In a feature story yesterday, NBC News begins, "For more than a year, Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist and MAGA influencer, was aimed like a heat-seeking missile toward one goal — ousting Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel."
NBC continues, "It’s a battle he won. Just this week, former President Donald Trump endorsed a new slate of leaders to head the party apparatus and signaled that McDaniel’s four terms would soon come to an end."
Then, they launched their own "heat-seeking " missile.
Be informed, not misled.
NBC News says, "Few Republican groups have had as meteoric a rise as Kirk’s Turning Point USA, which launched in 2012. It sought to activate young conservatives and saw its fortunes grow as it attached itself to the Trump movement in 2016. The organization has raised roughly a quarter-billion dollars since, as The Associated Press reported last fall, with its fundraising exploding during the Covid pandemic."
Then NBC pivots and tells their listeners, "But the RNC effort has Kirk increasingly under the microscope in Trump's world. In recent weeks, at least three people, including McDaniel herself, have privately warned Trump about Kirk’s conduct, seven sources familiar with the discussions told NBC News."
NBC is picking up a story that Real Clear Politics first published last Thursday---February 16.
RCP said, "Kirk founded Turning Point USA in 2012 and quickly turned the nonprofit into a quasi-party apparatus, raising more than a reported quarter of a billion dollars, cultivating an army of young conservative influencers and delivering a jolt of youth and energy into the once-staid Republican Party. The main beneficiary of these efforts has been Kirk’s greatest ally: former President Donald Trump."
"But success has not inoculated Kirk from criticism, even from Trump himself. Kirk has also become a target of Republicans who are jealous of his ascendance into the MAGA stratosphere, resentful of his scheming against them, or just alarmed by his fiery rhetoric. Outgoing RNC chairman Ronna McDaniel, some would say, fits all three of those categories."
RCP and NBC then shifted their storylines to drive a wedge between Trump and Kirk while launching their own heat-seeking missile to do damage to Trump, Kirk, and conservatives in general leading up to the 2024 presidential election.
How RNC leader Ronna McDaniel lost favor with Trump.
By mid-November, CNBC reported that Trump had “soured” on McDaniel. Former Trump aide Steve Bannon called for her to be replaced. In an early December podcast, Charlie Kirk went further – much further.
NBC's news channel MSNBC says Kirk called McDaniel a loser questioning her abilities and loyalty to the Republican agenda---wondering if she was trying to make sure that we lose in 2024?
He said, "I’m telling President Trump privately and publicly he’d better remove her. Does Ronna Romney want Donald Trump in prison? I really think she’s an infiltration at this point.”
On Feb. 4, the former president was asked on Fox News’ Sunday morning program to assess McDaniel’s job performance.
Trump said, "I think she did great when she ran Michigan for me. I think she did okay, initially in the RNC, I would say right now there’ll probably be some changes made.”
By the next day, McDaniel was in Mar-a-Lago meeting with the president and top Trump adviser Susie Wiles.
As you probably know, McDaniel is now leaving her position.
Kirk was not the only one who had questions about McDaniel---but the mainstream media is pretty much giving him credit for her leaving to further their attempt to undermine Kirk and his organization, which is strongly Christian faith-based.
Kirk has challenged the Diversity Equity Inclusion movement, bluntly pointing out its damage to our culture and corporate America.
Conservatives are calling for unity. The Left is unified around disposing of Trump.
The media and the press are unified in taking Trump out of the presidential picture in 2024 and are more than willing to do whatever is necessary. The attack on Trump by Biden's Department of Justice and others is clear evidence of those attempts.
If Charley Kirk gets in the way during the process, that's his problem in the mind of the Leftists. And because he is a problem for the Left, he needs to be taken out of the equation.
Is there really a rift between Trump and Kirk?
According to the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., the answer is "No."
The younger Trump said Kirk remains very much on the inside while dismissing any possible rift. “This is nothing more than fiction coming from people jealous of the close relationship Charlie has built with our family,” Trump Jr. told RealClearPolitics. “He is in great standing with both my father and the entire Trump campaign.”
Trump Jr. also noted that Kirk spoke at a recent Las Vegas conference featuring the younger Trump, “which should show just how silly these false attacks on him really are.” Added the former president’s son, “It’s sad that there are some people attempting to increase their own relevancy by manufacturing lies that Charlie is on the outs. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Another highly-placed Trump source told RCP, “What’s true is that Ronna attempted to knife Charlie, but no one of importance in Trump’s orbit bought the knifing.”
Kirk was among the first to float Lara Trump as the next RNC chair in an interview with the New York Times. The former president may have taken the advice. He nominated Michael Whatley, chairman of the North Carolina GOP, to replace McDaniel as national chair last week and then nominated his daughter-in-law to be co-chair.
As for Charlie Kirk and the noise of the battle: “We are just going to ignore the noise. We know that our focus and emphasis on RNC leadership comes at a price...but we’re just going to keep building.”
So what is he building?
His latest goal is a $108 million get-out-the-vote campaign via TPUSA’s political arm in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin to swing the election.
Kirk addressed some concerns in the RNC about his ambitious plan.
He says, “Everything we do is additive.” Turning Point USA has not yet raised the $108 million, but Kirk says that by April, his organization “will be able to celebrate” having as many as 600 full-time “ballot chasers” in battleground states. He said the goal was “to do what the RNC should have been doing for quite some time.”
Is Charlie Kirk a stepping stone or a stumbling block?
God has blessed Charlie's efforts. With a presence on over 3,500 high school and college campuses nationwide, over 250,000 student members, and over 450 full- and part-time staff all across the country, Turning Point USA is the largest and fastest-growing conservative youth activist organization in the country. At just 28 years old, Charlie has appeared on Fox News, FOX Business News, and CNBC over a thousand times.
The media is determined to bring him down.
Example: Rolling Stone took on Charlie last year: "Charlie Kirk’s ‘Turning Point’ Pivots to Christian Nationalism."
"The organization founded to promote the free market," they say, "sure is spending a lot of time promoting attacks on the separation of church and state."
Some pastors nationwide are joining the media, and others are supporting Kirk.
I support him. And others like him, who are biblically based in their worldview.
A video on Facebook with Charlie and three pastors, including Pastor Jack Hibbs, explains his goal of advancing the idea of" Liberty and Faith."
In this ministry, I call it "Faith and Freedom."
These are perilous times.
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Prayerful.