Building the pipeline

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MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s been just over six months since TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated on a college campus in Utah.

Now, even without its most recognizable voice, TPUSA says it’s continuing to grow. Growth that includes a K through 13 education division.

HERTZBERG: Since Charlie's assassination on September 10, we've had 1.6 million orders of our curriculum. We've had to digitize it because we just can't keep up with it….we're in partnership, a great partnership, with the Association of Christian Classical Schools, ACCS,

MARY REICHARD, HOST: That’s Chief Education Officer for Turning Point, Hutz Hertzberg. He’s an ordained minister whose previous roles include president of the private Christian school Charlie Kirk attended in grade school.

He says education was close to Kirk’s heart.

HERTZBERG: Because he began to see….the woke ideologies, are being baked in at a lot earlier age. Charlie saw that on the college campuses that he was going to. I saw that in the college world that I was serving in, and so he made the decision and that’s when he reached out to me to provide leadership which I agreed to do.

I recently spoke with him about the mission and health of TPUSA now. Mr. Hertzberg, good morning!

HERTZBERG: Good morning, Mary.

REICHARD: So tell me about the K-13 curriculum you’re developing.

HERTZBERG: What we've done is look at best practices in each of those grades…. we have felt like there has been a need for certain areas of curriculum. Couple of examples: we felt like it's a great opportunity to develop a constitution kit for primary grades to help them understand our constitution. How vitally important that is… We also realized that there was no really strong Christian High School economics curriculum, so we worked with a leading economist by the name of David Bahnsen. You probably know that name…

REICHARD: (laugh) Indeed I do! CNN has a documentary out that apparently claims aspects of this kind of education you’re talking about breeds Christian nationalism. Now, what do you say?

HERTZBERG: I mean, if we had 50 people on this call right now, you get 50 different answers of what Christian nationalism is….But no one in our organization flaunts that term or looks at themselves as Christian nationalists. They look at themselves as people that care about our country but we're not trying to make it a theocracy by any means that we don't believe that that's our mission. But why should not Christians be involved in culture? Why should not Christians be involved in government? You know, God’s ordained three major institutions: the church, the family and government. When it comes to government, you know, that's where Christians have excused …their lack of involvement. And we've seen the ramifications of that in our country. So Turning Point is an organization to help motivate and encourage young people, especially, to bring their faith to bear in the public sphere.

REICHARD: Well, what does conservative education look like in 2026? I understand TPUSA has several points to describe it.

HERTZBERG: Well, conservative education is really Biblical values. The values that we used to take for granted: that there is a God. That there are two sexes, male and female. The founding values of our country are values that we want our students to understand and to live out in their lives. It’s a big question, but in our world we have nine points that we explain what conservative education is, and that really is our foundation, our bedrock of what we’re trying to accomplish.

REICHARD: Yeah, and as I’m reading through them, others are: life is sacred beginning at conception; all people are created equal; marriage is between one man and one woman; God’s truth is the beginning of wisdom; the family is the epicenter of a child’s formation; the founding ideals of this country are freedom, equality, liberty, opportunity, democracy to teach, model, and preserve; and the final point: Christ-centered virtuous education is vital to renew our society.

HERTZBERG: That's the foundation for everything that we do at Turning Point education. It both attracts and it also repels people. But that’s okay. We’re very clear in terms of where we stand.

REICHARD: Mm-hmm. Now, moving on: Many worried that the organization was so closely identified with Charlie Kirk, a man by any measure at the top of his game. He cannot be replaced, so how is TPUSA going forward without him?

HERTZBERG: Well, you're right. Charlie cannot be replaced…and with that being said, Charlie's DNA is baked into the organization from his wife, Erica, who's now our CEO, to our executive leadership, which I'm on that team, to our directors, our managers, our staff. There's no wondering what we're going to do next. The only…challenge is, how can we keep up with all of the opportunities that are before us? And that, really, those opportunities have only multiplied since September 10. So the vision remains the same, and if anything, we're doubling down on Charlie's vision.

REICHARD: What is TPUSA now? A campus activism organization, a political training pipeline, a media platform, or what?

HERTZBERG: Charlie would say that, you know, we are a conservative organization that is seeking to represent, embody and help young people especially, but it's expanded far past just young people, understand the founding values of our country. And Charlie then would go on to say, for the purpose of saving Western civilization. And so that has not changed.

REICHARD: And talk about donor commitments. Have those held steady or increased or declined?

HERTZBERG: We have more donors than we've ever had before. And we thought that there would be a sympathy, you know, maybe initial sympathy, and then some of the giving would fall off. Most of that giving has continued to stay strong since September 10. So financially, the organization is doing very, very well. But we're never an organization that sits on resources. We're hiring people like crazy.

REICHARD: With the education expansion, I can understand that. How many active TPUSA chapters are there currently?

HERTZBERG: Well, if you're talking about college chapters, it's over 1000. If you're talking about high school chapters, it's 4300…. If you're talking about the number of Turning Point Education affiliates, it's approximately 2000. So just depends on what metric you're looking at. But if you're asking specifically about our chapters, Club America, which is our high school brand, and growing every day, we're adding about 10 a week. And then the college chapters. We're almost maxed out on college campuses (odd pause) but right now, we're a little bit over 1000 college chapters.

REICHARD: Are universities treating TPUSA any differently now?

HERTZBERG: Yeah, they're more open to it, with the exception of Christian universities, which is really ironic, Mary. It breaks my heart. We have Turning Point chapters on just about every one of the Ivy League campuses, on hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of state universities, private universities, but many of the Christian universities and colleges are not comfortable with having a Turning Point chapter, and it's a head scratcher.

REICHARD: If Charlie were evaluating the organization today, what do you think he’d say you’re getting right or wrong?

HERTZBERG: You know, I think Charlie would say, “Guys, keep going forward. Keep doing what you're doing. This is exactly what I had envisioned.” I think Charlie would be very pleased and very grateful that we’re continuing with the mission that God gave him.

REICHARD: Our thanks to Hutz Hertzberg for joining us today. He is Chief Education Officer for Turning Point USA.

HERTZBERG: Well, I think your questions have pretty well covered the gamut, Mary. And I appreciate them.

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