Episode 18: AmFest Day 2

This episode of The Reagan Faulkner Show recaps a chaotic and exciting second day at AmFest, starting with breakout sessions hosted by Turning Point Education on dismantling the Department of Education and understanding Gen Z’s top policy pillars and voting trends. The discussion highlights how federal involvement is viewed as damaging to education, the rise of Turning Point Academy, and the crucial role Gen Z will play in either saving or breaking America’s future political landscape. The recap also covers Dr. Ben Carson’s argument that black Americans are not oppressed, that America fought a war which included ending slavery, and that BLM is a scam fueled by media-driven division.​

The evening general session is described as “scorched earth,” featuring appearances by Matt Shaw, James O’Keefe with undercover-style exposés, and Steve Bannon delivering a blistering critique of Ben Shapiro and outlining an America First, non–endless war posture. Reagan also highlights Vivek Ramaswamy’s calm challenge to the “diversity is our strength” mantra, plus a Megyn Kelly and Jack Posobiec Q&A unpacking internal TPUSA/Candace Owens/Erika Kirk drama and further pushback on Shapiro. The episode closes with anticipation for Day 3 speakers like Benny Johnson and Greg Gutfeld and an emphasis on the deeply Christ-centered, faith-driven focus of the event culminating in Faith Night.
 

