Young Conservative Dynamo Motivates Students to Lead GOP

The founder of Turning Point USA — a group of young, conservative political activists on more than 800 college and high school campuses — tells Newsmax TV his group is thriving because "people are tired of government telling them how to live their life."

Charlie Kirk said he created the nonprofit three years ago to promote the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government.

"When I was 18 years old, I felt that the conservative movement was not doing adequate work in the grassroots arena, especially on college campuses across the country," Kirk said Friday on "The Steve Malzberg Show."

"I saw what 'Obama for America' was able to do, I saw what MoveOn.org was engaging in, and I took it upon myself to first engage some people in the traditional Republican circles.

"I wasn't taken too seriously being an 18-year-old, but I got some great advice and the inner entrepreneur in me decided to take my graduation money in hand and start this organization with the core belief that we must build a ground game on a 24/7/365 basis."

That ground game: to show college students of the next generation they play a significant role in the "revitalization" of the United States.

"I stumbled across some very generous people … They provided the seed funding and now we're on 800 campuses nationwide with 31 people on staff. We were able to raise $1 million last year and we're going to add another 20 people to our full-time staff this July," he said.

"It's been an incredible journey, but I can't take credit for it, nor can our team. We're just tapping in to a trend that's going across the country. People are tired of government telling them how to live their life.

"They're tired of government being inefficient and corrupt and wasting their money, and we're just plugging in to that movement that I see growing every single day in this country."

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