This is the era of weaponized name-calling: Charlie Kirk
Turning Point USA founder and president joins 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' to discuss riot police being mobilized for protests at the University of New Mexico against his speech on campus.
Turning Point USA president Charlie Kirk slammed raucous protesters whose attempts to shut down his "voluntary" event Wednesday at the University of New Mexico-Albuquerque sparked a visit from riot police.
Kirk, a conservative activist, said his event was organized to discuss the Constitution. He told "Tucker Carlson Tonight" Thursday he was flummoxed that others would find it objectionable, because it was a voluntary event set up to embrace the country the protesters themselves choose to live in.
"I wonder if they're paid — and why they were spending their evening to protest me and our Turning Point USA chapter just to talk about the U.S. Constitution and freedom of speech," he said. "It's really interesting when you try to show up on a college campus and do an optional voluntary event how angry the other side gets."
"But this is a very important moment for people to recognize and understand that the other side — the left, the radical left — they're acting like the very same domestic violent extremists that the entire federal government is now organized to go after," Kirk added.
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Charlie Kirk speaks onstage at Politicon 2018 at Los Angeles Convention Center on October 20, 2018, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images) (Getty)
Kirk noted the Biden administration regularly warns about right-wing entities being true threats to public safety and democracy. Meanwhile, President Biden's own political allies like the left-wing protesters who threaten what the president says he wants to protect.
"Go look at that footage [from the University of New Mexico] — Is that the Proud Boys? Is that the American Right? Are those conservatives? No, those people are on the left," Kirk said, wondering aloud who is paying the angry young objectors to hurl slurs, curses and more toward Turning Point and other right-leaning Americans.
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Kirk said two prior events on other college campuses had to be canceled because of the organized left-wingers' demonstrations, adding that the Albuquerque protesters appeared to have pre-made signs: which could undermine the supposition the protests were organic.
"I went there last evening to send a message to every one of these people, to send a message, one that's watching that we're going to stand for free speech. And you are not going to be able to disrupt our events or bully our students with force," he said.
"[M]ost people cower in fear when they're called a racist, they go into a place of paralysis. We are in the era of weaponized name-calling where people ask for forgiveness immediately, and they apologize for no reason just because they're called this."
Today's Democratic Party doesn't believe in individualism or speech, Kirk added, noting how the left prefers to categorize each person by arbitrary subgroups based on immutable characteristics rather than merit.
One UNM student, Leandro Pita, told a New Mexican NBC affiliate that Kirk represents hate and White supremacy and should not have been allowed to have an event.
"It’s an F.U. from them to the trans community, it’s an F.U. from them to the Black community, it’s an F.U. from them to all the communities who have marginalized even though we live in a post-modern society," said Pita.
Another local outlet reported three people were escorted off UNM property and served summonses.
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