Backstage with Trump: Diet Coke, Snickers & No Water | Lauren Toncich DSH #1063

That clip of Charlie crying those tears, it got like what 100 million views.

It was iconic.

I was watching it from home that night.

They said we like won Pennsylvania.

It didn't really click in my head.

That basically meant that we won everything.

And then I see Charlie start crying and I started crying.

I mean, you guys are probably working day and night, like

for a year straight.

Oh, yeah.

All right, guys, we got Lauren from Turning Point here.

First ever podcast.

Thanks for choosing me to come on.

Thanks for having me.

I'm excited.

Absolutely.

It's going to be fun to dive into the behind the scenes world of conferences and events.

That's what you do, right?

Yes, I am.

I'm

like the

vice president of events here at Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action.

I'm doing it for about seven years now.

Actually, attended my first, I got into this whole world by attending SAS 2017 as a student December.

So almost seven years ago to the day.

And in my final interview there, a few days later, they're like, hey, I want to move out to Phoenix.

Never really heard of Turning Point, ever heard Charlie, but I was a conservative.

And I was like, you know what?

This sounds like a good opportunity.

And I was blessed to come in at a great time when Turning Point was growing and now kind of be a small part of the machine that Charlie has built.

Phenomenal.

What was he like back then as a leader?

He's always been such a strong leader.

It's wild because, you know, I'm 29, Charlie's 31.

Our entire staff is like in their 20s for the most part.

Super young.

And, but Charlie, I really truly believe is once in like a once in like a lifetime like, you know, leader.

Um, he really looks out for his people, but he also expects a lot out of us.

Um, we, you know, like never settle for mediocre.

It's always greatness.

And he really pushes the bar, but I think that's why we've been so successful as a company, these events.

And I'm very blessed to work for him.

I don't, you know, if he wasn't that strong overly doubt, I don't know if I'd still be here, but

I'm really, really fortunate to kind of play a little small part in his little.

I keep hearing these stories of him, of people meeting him when he's like 18, 21, 24, and they're saying there's something special about him.

It really is.

And, you know, I'm fortunate enough to kind of consider him a friend now and his wife, Erica, who's actually absolutely amazing.

But he's firm, but he also, you know, really believes in just

doing the best you can do and kind of expecting a lot, but also like recognizing and, you know, taking care of the people that put all the work.

Yeah.

I want to dive into Amfest since we're here.

Over 20,000 people.

20,000 people.

Speaking lineup is probably the best I've ever seen

in the political space.

Thank you.

What was the mission when Amfest was starting up?

When MFEST was started, like I mentioned, when I was a student, I was Sasquay 17, and that was our kind of winter event.

And then we just realized a turning point while we're, yes, a student movement, that's always our focus, that the movement was growing much bigger.

And there was a really strong

earning for the adult and the young adults to kind of come in and also have something that they can be a part of.

And so we moved our Student Action Summit to the summer and then made Amfest here in Phoenix, which is where we're actually based out of, as the all-encompassing all-ages event was still obviously a like student focus, but to really just be the largest gathering of conservatives to provide an opportunity for me outlets such as yourself to like come and be around passionate patriots, to have sponsoring organizations, amazing speakers, all of our students, and really just cultivate

a much larger movement than we have.

Yeah, because prior to MFEST, it was just RNC, right?

There was no other band.

RNC and their CPAC, which is, you know, they're all amazing organizations.

We all work together.

We all support each other.

But, you know, we were kind of known for our flashiness, how exciting it was.

And the Student Action Summit name.

People always were like, well, I'm not a student.

Like, we did have adult tickets.

We did, we wanted to, you know, keep that very student focused.

focused so we're like well why don't we make something that you know is for everybody not just that student base and now with like turning point action as well which is more of the young adult adult crowd it really just merges the two organizations together very well absolutely you think trump's gonna make everyone do a trump dance tomorrow during his speech i think he should

benny did that yesterday and he was talking about it backstage and benny's a great friend um um i has been for like years he was telling me yesterday i was like that's actually really cool and so like they got like all the cameras wide shot you saw everyone doing the old dance i was like i love it so i think trump trump should i'll tell his team that's awesome have you done the dance yet yourself oh of course i have i haven't done it yet you haven't no such like okay i might have to break it out to you and then little golf swing that he's been you know throwing in lately yeah yeah he's looking like a trumpet moves he's been doing that dance for a while it's just like a signature iconic thing it's great yeah i love it when did you first get into politics

Really, when I started working here, my family grew up in communism.

And so first generation American from Croatia.

And my parents just always super conservative growing up.

I was like, okay, dad, stop talking, stop talking.

And then when I was in high school learning about politics, I was like, okay, one side kind of makes more sense.

