Utah Gov. Spencer Cox received a hostile reception from the “This is the Turning Point” attendees at Utah State University.
Less than three weeks after Charlie Kirk was killed in Utah, the organization he founded returned to the state for an event scheduled before his death. The Logan campus was also where Kirk’s accused killer attended for one semester in 2021.
In Kirk’s absence, the event featured a speaker panel of Cox, Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs and former Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz. All wore black and white t-shirts with the word “Freedom” on the front, like Kirk was wearing when he died. In the crowd, many attendees wore the same shirt, as well as red and white “Make America Great Again” and Turning Point USA hats.
When Cox’s name was announced as the panelists took the stage, the crowd of thousands loudly booed, drowning out the other names.
The event at Cox’s alma mater isn’t the first time he’s encountered an unfriendly audience. The governor was also booed at the state’s 2024 Republican Convention.
Moderator Tyler Bowyer, with Turning Point Action, first asked Cox about the day Kirk was killed. Cox said one word, and more boos rang out. Bowyer had to quiet the crowd so the governor could describe how he found out Kirk was shot and what that felt like.
“Somebody handed me their phone, and the video was already there. And I, I wish I hadn't seen that video. I can't unsee it,” he said, adding he realized quickly that Kirk was attacked for his political beliefs.
As the long line formed before the event, some attendees held signs with a printout of Kirk’s 2022 post on X that read “Utah Governor Spencer Cox should be expelled from the Republican party.” Kirk tweeted this after Cox said he would veto a bill banning transgender students from participating in girls’ sports.
Signs were prohibited in the venue, but a handful of people wore t-shirts with that social media post and the added language, “Kirk knew Cox is not legitimate. Utahns know it too.”
The evening looked different from most of Kirk’s previous campus events, where he was known for sitting outside under his “Prove Me Wrong” tent and debating students who disagreed with him.
Instead, the Logan event took place inside the basketball arena and more closely resembled a political rally, with loud music and spotlights. Attendees took pictures and did the wave. They cheered at mentions of Kirk and his wife, Erika. A thank-you to law enforcement got a standing ovation. After the national anthem, the crowd sang Lee Greenwood's “God Bless the USA,” and some held up their phone flashlights. Posters with Kirk’s image were placed at seats.
At the end of the night, students lined up to ask the panelists questions. None of them challenged the speakers’ conservative views, in contrast with Kirk’s tours.
When a student asked Cox about the times Kirk called him out for “refusing to protect women's sports,” the governor addressed his 2022 veto.
“This was about men in women's sports, right? And I just want to be very clear: I never advocated for that. I never wanted that at all,” Cox said.
The reason he vetoed it, the governor said, was that he wanted to avoid a lawsuit, like Idaho’s, that would render the law ineffective.
In 2022, Cox did write that he vetoed the bill because he wanted to avoid lawsuits. But he also wrote he was worried about how the full ban would affect the well-being of the small number of transgender kids in the state playing high school sports.
“They are great kids who face enormous struggles,” Cox wrote at the time.
In answering that student’s question, he pointed out times when he had signed legislation aimed at transgender people, like banning gender-affirming care for minors and regulating bathroom access. Cox said he and Kirk would’ve agreed on “99% of things.”
Still, Cox took a more measured approach than others on the stage who explicitly attacked the political left. In the immediate aftermath of the Kirk shooting, Cox was applauded by both sides of the aisle for his call to turn down the temperature in the country.
Chaffetz was met with cheers when he told the crowd, “You do not need a man with junk in a woman's bathroom.”
Bowyer said, “there’s been a soft approach in the state of Utah,” which he said has “enabled some people that are mentally ill.” He questioned whether a culture shift needed to occur in the state.
Still, Cox was cheered for some comments, like when he referenced calls from leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to “be peacemakers” and steer clear of contention.
“Peacemaking is not soft. It's the hardest thing we can do. That’s what Charlie understood,” Cox said to applause.
Cox said Kirk engaged with people who disagreed with him and “treated them with love and respect.”
“There are people in our party who don't want us to do what Charlie did,” he said. “They just wanted to call each other names or not engage at all, and we can't fall prey to that.”
The event had a capacity of 5,500 seats, and a majority of them were filled. Alex Clark, host of the Turning Point USA podcast Culture Apothecary, another of the night’s speakers, said it was the biggest crowd they’ve ever had at a Turning Point campus tour.
“Charlie Kirk was busy going out to college campuses, setting up tables and asking the left to prove him wrong. And guess what? They couldn’t then, and they still couldn’t now.”
“He will live on as a martyr,” Clark said. “Martyrs don't disappear. They multiply.”
She encouraged the crowd to start local Turning Point chapters and prepare to knock on doors in the 2026 midterm elections. She also implored listeners to attend church, share the gospel with nonbelievers and answer God’s calls.
“We are about to raise the most Christian conservative generation America has ever seen,” she said. “And it will be because of Charlie.”
In her speech, Clark said she saw a video of a liberal Utah State University student who said the event was putting lives in danger.
“Sweetheart, I think you're confused. The bullets only ever go one way. You're safer with us than we are with you,” she said to enthusiastic applause.
Security for the night was tight. Drones flew over the arena at the event. Security guards and law enforcement officers from multiple agencies were inside and outside the venue. Law enforcement present included not only USU police and officers from local municipalities, but also University of Utah police and Utah Highway Patrol. Attendees were not allowed to bring in bags and had to go through metal detectors.
When Cox was asked how he would keep outdoor debates safe, he said there were many who thought the event at Utah State should be canceled. But he disagreed.
“We'll be on roofs and we'll have drones. We're going to keep people safe so we can keep doing this,” he said. “We're not going to let the terrorists win.”
The evening’s precautions were a contrast to Utah Valley University, where a review from the Associated Press found Charlie Kirk’s appearance lacked key safety precautions.
Bowyer, the moderator, asked Cox whether inflammatory rhetoric is a “both sides” issue. Cox said it’s about good and evil, not left and right. He denounced calling people fascists and Nazis.
“We went and liberated Europe from fascists and Nazis,” he said.
“This idea that speech is violence is so, so wrong,” Cox said, getting cheers for once from the crowd.
That gets even worse when people interpret speech they disagree with as violence, he said, because it justifies using violence in return. “And that's exactly what happened in this case,” he said, seeming to refer to Kirk’s death.
One student asked Cox about why the state is seeking the death penalty for Kirk’s suspected killer, Tyler Robinson.
Cox said, “It can only be used in the most extreme, extreme of circumstances and and I believe that there is no more extreme circumstance than what we saw happen here.”
“This was an attack on America,” he said.
