Former RNC Chairman Michael Whatley, now running for the U.S. Senate from North Carolina, told Newsmax on Friday that the GOP youth movement that helped propel President Donald Trump back into the White House was built by the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk and his Turning Point USA organization.
“The fact is that Charlie was absolutely instrumental in building the Make America Great movement, the America First movement,” Whatley said on Newsmax’s “Wake Up America.” “The fact that we actually won the youth vote with President Trump in this last election does not happen without Charlie Kirk.”
Whatley said he has three children in college who have all participated in Turning Point events and “have had a chance to meet with Charlie.” He said they’re “absolutely devastated” by Kirk’s assassination, which happened in Utah on Wednesday.
“I think that when we look at the long-term implications of what he’s done, the fact [is] that the youth movement in the Republican Party, in conservative circles, did not happen without him,” Whatley said. “And 10 years ago, if you would have said Donald Trump was going to win the youth vote, it would have been absolutely inconceivable.
“So, when we look, going forward, at what the conservative movement is going to look like, this movement needs to continue, and I have no doubt that Charlie’s legacy is going to live on throughout the course of this generation that he has been so influential with,” he added.
Pivoting to the outpouring of emotion that has occurred online since Kirk was gunned down, Whatley said that his “heartbreak over Charlie’s loss is matched by my outrage over what we are seeing from the left right now.”
“The sheer joy that we’re seeing online from people who are celebrating the fact that a father of two young children and a husband and a Christian has been killed is absolutely sickening,” he said. “The fact that there is going to be a politicization by the left to try and call for gun control here, really, truly, we as a country need to step back and reflect on what we’ve seen. I’m very, very reminded of the moment when I found out that President Trump had been shot.”
People need to ask themselves a question, Whatley said: “What are we fighting for?”
“Charlie was a man who was fighting for his children, for their legacy, for his family, for his faith every single day and it truly sickens me to see that there are people out there across this country who think it is a good thing that this man, this father, this husband, this Christian, has been taken off the Earth way, way too early,” he said.
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