Nearly 2,000 people attend event at U honoring Charlie Kirk

This article is our live coverage from Sept. 22. Find the latest reporting here.

Turning Point USA’s “American Comeback Tour” stopped in Minneapolis at the University of Minnesota on Monday with conservative personality Michael Knowles stepping in for Charlie Kirk, the Turning Point founder who was assassinated while speaking at a Utah college campus Sept. 10.

Minnesota was one of the first stops since Kirk’s death for the nationwide tour of college campuses.

Though Monday’s event was held at Northrop auditorium on the U campus, the school did not sponsor the activities. The free event was sold out.

Kirk has been remembered as the Republican “voice of a generation,” helping President Donald Trump win re-election and engaging young conservatives. He was also a skilled provocateur and was often slammed for statements his critics called anti-immigrant, racist, misogynistic and transphobic.

Follow live updates below:

8:55 p.m. - After he was asked what’s next for the conservative movement, Knowles described Kirk as its “unifying figure.” What will be most missed about Kirk is “the coalition-building,” he said.

The event ended just before 9 p.m.

- Elliot Hughes

8:19 p.m. - Knowles got into an extended back-and-forth with an audience member about the Federal Communications Commission’s role in Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension.

During the exchange, Knowles affirmed the FCC’s role in regulating broadcast communications. He said Kimmel repeated lies about the assassin’s political affiliations and deserved to lose his job. Kimmel will return to the air Tuesday, ABC said today.

“We must have confidence in our reason, our ability, to discern between truth and falsehoods,” he said. Without that, “you’re surrendering self-government.”

8:05 p.m. - About 100 people gathered outside Northrop auditorium, some of whom couldn’t get into the event after it reached capacity. They stood and spoke with one another and didn’t appear to be watching the event’s live stream. The U confirmed that the attendance count for the event was 1,673 people, which didn’t include some volunteers who may not have scanned their tickets.

- Sofia Barnett

7:56 p.m. - Knowles moved to a question-and-answer session and his first question was about repealing the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. The crowd had a mostly negative reaction to the question, which connected declines in American lifestyle to the passage of the amendment.

Knowles said “I try not to blame women” and said Republicans have made progress with single women voters in recent years.

Rather than take away their right to vote, Knowles said two votes could be given to married women as a “compromise,” earning laughter from the audience.

7:47 p.m. - In the aftermath of Kirk’s death, Knowles asked, “What do we do now?”

“We should forgive our enemies who trespass against us and prevent them from trespassing again in the future, he said.

Knowles pointed out that Kirk’s wife, Erika, has forgiven the assassin. Meanwhile, Knowles said, the state of Utah is pursuing the death penalty. “There is no contradiction between those two things,” he said.

- Elliot Hughes

7:35 p.m. - After a delay to allow audience members to file in, and then several videos and introductory speakers, Michael Knowles took the stage to an enthusiastic applause.

- Elliot Hughes

7:03 p.m. - Outside Mayday Books on Cedar Avenue at a protest against the Turning Point event, cars honked as they passed, drawing cheers from demonstrators. The crowd swelled, with some waving a large Black Lives Matter flag while others pounded steady rhythms on drums. One organizer said they believed Kirk spread hate speech.

Michelle Gross, founder of Communities United Against Police Brutality, said there’s no need to glorify Kirk or turn him into a hero.

“Just like people pulled down Columbus statues, I promise you any statue that shows up for this man is going to get pulled down,” she said.

- Sofia Barnett

- Erin Adler

6:39 p.m. - By 6:30 p.m., nearly 100 people had gathered outside Mayday Books on Cedar Avenue to protest the Turning Point event, holding signs with messages like “Say No to Hate” and “No Place for Hate.”

- Sofia Barnett

6:32 p.m. - With a backdrop of country music, classic rock and Nirvana, people were still pouring into the theater. The upper balconies still looked mostly empty.

Attendee Sharon Elander of Prior Lake said she’s been a longtime supporter of Turning Point because she wants young people — kids and young adults in college — to be exposed to multiple viewpoints, including conservative ones.

The Northrup auditorium, which seats more than 2,600 people, said online that attendees couldn’t bring any signs, banners or other “displayable items.” The venue also required all attendees to be 18+ and show a valid government-issued ID. Students were admitted into the auditorium first before general admission seating.