And then when Trump ran in 2016, I think that was a pivotal moment for a lot of people, especially like our generation, when it was like, there was something that collected something exciting.

And that's when I kind of got more interested in it.

And my dad and I went to Trump Rally in San Diego, which is where I'm from.

And we got there two hours early.

And we're like, okay, we are going to, you know, make sure that we get a good spot.

And we got there and we were in the back of the room and we were actually like so excited because we're like, if he's pulling these crowds in San Diego, like we have a shot here.

And I'm actually excited because dad's here and we haven't been to a Trump event since then.

And tables have turned a lot.

So it's exciting, but that's kind of what kind of sparked my interest in the movement.

And I went to SAS and kind of fell in love.

And now I never thought you could work in politics without like running for office, but I was very, very wrong on that.

There's so much you can do within politics that isn't, you know, being an elected official.

And it's a blast.

That's beautiful.

I've seen my mother's journey too.

She grew up in China, so communist.

And we grew up then she moved and I was raised in New Jersey.

So super liberal state.

So we grew up Democrat, but now she's, I think she voted for Trump.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

Even my mom, like, she was born in like Croatia and then moved here when she was 12.

And she's always been, you know, conservative.

My dad was very conservative.

But over the last, you know, six years, I've watched her turn from a, yeah, I'm voting red to a, I love Trump.

I have to win.

And it's so fun because she's like, where's her MAGA hat?

She ran into Charlie not too long ago.

I wasn't even there.

And she asked him for a picture.

And it's just so funny to see how much, you know, how invested she is now and just kind of what Trump's done for the movement and done for our country.

It's absolutely.

Yeah, this election was probably the biggest shift I've ever seen.

Oh, and seeing it, you know, especially firsthand, like, you know, again, like Turning Point's done so much on the event side alone.

We did, this will be our seventh rally with President Trump.

So we've done a lot with him, a lot of big events, but that's just one small part of what Turning Warren has done.

We have our campus tours, which did like 24 stops, pulling thousands of students on every campus.

And seeing those videos of these college students on these liberal campuses swarming Charlie, winning the MAGA hats.

And like some of my favorite clips post-election were the ones from like NBC and CNN that were like, you know, they're not thrilled about it, but they're standing there and they're like, well, you know, actually, Charlie Kirk changed a lot of these minds.

And to be a part of that and just to see that cultural shift was absolutely amazing.

That was such a brilliant strategy because these campuses have pretty much been indoctrinated, indoctrinated, right?

To think liberally.

I went to Rutgers and it was, I don't remember one single conservative on campus.

No, I went to Boulder, which is, you know, known for being like super liberal.

I will say I was only there for a year and a half.

The classes I had, the teachers were actually like pretty neutral.

It wasn't that bad.

But I remember walking around campus and just like some bizarre people and like the socialist booths and stuff.

And, but back then when I was in school, Turning Point was just getting started and they hadn't made their way onto Boulder's campus yet.

So I didn't even know what Turning Point was.

But they just had like a small, a few smaller other organizations, but like the meetings were like three, four people.

They didn't really do much.

And then Turning Point like just blew up on campus, making it cool, making it fun.

That's why we do these events so crazy.

And like, yeah, it's over the top.

I'm very aware that that room is insane, but we do that because we want to make it exciting and fun and engaging so that especially young people are like, wow, you know, it's actually.

It's cool to be a conservative.

Like it's not just some boring, stuffy old person thing.

Like it's cool to be a part of a movement bigger than yourself.

Yeah, I feel like there was a lot of shame too a few years ago of labeling yourself up.

Yeah.

And now it's more accepted.

That's one of my favorite parts too, especially about this event, but all of ours is, you know, the notes and the letters and the texts and the messages that I get after from students that are like, hey, like I

thought that I was alone on my campus when I came and there's thousands of people that are think similarly to me or like I came by myself and I met some best friends.

Like I had a girl intern for me not too long ago who came to Young Women's Leadership Summit by herself, knew not a single person, met some best friends and they were in high school.

And for their birthdays, they would fly across the country to go hang out with each other and see each other.

And they still stay in touch.

And like you form those relationships that all started just from one event.

And now they're a chapter president, one's running for like city council.

Like it's just crazy to see where these people go.

That's the power of events.

You make lifelong connections, right?

Absolutely.

That's why I love in-person events.

And during the pandemic, everyone was going crazy because they couldn't see anyone.

We still did.

Oh, you still did them?

Well, we had to cancel everything, which that year was wild.

That was supposed to be our biggest year today.

And then we had like 18 contracts all signed, had to cancel all of them.

