On election night, a Southern California pastor in a red MAGA hat filmed a message for his Instagram followers, cheering President-elect Donald Trump’s victory.

Rob McCoy thanked God — and Charlie Kirk, one of the Republican Party’s most influential power brokers.

“This is the epicenter of a rebirth of freedom,” McCoy said from the Phoenix headquarters of Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA.

Kirk, the 31-year-old conservative firebrand, rallied his millions of online followers to support Trump, prompting conservative podcast host Megyn Kelly to say, “It’s not an understatement to say that this man is responsible for helping the Republicans win back the White House and the U.S. Senate.”

The Atlantic dubbed Kirk “the right’s new kingmaker.”

And the man the kingmaker calls his pastor is McCoy, of Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Newbury Park.

McCoy gained notoriety during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when he defied public health orders and continued to hold mask-free indoor church services.

He sees in Trump a man persecuted by the left, who, while “flawed like the rest of us,” was chosen by God to lead a sinful nation that, in his opinion, allows too many abortions and is too accepting of transgender rights.

“God saved us,” McCoy told his congregants in his first sermon after Trump won. “He gave us mercy. We didn’t deserve this.”

McCoy, a vaccine skeptic who has been senior pastor at Godspeak for 25 years, told The Times he considers Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaccine activist whom Trump has chosen to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, “a good friend.” At his church he has hosted MAGA luminaries like Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, and Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor. And, of course, Kirk.

Charlie Kirk, founder and executive director of Turning Point USA, speaks during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Kirk, a millionaire known for his memes and college campus tours meant to “own the libs,” has credited McCoy for persuading him to meld his right-wing politics, nationalism and evangelical faith.

Although Kirk founded Turning Point USA in 2012 as an avowedly secular youth organization, he now declares that God is on the side of American conservatives, and that pastors have a divine duty to preach against progressive policies. There is, he has said, “no separation of church and state.”

In a speech to Trump supporters in Georgia last month, Kirk said that “the Democrat Party supports everything that God hates” and that “there is a spiritual battle happening around all of us.”

Kirk’s online reach is vast: 1.5 million followers on Rumble, 2.7 million on YouTube, 4 million on X and 5 million on TikTok. His nonprofit, Turning Point Action , largely ran Trump’s ground game in swing states like Arizona and Wisconsin.

After Trump’s victory, McCoy joked from the pulpit: “This week, Charlie’s going back to Washington to meet with the president because he’s going to call in his markers.”

Kirk, in recent days, has posted to social media from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, where the president-elect has been naming MAGA loyalists to his Cabinet. After Trump tapped former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general, Kirk posted a video to X from the passenger seat of a vehicle. Gaetz was behind the wheel and joked that his new job was “Charlie Kirk’s driver.”

Asked if Kirk is advising the president-elect or being considered for a role in the administration, Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, in a statement, said only that Trump’s appointments “will continue to be announced by him when they are made.”

McCoy ran unsuccessfully for state Assembly in 2014. But as Kirk’s reach has grown, so, too, has McCoy’s.

In early April 2020, the beginning of the pandemic, McCoy, a former mayor of Thousand Oaks, resigned from the City Council, saying he planned to violate public health orders that banned in-person church services because they were deemed nonessential and dangerous.

He dubbed Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom as “Newssolini,” decried government “tyranny” and had his YouTube page shut down — “censored,” he says — when the platform cracked down on misleading and inaccurate content about the virus and vaccines.

After a San Diego judge allowed strip clubs to reopen, McCoy followed the suggestion of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and pretended his church was an “essential” adult entertainment venue; in the sanctuary, he danced to striptease music, throwing his tie into the congregation, where worshipers held up dollar bills.

Ventura County sued McCoy‘s church for defying public health orders. The county eventually dropped its suit, but Godspeak sued back, alleging its 1st Amendment rights had been trampled. In 2022, a state appellate court sided with the county, but one effect of the pandemic, McCoy says, was his congregation quadrupling to about 1,500.

Kirk, whose college speaking gigs were hampered by campus closures, was welcomed in churches like McCoy’s.