- Erin Adler

6:14 p.m. - Many people wore trucker hats and ball caps emblazoned with “Make America Great Again”, “In God We Trust” or the gold number “47,” referencing Trump’s latest place in the line of U.S. presidents. Students lined up inside the back entry of Northrop auditorium to pose for photos together.

- Erin Adler

6:10 p.m. - Kirk spoke at the U in 2017 at what was a peaceful event, though there were barricades set up and a half-dozen police officers on site. Kirk, then 24, expected protests “from the intolerant campus left.” But none showed up on one of the most frigid nights of the season.

- Kelly Smith

5:57 p.m. - The last of the students made their way through security, which involved a bag check and a metal detector.

- Erin Adler

5:56 p.m. - Attendees of the Turning Point USA event on the University of Minnesota campus were offered Make America Great Again hats at the door.

Outside, Derek Torstenson chanted “Hey hey, ho ho, Turning Point has got to go” while people waited in line. Inside, a cover of the Talking Heads song “Psycho Killer” by One Bad Son played as people entered the auditorium.

5:03 p.m. - Minneapolis City Council Member Robin Wonsley, whose ward includes the U campus, released a statement Monday saying that she was surprised the Turning Point event was still being held and that she had heard concerns from students and residents.

“Hate has no place in Minneapolis, and I am deeply frustrated that the University of Minnesota has attempted to normalize a group that is tied to hate-filled ideology and extremism,”Wonsley wrote.

While there is a campus safety plan in place, Wonsley said the neighborhoods surrounding the East Bank campus don’t have a similar plan, and she reached out to community leaders to alert them that Turning Point event attendees may be “circulating” through the neighborhoods.

- Kelly Smith

4:16 p.m. - University of Minnesota officials have updated campus safety protocols before Monday’s event.

She sent the note Friday after shots were fired about 8:45 p.m. Thursday near Rapson Hall during a student group’s fall kickoff event inside that building. The U issued a safety alert, but no one was injured, according to KARE 11.

“In recent weeks that have seen our communities and country rocked by the assassination of political leaders, campus speakers, and children attending the first days of school, and now shots fired on our own campus, along with the daily drumbeat of gun violence — our country and campus are on edge,“ Cunningham wrote. “Let me be clear. Violence has no place at the University or in the communities where we live and work.”

Some professors have moved classes online due to safety concerns, one student said.

- Erin Adler

4:16 p.m. - Doctoral student Kelly Rogers, who noted that many of her classmates are transgender, queer or people of color, felt that the U hosting the Turning Point event seemed to legitimize the group’s rhetoric against those groups.

She got a ticket to the Turning Point event before Kirk was killed because she wanted to check it out, she said, but now, she won’t attend.

- Erin Adler

3:40 p.m. - As the event drew near, lines started to grow outside of Northrop auditorium. Roughly 30 attendees stood and sat outside the venue, as students, faculty, staff and community members passed by, offering jeers and support alike.

- Tyler Church

2:58 p.m. - Many conservatives saw Kirk as a bastion of open debate in a politically polarized America. On college campuses, Kirk debated students on generally conservative ideals and beliefs.

Recent U graduate Rylan Krull, 24, said Kirk’s assassination attempted to kill the open dialogue Kirk supported on American college campuses. But now, Krull said, this has only invigorated his supporters.

“People got very mobilized when he died, like I’ve never seen before,” Krull said. “Even when Trump almost got killed. I’ve never seen people go ‘We need to get out there and say what we believe and make a difference.’”

- Tyler Church

2:45 p.m. - As the Turning Point event approached, awaiting attendees began to stand in front of the U’s Northrop auditorium. Members of security set up gates as the attendees waited nearby. Even with Charlie Kirk’s recent assassination, Joe Kamm, 34, said he felt indifferent to any potential political violence at today’s event.

“I am not nervous at all,” Kamm said. “If something happens, then, I can’t do anything about it. I can’t stop evil.”

“The beliefs that I had were very shunned,” Pfeifer said. “I felt like I was wrong, until I saw Charlie Kirk and more people had these ideals.”

- Tyler Church