But then we actually, turning point of action, did President Trump's

second event back post-COVID.

I don't know if you remember the first one was Tulsa, Oklahoma.

When

I think it was Soros or someone flooded or had his little bots flooded with like fake registration.

So it wasn't very well attended.

So there was so much pressure on us to make sure that that next one was like packed.

And it was, thankfully.

And then we ended the year with our student action summit that year still in West Palm Beach.

So a lot of COVID restrictions, but the demand was insane.

People like people, people knew what the risk was.

It's like, hey, if you're going to go spend Christmas with some elderly grandparents, maybe this is not the best event for you to come to.

Like, you know what, like, you know, like, but the demand was absolutely insane.

And we had so many people there just ready to be back in person and back to normal.

Yep.

And we were, you know, among the first to really do that.

Yeah, that's awesome.

It's cool to see you guys pivoted because a lot of events companies got wrecked during the pandemic.

I was so sad.

I honestly, I remember telling Charlie, I was like, if I have to get furloughed or let go for a bit, like I'm not going to be happy about it, but I understand.

But thankfully, you know, like I said, Charlie's amazing.

They take care of the whole time.

He's all the time.

Kept us the whole time.

I remember we were working from home, but I was the director.

So I had an office.

So we could still come in if we wanted to.

And I was coming in because I was like, I'm going to go crazy if I stay at home for like months.

And so I came in and there wasn't much for me to do, honestly, because we had no event.

So Charlie was signing, you know, Charlie got like creative.

Like he was going from all these campus stops to nothing.

And so Charlie would be just signing books, sending them to donors, doing media hits, and whatever.

I was like getting coffee for him, helping him sign books, just like doing whatever I could to stay busy.

Wow.

And I was like, you know, I'm blessed to still have a job.

I want to be a part of this.

And

we all got through it.

Shout out to you for having that mindset, though, because a lot of people would have just given up, you know.

Yeah.

And they wouldn't want to lower their bar.

Yeah, I know.

The work ethic is real.

You know, I definitely have to have that to work at turning point and to do events in the first place.

But we have an amazing team that's, they deserve all the credit.

It's really not me.

I'm just here.

You mentioned Soros earlier.

So he's trying to get an alternative media podcast space now.

He just acquired a show last week called Hot Ones.

Have you seen that show where they eat spicy chicken wings?

It's like

I haven't seen it, but I've heard about that.

So Soros just bought that show for $82 million.

That's wild.

Yeah.

So he's trying to get in the alternative media space because he knows that's where they're going.

I mean, I know, obviously, it's been a big topic lately where that's a big reason why Trump won.

And a lot of credit is to, you know, Bear and his son, but also Bo Louden.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with him, Bo Lou.

Yeah, he's here.

Yeah, I love Bo.

Bo was, you know, knows a lot of these people.

And, you know, Trump did something that no other president

has ever done, is he embraced the podcast space, the alternative media space.

And, you know, I think that's kind of, I think that's part of the reason why he won the election, especially the Rogan thing.

Like, I like, I love Rogan too.

So that was awesome just to see him go on there.

And then J.D.

Vance killed it too.

Vance crushed up.

Vance was so good.

Vance is such an awesome guy.

That, like,

one of Charlie's favorite stories in mine too is Vance wasn't supposed to come to our People's Convention in July.

He couldn't make his, like,

like it was like

a Senate vote thing.

But Charlie, you know, this was like about a month before the announced VP and everyone knew that JD was in the like on the short list.

And, you know, Charlie and I like JD have been friends for a while.

And Charlie was like, hey, man, like, I think it's really important that you come.

So JD Vance flew in from DC on like late Saturday night, drove himself from Ohio to Michigan Sunday morning on Father's Day by himself, no posse, no staff, just drove in, super nice, super gracious, spoke, drove home, still made at home.

Wow.

And just one of the nicest, most humble people.

And it's really been awesome to see him on his journey.

And you know, Charlie and Turning Point was a big reason why he got elected into the Senate in the first place and kind of see how hard that goes.

Yeah, you guys are an awesome guy.

You guys campaigned for him early on, right?

Yeah, we actually did an event with him.

I remember with Governor DeSantis and him in, gosh,

some small part of Ohio back in 2022.

And that was like one of his final events before the election.

Wow.

So we've been a supporter of Vince since day one.

He's awesome.

I know he was a heavy underdog, right?

Yeah, he was.

He was a heavy underdog and then won the primary.

And then even then, it was, you know, Ohio, like, thankfully, I think it's like, I think the Senate races are typically super close, but, you know, the president rate, I think Trump won by a few points, but that was a tight one for him.

But I'm proud to stand by his back for a while.

Can't wait for the inauguration.

