WEST LA FAYETTE, Ind. — A crowd of 3,000 to 4,000 people turned out to hear Turning Point USA founder and CEO Charlie Kirk speak on Thursday at Purdue University, with many eager to ask the conservative commentator a question.
Kirk, the 31-year-old founder of the conservative student group, visited West La Fayette as part of his “American Comeback Tour.” The tour included stops this week at Illinois State University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
A campus police officer provided The College Fix with an estimate on attendance near the end of the event.
Hundreds of students lined the barriers surrounding Kirk, with many wearing white “47” hats for Trump or red “Make American Again” hats. Thousands more were on Krach Lawn, with a group of leftist activists, many wearing masks, yelling vulgar chants, and holding up cardboard signs reading “hate speech is not free speech,” “free Palestine,” and “hands off trans kids.”
Meanwhile, “this is what democracy looks like,” and other well-worn and generic chants filled the air along with the smell of fries and chicken from a nearby Chick-fil-A.
While there were some heated discussions, campus police and Kirk’s security kept the event running smoothly.
Students asked Kirk about a variety of questions, including about Israel, Taiwan, and tariffs.
This last subject interested one student The Fix spoke to, a senior aerospace engineering student named Phil, who said he worried the tariffs would affect the price of Miller Lite, which he said he enjoys drinking.
While Kirk’s “Prove Me Wrong” event acted as the main event, The Fix regularly observed young Trump and Turning Point USA supporters engaging in passionate, but respectful conversations with left-leaning students.
On several occasions, The Fix would hear a debate happening about a topic, such as Israel, leave, and then observe the same discussion still occurring 15 or 20 minutes later. Other students played the trumpets outside of the main area. One student set up a haircutting station in the middle of Krach Lawn.
The event generated enough interest that even non-Purdue students turned out for the event, with one high schooler sharing that he “technically” skipped class today to come to the event.
The student first heard about Turning Point USA through “Instagram and social media,” while a friend he came with started a chapter at their high school.
The Fix spoke to another high schooler, who will start at Purdue this coming school year.
“I just like seeing people get together and collaborate with what they love, like what their ideals are,” the student named Mason told The Fix. He hoped to hear more about what was “going on with the stock market,” the aspiring wildlife management major told The Fix.
A member of the Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter offered to speak to The Fix.
“Purdue YDSA is extremely concerned with the growing rise of fascist rhetoric in the USA,” media liaison Aditya Anand told The Fix during an in-person interview. The Fix asked about the main goal of the protest.
“Despite the fact that Purdue University did not explicitly endorse this, they are tolerating fascist rhetoric on campus,” Anand said. “Charlie Kirk has advocated for the eradication of transgender people. He has advocated for election denialism and vaccine denialism. And we simply think that that rhetoric leads to violence.”
He defined fascism as “any system of bigotry, any system of fear and paranoia codified into law.”
There are more stops planned on Kirk’s tour, as he plans to speak today at Michigan State University and next week at Boise State University and Washington State University, according to the tour website.
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INSIDE IMAGES CAPTION AND CREDIT: Students protest and show up to support Turning Point USA; Matt Lamb/The College Fix
MAIN IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: A crowd of thousands waits to hear Charlie Kirk speak. Students protest and show up to support Turning Point USA; Matt Lamb/The College Fix
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