A series of last-minute changes at a Turning Point USA event left the press sidelined and attendees “disappointed.”
After a low in-person turnout and even worse online viewer numbers at TPUSA’s event at the University of Georgia earlier this month, the right-wing organization denied all press credentials for its Wednesday event at Baylor University, a private Baptist school in Waco, Texas.
Turning Point Senior Copywriter Sha Cathey told Baylor’s student newspaper, The Baylor Lariat, that the no-press policy for the event was made “in the best interest of our students.”
Videos of the MAGA event were still posted on TPUSA’s official channels.
Baylor’s line-up Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan, right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was filling in for Donald Trump Jr. after he bailed on the event for an unexplained reason.
The space where the event was held, Waco Hall, also closed off more than half of its 2,200 seats, and did not let anyone sit in the balcony seats. The attendance for the event then came in at around 438, according to Baylor’s official measure based on scanned tickets.
Johnson referenced the limited seating, telling the crowd, “Let them have the top row. “Christ said, ‘Let the children come unto me and do not stop them.’”
TPUSA had previously opened tickets up to the public, however. Many non-students who were hopeful to get in expressed disappointment after being turned away.
Bob Sutherby, a Tennessee resident who drove 11 hours with his wife to attend the event, said he was disappointed to get turned away by an organization he said he’s been a longtime supporter of.
“It hurts our heart,” Sutherby told the Lariat. “You drive from Big Sandy, Tennessee—that’s a great distance to come down to Texas.”
He also said he was confused by the decision to keep the general public out, when Baylor students hardly made a dent in the venue’s capacity.
“There’s a capacity of 2,000 people in Waco Hall,” Sutherby added. “As you can clearly see, we don’t have 100 people here. So why turn people away, until you have 2,000 people?”
Olan Tisdale, who drove three hours for the event, also said she was disappointed by the last-minute changes.
“They advertised this as it was for the public as well. Something happened where they didn’t communicate,” Tisdale said.
In an email sent to ticketholders, TPUSA said it was not responsible for voiding hundreds of tickets.
“We understand that this is disappointing, and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience. We made every effort to open this even to the broader Waco community, but unfortunately, the administration has denied our attempts to do so,” the e-mail said, adding “We strongly believe this is the wrong decision by school administrators.”
Baylor University has disputed TPUSA’s account of the matter and said the event was always planned to only be open to Baylor students and that the school was “very clear with event organizers from the beginning.”
The abrupt changes to the media policy, admission policy, and even the guest line-up come as TPUSA has been facing backlash from its own members over changes since co-founder Charlie Kirk’s fatal shooting at an event in September.
The president of the University of Georgia’s Turning Point chapter resigned just days after Vance visited the campus, and TPUSA CEO Erika Kirk no-showed at an on-campus event, citing safety concerns.
In her resignation letter, Caroline Mattox said that after the organization’s founder, Charlie Kirk, died last year, its mission had become dishonest.
“It became evident to me that the organization’s current direction no longer aligns with the principles upon which it was founded. I witnessed firsthand what I believe to be the organization’s true direction following Charlie’s passing, and I have significant concerns about its messaging and current trajectory,” she wrote.
Last month, the University of Arkansas’ TPUSA chapter collapsed just days after Erika visited their chapter.
The chapter’s former president, Dino Fantegrossi, said the Arkansas chapter’s members had been “put off by how Charlie Kirk has been used by TPUSA since his assassination.”
