Charlie Kirk comes to campus

The Turning Point USA founder spoke about “the fight for Western Civilization” and the diversity efforts that threaten it. He debated students about autism and deportation.

Right-wing activist Charlie Kirk graced the University of Wyoming campus Thursday evening, speaking before an audience of hundreds in a full auditorium.

Before a sea of red MAGA hats and the young faces beneath them, Kirk expounded on the virtues of the Trump Administration, focusing on the president’s campaign against affirmative action, DEI and related issues.

Following a brief 15-minute speech, Kirk started taking questions from the audience, devoting the rest of his event to fielding praise and debating students.

Kirk is the founder of Turning Point USA, an organization that aims to take back universities from the leftist or Marxist forces who allegedly run them.

Turning Point funnels money into student government elections on university and college campuses and maintains a “Professor Watchlist” — a website that publishes names and photos of university instructors it accuses of pushing “leftist propaganda.”

Its local chapter on the Laramie campus is a significant force in UW student politics and is closely allied with the state Freedom Caucus.

Hundreds attended the sold-out rally Thursday.

Turning Point at UWYO President Gabe Saint opened the night by thanking event staff and leading the audience in prayer.

In addition to running the Turning Point chapter at UW, Saint is also a student senator. He ran, unsuccessfully, for student government president in 2024 with the backing of Wyoming’s hardline Freedom Caucus. The caucus chairman said at the time conservative student voices were being silenced.

Students, when surveyed, say they feel free to speak their mind at UW.

In the year since that student election, the Freedom Caucus has led the legislative charge against transgender rights, diversity programs at UW, and campus gun restrictions.

In June, a Laramie Reporter investigation revealed Saint had ties to white supremacist and antisemitic organizers. A review of the rising politico’s online activity showed he regularly engaged with hateful content targeting Jews and LGBTQ+ people, while endorsing calls for Christian Nationalism and praise for authoritarian governments.

After Saint’s welcome, before Kirk’s entrance, the audience heard from comedian Jobob Taeleifi, who describes himself as “the internet’s most lovable right-wing extremist.”

“This is such a beautiful campus,” Jobob said on stage. “I was able to walk around a little bit. Beautiful, gorgeous campus. Unlike California, I was walking around here, I saw zero homeless people pooping on the streets.”

He continued.

“What I also love about the University of Wyoming is your mascot’s the Cowboys, and then for the girls’ sports, it’s the Cowgirls — and nobody has a problem with it,” Jobob said to laughter and applause. “If you do this in California, it’d be like the cow-theys, the cow people … The mascot would probably be Lizzo.”

This final zinger earned Jobob a scandalized ripple of “oh” as the laughter continued.

Before launching into his speech, Kirk threw dozens of “Make America Great Again” hats to an eager audience.

Kirk praised Trump’s executive orders targeting critical race theory, affirmative action, disparate impact and DEI — using those orders to frame his central message to UW.

“This is a fight for Western civilization,” Kirk said. “A fight that, praise God, President Trump is taking to the left every single day.”

Kirk argued America has fallen from its meritocratic past. He said it has become a country that pushes a new kind of racism against white people in the misguided pursuit of ever more diversity.

“Anti-white racism has been growing like crazy in the last 10 years in this country,” he said.

If black students regularly fail a test that white students ace, Kirk said, the problem is not the test because “there’s never been a test created where all groups do the same. We have differences … You’re going to have different outcomes over time.”

Trump, he said, is getting the U.S. back on track.

“The type of country that we want to live in is the one that we’ve lost that we want to try to get back,” Kirk said. “If you have a certain circumstance, and it might not be as diverse as you like, you should ask the question: But is it excellent? And if it’s not diverse, but it’s excellent, then that’s okay, because we prioritize excellence over diversity.”

Kirk spent a majority of his time on stage debating students, who challenged him on a number of issues. One student started a debate by asking:

Why are they [the Trump Administration] refusing to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia?

Kirk and the student went back and forth for several minutes, litigating Abrego Garcia’s history, status, tattoos and clothing. At one point, Kirk asked the student why he cares so much. The student responded:

Because I care that everyone under the United States gets afforded the rights under the Constitution, and if we bypass that for him, what’s stopping us from bypassing that for literally anybody else?

Kirk replied:

Well, he’s not an American.

The audience responded with whistles and cheers.

A different student challenged Kirk about Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s plan to create an autism “registry.” Kennedy has long been interested in autism, but repeatedly misrepresents the science and symptoms of autism, according to experts. He said recently autism “destroys” families and children by keeping them from being productive members of society.

The student challenged these statements and asked Kirk to defend them. Kirk said the student was mischaracterizing what Kennedy said and defended the secretary’s interest in autism:

Bobby spent his entire life trying to get to the root cause of autism. I think you should agree: we should try to find that out, right?

The student, who identified themselves as being on the spectrum, replied:

We already know. It’s a genetic issue. It just so happens to show up in people.

But autism diagnoses are rising, Kirk said.

Kirk: There’s something probably causing it. And I’m not even saying it’s vaccines. I don’t know that. Some people believe it. Some people don’t believe it.

Student: Well, we know it’s not vaccines.

Kirk: That you don’t know.

Student: Yes, we do.

This debate continued, with Kirk arguing people should study whether there’s a link between vaccines and autism, and the student pointing out they have.

“I know more about this than you, Charlie,” the student said at one point, during a rapid-fire exchange, drawing an impressed “oh” from the audience.

Kirk wasn’t done.

“I think you, as someone who cares about this topic, should be extremely open-minded to all the data and not ideological about this,” he said. “Whatever the studies end up showing — that need to be controlled and double peer-reviewed — ”

“We have those studies, Charlie,” the student countered, accurately.

Despite concerns that UW students or other attendees could get rowdy during the right-wing organizer’s visit to campus, no such disruptions occurred.

A handful of silent observers held signs near the auditorium doors, challenging departing audience members to “Wake up and smell the fascism.”

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