Transcript

0:03

What's up guys and welcome back to the Regan Faulkner show This is a recap of day two of AmFest and yesterday was crazy y'all It was an amazing day. It was a chaotic day. It was Really everything you can think of when you imagine going to a convention like this. The speakers were great The speakers were out of pocket to be honest. We met some really cool people. So let's just jump right into it So we got to the convention and We had what's called breakout rooms and breakout rooms are really interesting. They're 45 minute Sessions, I guess you could say we're turning point education, which is the branch of turning point that focuses on Educating people equipping people and they also are developing a curriculum and trying to establish something called turning point Academy That is the branch that does these so the purpose of these is to specifically Teach students and teach attendees about things that they're interested in So the two breakout rooms that I went to yesterday we missed one and it's a long story that we're not going to get into but We missed one breakout session, which is all good second breakout session We went to was all about dismantling the Department of Education, which was absolutely fascinating That was with I think her name was Erica Donald's and Erica Donald's is just an amazing speaker She has worked in Florida and she served on the Florida school board and she really was a big advocate against Common core math back when that was a big deal So she was just an amazing speaker and she was talking about how the Department of Education is actually hurting the education system Instead of helping it and that the education system already had resources in place for the things that it's supposed to help before it was created so Super interesting to listen to the next one that we went to was about the Gen Z factor and the top four pillars that Gen Z voters are focusing on right now how they want the GOP to kind of adopt these four pillars into future policies and politics and candidates and just the relationship between turning point USA and college Republicans and how there's a really symbiotic relationship that can happen there if both parties are willing to work together and willing to use it as a sort of empowerment and Turning point as a place for empowerment and excitement and Resources and then college Republicans as more of a grassroots program So really really interesting talk that they gave super fascinating Lots of great questions were asked during the Q&A and that was probably my favorite one I really did enjoy listening to that one and seeing the statistics on how Gen Z is voting and how the future of America Statistically mathematically based on the data that was provided will make or break the United States and future policies and future candidates So after that, we listened to dr. Ben Carson gave his speech during the general session and he did a great job He just really focused on how black Americans aren't oppressed I think one of the most profound things that he said was when We see things like BLM and we see people hating America and saying America hates them. We have to remember that America For a variety of reasons specifically states rights was why the Civil War was fought, but it was also it was for slavery that was a specific Reason why the Civil War was fought so we have to keep in mind what dr. Carson was saying We have to keep in mind that America fought a war on behalf of the african-american population and that Americans don't hate african-americans that BLM is quite frankly a scam and that if we all stop looking at the media Then we really won't have so much hate and assume that the entire world hates us regardless of who we are regardless of if it's African-americans or other minority groups So his speech was really really interesting and then we did a bunch of other stuff We had the opportunity to meet Todd and Savannah Chrisley, which was just a dream come true. I love them So that was really really awesome. Really really fun. We had the opportunity to meet Scott Pressler If you don't know who he is, he basically goes around the country Working on election reform election laws and election integrity, so he was super fun to talk to we also met Nick Frieda's who was amazing He gave a great speech earlier in the general session right after dr. Carson, and he really just talked about the differences between the American left and the American right and how the left Celebrated the death of Charlie Kirk and kind of what that means for our country and what that means for our country's culture for lack Of better words, but he did a great job and then I'm trying to remember It was such a packed day I know the evening was when all of the excitement happened y'all the evening was absolutely wild We heard from it started off slow we heard from Matt Shaw who's a baseball player and he talked about his faith and did a Q&A who's very interesting to listen to but very very quiet and tame in comparison of what happened next so I Honestly cannot remember the exact order that everybody came in. I know James O'Keefe came out and he did like this entire production where his team came out and they all Dressed up like they were undercover in the same outfit and he was so funny He literally just put videos out of all of the like not all of the operations of a bunch of the funny operations that they've done where they've busted corruption and fraud within the government within Organizations and it was just it was really funny and he's looking for people to go undercover with him so that was super interesting to listen to and then we heard from Steve Bannon and after the Shapiro Tucker drama from night one Bannon went completely scorched earth on Shapiro and it was it was actually wild to watch Bannon did not hold back. He had so much to say about Shapiro He had so much to say about America first he had so much to say about the importance of working with Israel without dumping all of our resources into foreign conflicts foreign wars and Foreign agendas and he was just a great speaker, but he he completely went off It was absolutely insane We also heard from Viva Kramaswamy who talked about how diversity actually isn't our greatest strength as Americans and he was just super super calm super educated Super well-spoken He just he was very educational and I really enjoyed listening to him in between all of the drama that was going on and then finally, Megyn Kelly and Jack Sobiek did a Q&A where we heard kind of some behind-the-scenes details about what's been going on with Erica Kirk, Candace Owens, the TPUSA family, TPUSA staff and Kind of the impact that that has had and the role that Megyn Kelly played and actually helping moderate the sit-down that Candace and Erica had a few weeks ago and Kind of what came out of that and that they are in a place where I guess they're not Warring anymore was kind of what she was saying, but very very interesting to listen to some of those behind-the-scenes details She also went scorched earth on Ben Shapiro because on night one Ben Shapiro called her despicable So that was extremely interesting to see her kind of also go scorched earth Um, a lot of people were not on Ben Shapiro's team last night And I honestly have not watched a whole lot of Ben Shapiro. I haven't followed him So I don't really have anything that I can say in terms of what's going on there um, I think what he said on night one was completely uncalled for and completely out-of-pocket when Erica came out and said that we were going to Come together and embrace differences of opinions and really work as a team for 2026 and 2028 and for conservatism as a whole I think Him being the first speaker after that and what he did was a little bit of disservice to the movement and kind of set the Tone for some of these scorched earth out-of-pocket discussions and speeches, but I just think Megyn Kelly did a great job I'm so so excited today. We're gonna hear from Benny Johnson Greg Gutfeld AG Ken Paxton I'm trying to remember everybody else. It's going to be an absolutely packed day but I will have it all for y'all throughout the day on tik-tok on Instagram on Facebook and We'll have a recap for you tomorrow about everything that's going on. It's faith night So we'll have a lot of worship and a lot of prayer after the general session Which I'm extremely extremely excited for the whole thing has been so incredibly faith-based Everybody's faith here in Christ is so deep and I'm just really excited to watch them Just bring it out tonight with faith night, and I know it's going to be absolutely amazing and absolutely empowering So stay tuned for day three recap, and I can't wait to bring it to y'all. See on the next one