Turning Point USA founder and president Charlie Kirk lambasted Democrats’ Gen Z summit held on Friday, questioning the apparent lack of patriotism at the event while guest co-hosting “Fox & Friends Weekend” on Saturday.
“Fox & Friends” co-host Charlie Hurt pointed out that compared to Kirk’s annual Turning Point USA (TPUSA) summit aimed at young conservatives in high school and college, Voters of Tomorrow’s Fight for Our Future Summit seemed to lack the authenticity that Kirk and his organization bring to the table.
“Well, also, you look at all the b-roll there from the Democrat event — where’s the patriotism?” Kirk said.
“Where’s the American flag? Where’s the Americana?”
The co-hosts discussed a recently released poll from Pew Research Center that showed 52% of men between ages 18 and 29 lean toward the Republican Party, compared to 34% for Democrats.
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When asked by co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy what these numbers signal to him, the TPUSA founder laid out his case for why Gen Z men are resonating with the Republican Party.
“This tells me that there’s finally a pushback and a rebellion against everything that has happened culturally over the last five years,” he said.
“I mean, you think of — we had the lockdowns, but the other part of the COVID mess was all the wokeism that was just force-fed to our nation’s youth. You can see a big split amongst Generation Z, and I think this is a very important point.”
Kirk added: “There is nothing less masculine than saying you have to sit home all day and not be able to leave your house, and you have to just stare at a screen,” and made the point that the entire “COVID mess” led young men to seek out more masculine voices, such as podcasters Joe Rogan and Theo Von.
Earlier in the show, Kirk mocked Democrats’ decision to have former DNC Vice Chair David Hogg speak at the event, jokingly referring to Hogg as the “American symbol of masculinity.”
Later on Saturday, Democratic attorney and strategist Julian Epstein warned that the summit only reinforced that the party has a slew of problems and “no clear plan.”
“Voters don’t like the sound of the Democrats. It’s the forever grievance, forever obstructionist party,” he told “Fox News Live,” arguing that most voters don’t like “woke” politics or the party’s socialist-style economic policies.