“Charlie Kirk is still winning,” conservative podcaster Benny Johnson told a crowd of Baylor University students April 22 at the “This Is the Turning Point” tour.
Although the event was closed to media and community members, BNG obtained audio recordings of three speakers from the NoZe Brotherhood, a secret society on campus dating to 1918.
“If you view (Charlie’s) life the way I do as his friend of 10 years, as a Christian martyr — and Charlie was a Christian martyr in the proper sense— and it is through the blood of martyrs that Christ actually advanced his kingdom.”
At that point, Johnson launched the first of a series of criticisms masquerading as jokes that have been discussed critically after the event. Johnson admitted he had no script for his talk, which flowed stream-of-consciousness style through a range of topics.
“The first martyr of Christendom was a man named Stephen,” he explained. “Anybody study their Bibles here at Baylor? I don’t know. Apparently, the administration doesn’t. My kids have been banned from Baylor. I have like a million kids. They’re not allowed to go to Baylor.”
Earlier, Johnson poked fun at Waco, saying he knew little about the Central Texas town other than it is the home of reality TV stars Chip and Joanna Gaines.
“Waco’s known for Bill Clinton killing a bunch of people here, right?”
Then he added, “Waco’s known for Bill Clinton killing a bunch of people here, right?”
That was a reference to a 51-day standoff between federal law enforcement and the Branch Davidian sect, led by David Koresh. After a failed raid targeting illegal weapons, a violent confrontation resulted in more than 80 deaths, including 76 sect members when the compound burned on April 19, 1993.
Although a majority of Americans saw the Branch Davidians as a dangerous cult, far-right conservatives have made them and other cultists causes célèbres for independent thinking.
“So we got the fake farmer couple and then we got Bill Clinton killing (unintelligible). So that’s our town. And a liberal Christian university. But I’m happy to be here.”
Johnson then complained that Baylor officials “wouldn’t let us have the top row” in the 2,200-seat auditorium. The back rows of the main floor were cordoned off with black curtains because attendance was much smaller than the size of the hall.
Johnson compared Baylor’s blocking off seats to the disciples of Jesus keeping children from him. “Let them have the top row. Christ said, ‘Let the children come unto me and do not stop them. And if you harm a hair on one of these children, it’s better to have a giant stone tied around on your neck and be thrown in the ocean.’ You agree with that? I totally agree with that.”
He tied that to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services blocking funding for transgender health care — “child gender mutilation,” as he called it.
Johnson, who has no theological training, then returned to speaking about Christian martyrs and the early church where Christians were oppressed by the Roman Empire. He spoke specifically about Stephen, who is described in the New Testament as the first Christian martyr.
“He preached in places where he wasn’t allowed to preach,” Johnson said. “And he’d speak about Christ and salvation and the word of God. And he would do this, of course, when it was completely and totally illegal to say these kind of true things. And he got dragged out. And he was, because he spoke such truth to people that didn’t want to hear it, people that had hate in their hearts, people who were vengeful against him for speaking this truth, they dragged him out and they hit him as hard as they possibly could with stones to kill him. And they did that in public so that everyone could see it.”
He then linked Stephen’s martyrdom to Kirk’s murder by a sniper and said both deaths sparked revival. While the New Testament does suggest the early church grew after Stephen’s martyrdom, there is no empirical evidence of Christianity in America growing due to Kirk’s murder.
“Nobody dies for a lie. And it was that spark,” Johnson said. “And it was God speaking through the blood of Stephen, who by the way, was the exact same age as Charlie, who was also killed in public and was also killed with blunt force trauma.”
“Charlie’s work is still ongoing. That’s how you know it is a proper Christian martyrdom.”
He declared: “Charlie’s work is still ongoing. That’s how you know it is a proper Christian martyrdom. That’s how you know that there was something divine in his life. And what I wish to do here is to kick as harshly as possible directly in the balls, the people who are trying to undo the work of Charlie Kirk. And that’s the thing that I can’t stand right now in our movement and in people who say that they’re part of our movement, but are probably being paid for hire by the SPLC.”
That was a reference to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the civil rights group the Trump Justice Department has accused of fraud — an act others have said is retribution against Trump’s enemies.
