Charlie Kirk Gave His Team An Impossible Task. Now They’re Fighting To Make It A Reality.

This past August in Aspen, Colorado, Charlie Kirk set his team an impossible goal. 

Kirk was convinced high school was the most important outreach point, according to Josh Thifault, who spearheads the Club America initiative for Turning Point USA. It’s when young Americans decide what values they want to build their life on. By the time many reach college, where TPUSA has a massive footprint, it’s already too late.

At the Colorado meeting for TPUSA leadership, Kirk told Thifault and his team that they weren’t close to where they needed to be. They had 1,200 Club America chapters. Kirk said that number needed to be 20,000. 

That was the last conversation Thifault had with his longtime friend and boss. Since Kirk’s assassination weeks later on September 10, Thifault has made it his mission to get the 20,000 Club America chapters, honoring his friend’s final request.

Thifault says there has already been a surge of requests to start Club America chapters, taking the number from 1,200 to 3,000. He now thinks the “almost impossible goal” can be a reality.

“God has given us an opportunity to achieve Charlie’s almost impossible goal,” Thifault tells The Daily Wire. “His ways are not our ways, but it is our responsibility to see this through.” 

The response to Kirk’s political assassination has been described as a political revival on the Right, with a surge of interest in the organization. It sold out tickets for its flagship convention this weekend, America Fest, cutting off registration weeks ago because the massive convention center hit capacity.

Thifault says TPUSA has grown into more than just a conservative organization.

“We’re watching Turning Point evolve from being more than just a conservative politically-themed organization,” Thifault says. “I’m watching our students care more and more about faith, I’m watching our students care more about the social aspects of our value system. They have a lot of questions about getting married, a lot of questions about having kids.”

Thifault is capitalizing on TPUSA’s growing reach by working directly with states to put Club America chapters in every high school. The longtime TPUSA executive has secured partnerships with Florida, Tennessee, and Texas. 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis invited 150 TPUSA students to the Governor’s Mansion in Tallahassee after announcing the partnership. Texas Governor Greg Abbott held a large-scale press conference in Austin, where his Lieutenant Governor, Dan Patrick, announced a $1 million donation to the Club America and TPUSA expansion in the Lone Star State. In Tennessee, Senator Marsha Blackburn and Riley Gaines fired up the crowd of students on-site at the State Capitol to stand up for their values.

“I watched these state leaders one by one catch that vision that Charlie instilled in us before he died,” Thifault says. “It’s very important for the people in charge of the state to catch that vision. They’re not just doing it to honor Charlie, they’re doing it because they understand the way that changes the social fabric of their state.”

In Thifault’s speech at the Nashville event with Blackburn and Gaines, he predicted that it would have a permanent political impact on the state.

“You cannot fundamentally change the fabric of a nation unless the heart of the nation turns back to God, and that starts in you,” Thifault said at the event. “We will look back on this day and say Tennessee was permanently a conservative state for 50 years, 100 years, because of the courage of our state leaders today.”

READ MORE: Tennessee And Turning Point USA Team Up To Start Chapters At Every High School

The partnerships ensure that Club America chapters can be formed at any school, no matter what administrators think about it. Thifault says every conservative governor in the nation should follow suit.

“I’m calling on every conservative governor in the nation to do an event like this with us and make promises, and create a culture where a leftist teacher or administrator is scared to trample on the First Amendment rights of a 15-year-old.”

Photo by Aaron E. Martinez/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images

Thifault has spent the last three months calling lawmakers, scheduling meetings with governors to make Kirk’s goal of 20,000 Club America chapters a reality. 

“It’s just a lot of clipboard and tennis shoes-style activism right now.”

The boots-on-the-ground work Thifault is doing reminds him of his early days with Kirk, when they worked together a decade ago to get TPUSA off the ground. 

“Charlie was working 100 to 120 hours a week, he would be so busy that he wouldn’t have time to eat,” Thifault recalled. “He would get enough calories to stay alive by drinking a morning latte.” 

Credit: Josh Thifault

Thifault says the surge to 3,000 chapters doesn’t even represent how much momentum is behind the initiative.

“The demand is even greater than the growth. In the weeks following Charlie’s passing, we had 135,000 people reach out, saying they wanted to start or join chapters.”

Thifault says TPUSA has been ready to respond to the demand because of Erika Kirk’s leadership. Erika took over for her husband as the leader of TPUSA and immediately went to work on doubling the infrastructure of the organization in 2026.

“She’s very passionate about this,” Thifault said. “I am thrilled not just with that, but also with her focus on the spiritual — which you’ve seen in a lot of her speeches. The reason why we’re able to grow this quickly is because Erika has continued the visions Charlie put in place.”

Erika has been praised for how quickly she stepped into the leadership role while still grieving her husband’s death. Thifault said Charlie left specific instructions on how he wanted his company to move forward in case something happened to him. 

“It was because Charlie explicitly left wishes that she take over with the goal of continuing the set vision for the organization,” Thifault says. “He was keenly aware that something could happen to him, and he wanted the train to keep going in the same direction.”

The fall tour, the biggest convention ever, and rapid expansion are all things Thifault said are because of Erika’s commitment to Charlie’s mission. 

“I cannot overstate the importance of that,” Thifault said.

TPUSA has come a long way from its first end-of-year conference in 2015, which Thifault attended. It was about 100 students, in a room with no windows, eager to hear Charlie Kirk’s message. 

Ten years later, there are 30,000 people in a convention center. It’s the first conference without Kirk, but his message lives on — build a movement rooted in faith, freedom, and love of country, and bring it to the next generation.

“What’s the best thing spiritually and culturally and politically for the nation? When a student is a teenager, show them the truth and let them build their lives on it,” Thifault said. 

He said that’s possible through Club America.

“The most efficient thing we can do as a society is to make sure that before students even become adults, they’re building their lives on the way, the truth, and the light.”