At a three-day political training session for pastors in a Dallas suburb this month, Charlie Kirk – the powerful rightwing activist and executive director of Turning Point USA (TPUSA) – railed at faith leaders, who he complained had not been doing enough to get Donald Trump elected, and begged them to enlist congregants into “deployments” to swing states.
“‘But, but Charlie, I don’t think Trump is a very good role model for our church,’” said Kirk, imitating pastors who have shied away from Trump. “I have no patience for you any more, people. I am sick of this.”
The conference featured a lineup of rightwing speakers, including Mike Flynn, the conspiracy theorist and retired lieutenant general, and Kirk himself, whose keynote speech at the Friday gala closed out the conference. Promising to help pastors “mobilize the body of Christ to take meaningful action”, the three-day training conference, for “active pastors and wives only”, cost $199 a pastor and $49 a wife.
The event, called Igniting the Remnant Pastors, comes as the Trump campaign – and its allies in the rightwing movement, including TPUSA and America First Policy Institute – have vowed to turn out evangelicals in the 2024 election, viewing them as key to the low-propensity voting bloc they need to win in November. If Kirk’s address offers a window into the strategy, it looks something like this: urging and sometimes shaming church leaders into becoming unofficial Trump surrogates who will in turn mobilize their congregants to door-knock in key swing states.
Kirk opened his remarks by denouncing the press for focusing on Kamala Harris’s presidential bid. He called Harris “the most unlikable” person to run for president and “super dumb”. The media, he complained, had failed to sufficiently cover the shooting at the Trump rally, when the former president’s ear was grazed by a bullet. The audience might be feeling like things had gotten rough for their presidential candidate, but that couldn’t stop them, Kirk said.
“We fought with the trial, and we fought with the indictments, and we fought through, you know, the debate, and Trump almost got shot. I need a rest – I totally get that, but get over it,” Kirk admonished his audience. “Because we are at war in this country for the future of this civilization.”
The speech struck Karen Goll, a researcher who focuses on the Christian right for the group Documented, as dire – even for Kirk, who is known for his fiery rhetoric. In his remarks, Goll wrote in an email, Kirk deployed “provocative language in the hopes that pastors will use their pulpit and the multiplication power of their congregation to deliver the election for Trump”.
During his remarks, Kirk lauded the TPUSA-backed primary campaign in Arizona which ousted Maricopa county’s Republican head of elections, Steven Richer, who drew the ire of the far right for refuting Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen there. “[Richer] was close with Biden, talking about how the election was not stolen,” said Kirk. Defeating Richter was, Kirk said, “a red pill or a promising development”.
Finally, Kirk called on the room of pastors to mobilize congregants to “chase ballots” in swing states, promising free lodging and stipends.
Although electioneering and other forms of partisan political activism by non-profits and churches are technically barred by a 1954 law, the rule is rarely enforced. And in 2023 remarks, Trump vowed to end those restrictions.
“Our goal is to have 10,000 out-of-state patriots flood Arizona and flood Wisconsin,” said Kirk, echoing Trump when he added, “in a way that we’ve never seen before.”
