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--:-- Georgia Howe: There are a million ways that you can make a difference, and our generation is already proving that. Get involved with your Turning Point USA chapter or another organization that shares your values.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a crowd cheering]
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was Isabel Brown speaking in an event for TPUSA, the organization founded by Charlie Kirk. Now a host with The Daily Wire, Isabel has long worked closely with Turning Point, including serving as a campus chapter president and the director and host of Turning Point's documentary, The Eye of the Storm.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: In this episode, we sit down with Isabel to discuss the rise of TPUSA and the role it will play in the political and religious spheres going forward. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley, and this is a weekend edition of Morning Wire.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Isabel, thank you so much for coming on.
--:-- Isabel Brown: Thank you so much for having me.
--:-- Georgia Howe: What a tough topic for us to talk about, but so, so important. Right.
--:-- Isabel Brown: Now, I understand you became not just a member, but a major contributor to TPUSA over the past several years. First, how did you get involved and what was the timeline like?
--:-- Isabel Brown: I did. I did. You know, I said in my original tribute post to Charlie that truly I owe so much, everything really in my life to Charlie Kirk. My career, my family, my husband and I met while working for Turning Point USA and our daughter wouldn't exist otherwise.
--:-- Isabel Brown: And really my faith journey as an adult, just marveling at this extraordinary young man's quest to find the truth of God and to be inspired by God every day. As he said, here I am, Lord, send me.
--:-- Isabel Brown: But on the career front, you know, I was just another college student in 2017, feeling isolated and alone. And like there wasn't a voice for conservative or Christian values on my college campus at Colorado State University.
--:-- Isabel Brown: I was pre-med studying biomedical sciences and set off for medical school with the hope of being a trauma surgeon when I received a random Facebook ad for Turning Point USA's Young Women's Leadership Summit, the annual conference they put on for college-age women from some guy named Charlie Kirk, who I'd never heard of before.
--:-- Isabel Brown: But something in me told me I had to attend that event, and I'm so glad that I did because from moment one was just in complete awe and wonder at the courage of this young man to help give a voice and a platform to other young conservatives across the country and to look at young people to say, we can transform our culture and our society for the better.
--:-- Isabel Brown: We don't have to wait until we're older. So like many, many thousands of other students over the past few years, I started a Turning Point USA chapter at Colorado State University in the fall of 2017, hosted Charlie on our campus for one of his first major speaking events in February of 2018.
--:-- Isabel Brown: And he very quickly became a dear friend and very close mentor to me as he encouraged me to listen to God and where God was leading me in a different direction not to work in a fluorescently lit hospital for the rest of my life but instead to have the courage to speak the truth to our generation on college campuses and the digital space and everywhere in between as well.
--:-- Isabel Brown: I've worn lots of different hats for Charlie over the years. I co-hosted his radio show with him for about a month, a few years ago, when he lost his voice so that every time he coughed, they had to mute the microphone and I would pick things up.
--:-- Isabel Brown: We did all night live streams related to the 2020 election, which was so, so fun for several weeks on end. Obviously worked with Turning Point USA in many capacities, but I truly owe this platform and the voice that I've developed over the past few years to Charlie's leadership and mentorship in my life.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So it sounds like you got involved right when Turning Point was kind of blowing up across the country. Now, tell us a little bit about what the temperature was like on college campuses at that time.
--:-- Isabel Brown: Had people heard about Charlie Kirk? Was he kind of breaking in or were you still in the first wave where you were a little bit odd and like the odd man out on campus?
--:-- Isabel Brown: A little bit odd is the perfect representation of that, Georgia. Truly, when I started this chapter, very few people had heard about Turning Point USA. College Republicans had been an organization for a long time. There was a handful of campus activism groups that were talking about these issues, but none with the effectivity and the punchy language that Turning Point used early on.
--:-- Isabel Brown: We were handing out buttons on campuses that said socialism sucks and big government sucks, which got the ire of many of our professors and administrators on campuses across the country. But it really was just me for a very long time setting up a rickety folding table and handing out these buttons and trying to have these one-on-one conversations that Charlie was so well known for and was so deeply passionate about.
--:-- Isabel Brown: But to be there right at the beginning of the explosion of this organization was so eye-opening because from the beginning, the radical violent left was very threatened by the idea of a Turning Point USA.
--:-- Isabel Brown: As I mentioned, I hosted Charlie for one of his first major campus events in 2018, February of 2018. And we were a bit of a unique circumstance being in a state like Colorado, where the radical left was already starting to organize and mobilize against young conservatives.
--:-- Isabel Brown: But even back then, seven years ago, almost eight years ago, Antifa was there ready to protest, ready to be violent. The National Guard for the state of Colorado had to be deployed because of threats to the people in attendance and protesting peacefully outside.
--:-- Isabel Brown: And it just showed me almost immediately the potential of this organization and the difference that Charlie knew he could make if he just had the courage to keep showing up every day. And look what's happened eight years later from there.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, I know College Republicans has been on campuses for decades. What was different about TPUSA that was so game changing about you guys?
--:-- Isabel Brown: You know, I look back on so many memories I had as a student activist and now working with so many students across the country over the past few years and especially conversing with them in the digital space.
--:-- Isabel Brown: Whereas I think the last several generations didn't really have a heart for youth outreach when it came to right of center organizations or the Republican Party. There was this expectation that young people will always be leftists.
--:-- Isabel Brown: The old saying, if you're not a liberal when you're 20, you don't have any heart. And if you're not a conservative by the time you're 50, you don't have a brain. That was so incorporated into right-wing messaging and politics throughout my lifetime.
