 2024, NBC News reported that it was presented with internal data showing that Kirk's podcast is being downloaded between 500,000 and 750,000 times each day. It’s ranked No. 13 on Apple Podcasts for news. Political positions and activities Promotion of falsehoods and conspiracy theories Kirk promotes the Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory, and has described universities as "islands of totalitarianism". In a 2015 speech at the Liberty Forum of Silicon Valley, Kirk stated that he had applied to the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, and was not accepted. He said that "the slot he considered his went to 'a far less-qualified candidate of a different gender and a different persuasion'" whose test scores he claimed he knew. He told The New Yorker in 2017 that he was being sarcastic when he said it. He told the Chicago Tribune in 2018 that "he was just repeating something he'd been told," while at a New Hampshire Turning Point event featuring Rand Paul in October 2019 he claimed that he never said it. On July 7, 2018, Kirk falsely claimed .... Discover the Kirk Cantor popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Kirk Cantor books.