https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/11/ginny-garner/ron-pauls-influence-on-charlie-kirk-and-the-maga-schism/
By Ginny Garner
November 15, 2025
“I love Ron Paul. Ron Paul is awesome. I would have Ron Paul on the show regularly. He is a hero because Ron Paul had the courage to … challenge old sacred cows of the Republican Party.” – Charlie Kirk, July 17 2025
Ron Paul’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns influenced and inspired many young people, especially when the candidate spoke at college campuses. One of those young people was Charlie Kirk.
As a teenager Kirk attended events of the Tea Party, the organic grassroots movement inspired by Dr. Paul’s presidential campaigns which can thus claim Dr. Paul as its philosophical and ideological father. Dr. Paul’s principal campaign policies were a non-interventionist foreign policy, ending the Fed and economic liberty. A New York Times profile described Kirk as being “smitten with the astringent libertarian worldview of Ron Paul.” Charlie began speaking at Tea Party rallies with the objective of attracting young people who were becoming victims of generational theft through the profligate spending and bureaucracy of the US government. The initial mission of Turning Point USA when Kirk and Bill Montgomery co-founded the non-profit was promoting economic liberty, limited government, free markets, and fiscal responsibility.
I became aware of the influence of Dr. Paul, a proponent of Austrian economics, on Kirk when I heard former attorney Baron Coleman, who is currently investigating Charlie’s assassination, comment on his YouTube channel that TPUSA was founded in 2012 as “a sort of Mises Institute for college kids.”
Six days after the shocking murder of Kirk, Dr. Paul was already on the case. He questioned the FBI official narrative and asked, “who done it?” in his article published on Mises Institute’s web site.
Lew Rockwell, founder of the Mises Institute, republished this article on his own web site LewRockwell.com.
X’s AI tool Grok and Chat GPT came up with a lot of interesting details when I did inquiries that sparked further research. Dr. Paul appeared as a guest on The Charlie Kirk Show in 2023 where they discussed non-interventionism and Kirk called Dr. Paul “one of the most influential and ‘prophetic’ congressmen of the last 50 years for foreseeing the crises of endless wars, Fed overreach and inflation.” On February 10, 2025 Kirk endorsed Paul as Fed Chair arguing “Ron Paul would make a great next Chairman of the Fed. No other institution in American life has so eroded the purchasing power of working Americans as the Fed, and as a longtime critic and skeptic, Ron Paul would be a living and breathing force functioning to bring reform and accountability.”
When Kirk endorsed a Texas Comptroller candidate, Charlie described him as “Ron Paul meets Donald Trump,” who matched the populist appeal of Trump with Paul’s fiscal beliefs.
TPUSA shifted its focus when Zionist Pastor Rob McCoy approached Kirk to add Zionist Christian evangelism to the non-profit’s mission. TPUSA started concentrating on religious and cultural issues and with McCoy’s influence Kirk was a fierce supporter of Israel and US funding of its Middle East wars on behalf of the Zionist state. Students continued to be interested in economic issues due to self-interest in their own future attempting to get jobs, buy houses, get married and start families. TPUSA grew to over 850 chapters by 2018 with the assistance of Republican donors including Ron Paul supporter Foster Friess.
As a growing number of the public now know, Charlie’s unquestioning support of US foreign policy began to change. As early as September 10, 2019 Kirk circled back to Dr. Paul’s non-interventionist vision echoing George Washington’s farewell address that warned America against engaging in entangling alliances with foreign nations. “There is nothing conservative about endless war,” Charlie posted on X about US funding the bloody Ukraine-Russia conflict. “Foreign occupation of a country 4,000 miles away while we are 22 trillion in debt puts our country at risk. We have spent 5 TRILLION on these wars since 9-11. With a destabilized region and thousands of American lives lost. End the war.”
Kirk began to question the “special relationship” between the US and Israel. He asked Patrick Bet David on his October 12, 2023 podcast if the Zionist state stood down on October 7 when Kirk knew as a frequent visitor Israel was a virtual fortress with young ISD soldiers every 10 yards. Eventually Charlie spoke out against the ethnic cleansing in Gaza. In July in a room full of people Kirk implored President Trump and Vice President Vance not to go to war with Iran. Trump reportedly reacted angrily. Kirk’s evolution was due to spiritual revelations, listening to his Gen Z supporters, doing his own research, and the influence of his friends Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens.
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