--:-- Isabel Brown: Charlie saw past that. He saw an opportunity to reach young people in the state that they were in right now, in the brokenness of our country as it pertained to young people now, and convince them of a different way of life and a different perspective.
--:-- Isabel Brown: But I also think in the midst of that there was this idea of changing people minds right The general rule of college Republicans or other youth organizations and they did amazing work incredible work in building coalitions and a community sense on college campuses But they didn't have a sense of going out and reaching a handout to students who might vehemently disagree with your messaging today, but could be pulled over and convinced of your arguments tomorrow.
--:-- Isabel Brown: If you kept your heart rate lower than the person you were talking to, Charlie always gave me that advice, and just saw someone as a person, someone who was going through something difficult, just like you were, and knowing we can get to a better outcome if we're willing to have the tough conversations now.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That strikes me as an evangelical perspective and the alignment there of a faith orientation with a political orientation makes a lot of sense. That's absolutely right.
--:-- Isabel Brown: I never would have put that together in my mind until now. And I've said this a few times on Fox News this week, but Charlie never set out to have this religious revival, at least not to my knowledge, in starting Turning Point USA.
--:-- Isabel Brown: The key pillars of the organization at that time were free speech, free markets, and limited government. And that's basically all we ever talked about.
--:-- Isabel Brown: But I think as Charlie went on this deep investigative journey to find the source of truth and to share truth with people, it became obvious to him that that's inextricably linked to God and to his faith and the source of all truth for the universe.
--:-- Isabel Brown: And he had such a heart and such a joy and a fire and passion for that, that he really wanted to share that with other young people as well.
--:-- Isabel Brown: So look at what we've seen this last week, the greatest impact of Charlie Kirk and his greatest legacy is undoubtedly the fact that millions upon millions of Gen Zers around the world went to church for the first time on Sunday, purchased their first Bible this week, prayed for the first time.
--:-- Isabel Brown: I have probably five to 10,000 DMs in my Instagram inbox asking, how do I pick up this book, the Bible that I've never read? And where do I start praying? Please walk me through this. I want to do this all for Charlie.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We all talked about that Sunday. We all saw that at our churches and I was blown away. Our church service was unlike any service we've had in years. And it really did feel like a revival.
--:-- Isabel Brown: And I think there's so many people, I'm hearing the same testimonies from people. It's pretty remarkable.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, there's a new initiative with TPUSA called TPUSA Faith. Are you involved with that? And if so, just tell us, what is that organization and how does it differ from TPUSA?
--:-- Isabel Brown: Yeah, I was never very intimately involved with TPUSA Faith when I was working for the organization over the past few years. And to be clear, I don't work for them full time anymore now, although I love lending a hand wherever I can to this next generation of students and trying to inspire them.
--:-- Isabel Brown: And I'm sure we all will be very intimately involved with Turning Point USA in the wake of Charlie's death. But TPUSA Faith was a new initiative that was started a few years ago.
--:-- Isabel Brown: As Charlie started on this journey of understanding, the source of truth really has to come from God. And therefore, this revival and this change in our country to save America cannot be isolated to just the political sphere, but it has to include our religious leaders as well.
--:-- Isabel Brown: So they've put on events over the last few years like pastors, summits, and retreats for people in positions of religious influence to have courage and to gather together and understand their obligation to transform the world.
--:-- Isabel Brown: I was incredibly privileged two weeks ago, this day actually, no, yesterday, two weeks ago yesterday, to have the opportunity to share the stage with Charlie during one of his last speaking events on this earth.
--:-- Isabel Brown: And I'm incredibly humbled to have had that chance. But he spoke in the last few minutes of his speech about our calling as people of faith to be of salt and light.
--:-- Isabel Brown: And a lot of people misunderstand that concept, he said. But he articulated it perfectly. Both salt and light, despite being so different from one another, had a key property of transforming whatever they came into contact with.
--:-- Isabel Brown: They don't conform. They don't affirm. They transform whatever they come into contact with. And that exactly what his calling was for pastors for priests for people hosting religious podcasts for anybody in this conversation about faith We have to be in the world and constantly trying to transform the world not just constantly looking ahead to the next one
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, speaking of bringing the torch forward, what do you envision is going to come up in the next few years for Turning Point USA? Do you have any intuition about what things could look like over the next few years?
--:-- Isabel Brown: You know, I don't think anyone can answer that question just a week out from what we've experienced, Georgia. But I think it's really telling that there is this sense of unity and linking arms across the whole spectrum of the conservative movement that whatever people may have experienced in the past in terms of silly competitiveness on your podcasts or different organizations competing against one another, none of that seems to matter anymore.
--:-- Isabel Brown: And to borrow a phrase from many of the people that I've been talking with behind the scenes on all of this, this is a whole new chapter for the country, a whole new chapter for a generation, a whole new chapter for the conservative movement.
--:-- Isabel Brown: So I envision there's going to be a whole lot of people ready to link arms and help share this microphone that Charlie so beautifully dominated as the leader of this youth movement over the last several years and do our absolute best to carry his legacy forward, knowing that there will never be another Charlie Kirk.
--:-- Isabel Brown: This man's shoes are completely impossible to even remotely step into, literally because he had giant, giant shoes as a big guy himself. But the movement is so ready to link arms and to continue his real blueprint for the idea that this young generation will save America.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, Isabel, thank you so much for coming on today. Thank you for having me and for honoring this great man's legacy. I'm so grateful as a friend.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was Isabel Brown, host of the Isabel Brown Show on The Daily Wire. And this has been a weekend edition of Morning Wire. Bye.