I'm so excited.

Are you guys having an event for that too?

We're currently planning a ball.

I'm not supposed to be supposed to say that, but this will air after, actually.

so doesn't matter but um we're gonna announce that soon we're doing a ball on the 19th and then i think that's it i've never been to one i haven't either i'm so excited

yeah i remember in 2016 my dad and i talked about going as like you know just getting like we're super fans like had no political connections what i think it was we were like it just be fun to go and we ended up not going just because we're like dc in january especially if you don't have any sort of like tickets or connections like it's really cold it could be absolutely miserable and you know being from california we don't really do cold weather so we ended up not going and And I think it was really cold that day.

I'm excited to experience it, see it.

I've been looking at hotel prices.

It's a little depressing.

It's bad.

It's a thousand bucks for like a three-star hotel.

Oh, yeah, no, it's, it's insane.

And I mean, I actually bought a ticket to the inauguration or a flight to the inauguration before.

Oh, smart.

Oh, before he was announced to win?

Wow.

So you were coming.

That was crazy.

And that was before I've been to Turning Point would do anything if he did win.

We were just so focused.

I was like, you know what?

Screw it.

I'm just going to buy it.

At least I was like, if he doesn't win, I get a flight credit for it.

But he won.

And now we're doing something.

So that works out.

That clip of Charlie crying, those tears, it got like, what, 100 million views?

It was iconic.

I was watching it from home that night and I had Charlie on my main screen, Fox on his side, one.

We had like a different TV pull up with like CNN just watching all of it.

And when they said we, we like won Pennsylvania, it didn't really click in my head that that basically meant that we won everything.

And then I see Charlie start crying.

I started crying.

I was like, holy crap.

Especially all the hard work that Trey did, all the sacrifice that he and his family made

and a landslide victory, too.

Yeah.

I mean, you guys are probably working day and night, like

for a year straight.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

And it was always like more, more, more, more, more.

It was to the point where we would look at these schedules sometimes and be like, we don't even know if it's possible to get everywhere.

Like, there was one time, like, oh, God, I think it was like.

Two weeks before the election, we had a rally in Duluth, Georgia planned.

We called it the mother of all Trump rallies.

It was stacked.

It was like Jason Aldean, Tucker, like all these people.

So that was planned.

It was an arena.

And then a week before Charlie calls me and he's like, hey, we're doing Trump again in Vegas.

I was like, awesome.

He goes, the day after Georgia.

And I was like, what do you mean, the day after Georgia?

He was like, yes, we have Georgia on the 22nd, Vegas on the 23rd.

And I was like, how in the world?

But somehow we all made it happen.

We

took a 5 a.m.

flight out that next day and landed in Vegas and then did it again.

And then you guys hit UNLV that trip too, I think.

Yeah.

And then on top of that, yes, Charlie did

University of Georgia the day before we had Trump in Georgia.

The morning that we had Trump in Georgia, Turning Point USA Faith had a pastor summit.

And then we had Trump that evening.

And then the next day, Charlie went on campus at UNLV.

Crazy.

And then we did Trump that night.

Yeah.

And then I'm pretty sure the day after Charlie had a different campus job, too.

Like, the man is a machine.

I remember that trip because I was in Vegas and he was supposed to come on the pod and they had a camp.

So I'm like, dude, I totally get it.

You're probably all over.

And even Trump was doing like three rallies a day that week.

Yeah.

No, the same one that that man has too and just his mcdonald's and his age i'm like props joe biden can't even form a sentence or speak more than once a year it's wild there's a meme right now that uh no one's ever seen trump with a water bottle i never have like he doesn't drink water no it's like and it's like snacks and stuff backstage it's like sodas panta diet coke stickers lays and he's an absolute machine it makes you wonder if he ate healthy like would he be even better than he is right but he's like well it's consistent i know what i'm getting i'm like it's fair like i like mcdonald's too but like, I feel like crap after, though.

Yeah.

Like, I cannot eat McDonald's.

If I had McDonald's before podcasting, it'd be a terrible episode.

Yeah, no, I would just feel

caffeine.

That's all you need.

Well, Lauren, it's been awesome.

Can't wait to finish off Amfest.

What else you got planned?

We have a busy day today.

I don't even know what's this today's Saturday.

There's some breakouts today, main stage.

We have our faith night tonight, which is supposed to be tomorrow.

But when the president says he can only come on Sunday and we rearrange everything for him.

And so it's going to be a long night sweep to start.

I think at 2 a.m.

Doors are going to open at 6, and we're excited to welcome the 47th president back to State 48.

I love it.

Well, stay tuned, guys.

Thanks for coming on, and we'll link your socials below.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

See you guys.