Charlie Kirk “wanted utmost and more than anything” unity among conservatives “so that we could win,” Johnson said. “Charlie is the dude who brought RFK and Donald Trump together. He’s the reason why JD Vance is vice president. … Charlie brought Elon Musk and Donald Trump together.”
From there, he jumped to a comment at a TPUSA event the previous night made by Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswaney: “You can’t move to Italy and you’re an Italian, you can’t move to Japan and make believe you’re Japanese, you can’t move to China and think you’re Chinese. But somehow the entire world’s going to move to America and claim to be American.”
It doesn’t work that way, he insisted. “Nine billion people can’t just move to America and suddenly you’re an American and wave a magic wand. … We’re a people and a culture and we have a history and we’re proud of that damn history. And that history is a European Christian movement. That’s what built this country.”
“That history is a European Christian movement. That’s what built this country.”
What the 9 billion number referenced was not clear.
Johnson returned to criticism of the SPLC as evidence of a “win” by the Trump administration. “They’re just a bunch of psychotic, castrated libs.”
SPLC, he said, “was very, very powerful. They had billions of dollars. And what they did was they went and they called (out) all of us. They put all of us on lists. They put all of us on lists so that we would get attacked. … And so they said we’re hateful because we love our country or because we believe America is an actual people and a culture and not just like an economic zone to be strip-mined and taken advantage of.”
And to his earlier point, “they constantly attacked Charlie. They were constantly going after our boy.”
He complained that SPLC has called Turning Point USA and its high school chapters hate groups.
“They can’t debate us on our ideas,” he charged. “They cannot have dialogue. They cannot actually go on the merits of why they are right or why we might be wrong. Instead, they must smear us with the age-old one-liner that you are a racist or that you are a hater.”
But now with the federal accusations, the story “is going to have like a really happy ending,” he predicted.
“Charlie Kirk is smiling down from heaven today because the SPLC was just indicted.”
“Charlie Kirk is smiling down from heaven today because the SPLC was just indicted,” he said. “I really wish Charlie was here, but he is here actually because Charlie’s in heaven with our Lord and Savior. I think looking down, he’s really excited about this. … I get chills thinking about how none of this would actually happen without Charlie’s martyrdom.”
Johnson told the group he sees “revival” in America today “because God’s not done with our country yet.”
Anyone who criticizes Trump’s leadership today ought to remember the alternative, he said. “We’d have Kamala Harris for a president right now. And literally Somalia would be our 51st state.”
Johnson then went after U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, whom he characterized as auditioning for “the role of a demon in Mel Gibson’s new Passion of the Christ.”
Looking at her face on video, he said, “I feel bad for the cameraman, right? Get your tetanus shot and stuff like that.”
Johnson then attacked the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship and the results of the vote in Virginia the day before to redraw U.S Congressional districts. That effort to create more Democratic districts was sparked by President Donald Trump’s demands that Texas and other states create more Republican districts.
“What happened in Virginia is just bald-faced theft,” he said. “It is just the single most egregious power grab you’ve ever seen in politics. They took the congressional maps in Virginia, which were fine. … This looks like Joe Biden got into Hunter Biden’s crack cocaine stash and ripped a line and then used the autopen to draw congressional districts.”
“This looks like Joe Biden got into Hunter Biden’s crack cocaine stash and ripped a line and then used the autopen to draw congressional districts.”
In addition to comparing liberal women to pigs, Johnson repeated the conservative false claim that since Charlie Kirk’s murder, “young men’s religiosity is skyrocketing.”
He also claimed U.S. liberals are in “population collapse,” which will be a gain for conservatives. “By the year 2100, … 80% of America will be the progeny of conservatives. Our children will be 80% of the country if those rates just keep going. So how excited are you for that America? This is what happens to the movement that castrates itself.”
Democratic men, he said, are such sissies they “probably have more estrogen than my wife.”
“They’re literally taking themselves out of the gene pool, which I think is awesome. We’re also taking other people out of the pool,” he said in reference to immigrant deportations. He spoke of ICE deportations, detentions and arrests and voluntary departures as God’s work through the Trump administration.
“Join us, ladies and gentlemen at Turning Point USA, in saving this country because it’s worth saving.”
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