Mourners are pictured gathering at State Farm Stadium on September 21 in Glendale, Ariz., beneath a large screen displaying a tribute during the memorial services for Turning Point USA conservative political figure Charlie Kirk. Photo by Eduardo Barraza/UPI | License Photo
The late Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA college tour returned to Utah after September’s shooting death of its popular co-founder.
The event on Tuesday at Utah State University in Logan saw its largest crowd with estimates of roughly 6,400 people in attendance to celebrate Kirk’s life some two hours from Orem where a gunman’s bullet killed him.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox joined a Republican panel with the state’s former U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz and U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz.
It followed Kirk’s recent memorial service in Arizona that saw speakers such as U.S. President Donald Trump and other conservatives after Kirk was killed at Utah Valley University on September 10.
“Nobody should have to witness and go through what I went through, what my family and those 3,000 people went through,” Chaffetz told the audience about the day Kirk was killed.
Cox was met with boos and mixed reactions by the audience, which featured a sea of red MAGA hats.
Kirk criticized Cox in a 2022 social media post following the GOP governor’s veto on a ban on transgender girls in school sports in LGBTQ+-related positions on which Cox has since backtracked.
“Utah Gov. Spencer Cox should be expelled from the Republican party,” Kirk said at the time.
On Tuesday, Cox claimed Kirk’s untimely death was an attack on free speech.
“This was more than just an attack on Charlie Kirk, this was an attack on free speech, on America, on American ideals,” he stated. “This idea that speech is violence is so wrong, and it goes a step worse than that because then they think violence is speech.”
Turning Point official Tyler Bowyer, who runs the campaign wing of Kirk’s organization and hosted Tuesday’s panel, attacked Cox in what he described as a “soft Utah approach” by the now two-term Mormon governor.
Bowyer claimed it “enabled some people that are mentally ill.”
Alleged Kirk shooter Tyler Robinson was due in court earlier this week and faces the death penalty if convicted. Robinson has remained jailed at Utah County Jail in Spanish Fork since his September 12 arrest and later charge for Kirk’s death.