In a 2021 interview, Kirk said that McCoy, in their first meeting, told him: “You’re a Christian, and I want to tell you that not only does the Bible say a lot about civil government, not only does the Bible say a lot about how we should interact with our leaders, but I think you should talk more publicly about that.”

Pastor Rob McCoy, in a 2020 photo, resigned from the Thousand Oaks City Council because he was at odds with government-imposed restrictions on gatherings during the pandemic.

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Three years ago, Kirk shared the power of his Turning Points brand with McCoy, who helped launch TPUSA Faith, which offers training and networking for pastors wanting to be more politically outspoken.

Turning Point USA and TPUSA Faith did not return requests from The Times for comment.

Matthew Boedy, a professor of rhetoric and composition at the University of North Georgia, said that “Rob McCoy was the person who turned Charlie Kirk to Christian nationalism, and very specifically the Seven Mountains Mandate,” the idea that Christians should try to influence the seven pillars of cultural influence: arts and entertainment, business, education, family, government, media and religion.

Christian nationalism holds that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and that Christianity should have primacy in government and law.

“Charlie Kirk has tremendous power both in the evangelical world and Trump world and nationally, and he has tremendous resources that he is putting into all seven areas of cultural influence,” said Boedy, who is writing a book about Kirk. “Trump has allowed him to do that, given him space to do it. But Rob McCoy is the person that convinced him to do it.”

In an interview with The Times, McCoy insisted he is “not a dominionist” — one who believes the country should be governed by Christians. He said Trump appears to be “searching” and growing in his own faith, but that he has been successful in each of the seven pillars and that God appears to be working through him.

“He’s a bull in a China shop,” McCoy said. “But he also keeps his promises. … I’m not looking for a pastor in chief. I’m looking for a bodyguard for Western civilization.”

McCoy, like pastors on both sides of the political aisle, openly flouts the Johnson Amendment, a 1954 law that bars tax-exempt organizations from participating in political campaigns and endorsing candidates. (Trump has said he wants to “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment, which would require an act of Congress.)

McCoy said he is disgusted by Christians saying they “don’t do politics because politics is dirty, as though the rest of the world and they themselves are pure.”

He also bristles at the term “Christian nationalist,” saying there’s nothing wrong with loving God and his country at the same time.

Trump — who, polls show, won the support of 8 in 10 white evangelical voters in this election — is one of many Republican politicians who have courted evangelicals.

But Trump, more than most others, has cast himself as a divinely chosen and wrongly persecuted protector of Christians, telling his supporters that he’s “standing between you and the secular left that is out to get you,” said Barry Hankins, a history professor at Baylor University who has written books about evangelicalism.

As the United States has become more progressive and secular — at the same time congregations are shrinking and aging — Christians have lost much of their cultural power, leaving many to feel under assault, Hankins said.

“Trump is brilliant at just picking up on this and marketing it and branding it for his own political purposes,” he said.

The Republican Party platform, while vague on many topics, specifically says the GOP will champion prayer and reading the Bible in schools.

McCoy, citing Trump’s ability to weather indictments, setbacks and assassination attempts, called his election a “miracle.”

He likens Trump to Samson, a flawed biblical figure who was used by God for a greater purpose. “He’s got iconic hair and a propensity for women,” McCoy said of Samson. “Trump’s got iconic hair and a propensity for women.”

As for restricting abortion, Trump — who has vacillated on the issue — is not exactly where the pastor would like him to be, but “has done more for the life movement than any other president in modern history, period,” McCoy said.

Evangelical activists say they expect him to do more. In a letter to the Trump transition team, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention urged the Trump to take steps to curtail access to the abortion pill mifepristone.

McCoy said that with Trump returning to the White House, he sees a golden era for his efforts and those of TPUSA Faith to “remove wokeness” — including diversity initiatives and critical race theory — from the American church.

He said he plans to start a podcast in which he discusses politics. And next July, he will step down as senior pastor at Godspeak (though he will still have a speaking role), because of his growing role with TPUSA Faith.

Days before the election, McCoy had preached that if Trump lost “life is going to take on catastrophic conditions” because of the evil espoused by the left.

But after Trump’s victory, he changed his tune.

“People who disagree with us are not the enemy,” he posted on Instagram. “They are the opportunity.”