*The name of this interviewee is a pseudonym to protect their confidentiality.
Turning Point USA, a national student conservative advocacy group, finished its nationwide tour at UC Berkeley on Monday evening. The sold-out event came exactly two months after the death of Turning Point USA’s founder, conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Although the event sought to bring “non-partisan debate, dialogue, and discussion,” violence soon broke out across Berkeley as demonstrators protested in front of dozens of police officers.
Turning Point USA originally selected Kirk to headline the event as a part of his “American Comeback” tour, launched to spread conservative values to U.S. universities. However, after Kirk’s death, comedian Rob Schneider and Christian author Frank Turek took his place leading the tour.
The night of Q&A and speeches drew an unusual mix of nearly 900 attendees, including supporters of Kirk as well as skeptical Berkeley students. At least six arrests were made throughout the afternoon and evening as clashes broke out around the venue. Since then, the U.S. Department of Justice launched a probe into Berkeley’s security preparations and law-enforcement response.
A woman flashes the middle finger.
Schneider opened the program by mockingly thanking the muffled protesters outside. “I’d like to thank the Antifa for the welcoming that they gave me tonight. It was beautiful. They didn’t have to bring fireworks, but I appreciate it,” Schneider said, referencing Antifa, the leftist anti-facist political movement.
Schneider described Berkeley’s political situation as an “intolerant blip” on its history. He warned of a more systemic problem, where college campuses were being “infiltrated by goons” intent on shutting down dissenting views.
British novelist and guest Andrew Doyle expressed similar pessimism about the trajectory of college campuses. “UC Berkeley [used to be] this bastion of free speech back in 1964. And then I get here and there’s tear gas and fireworks and people in riot gear. Something has gone slightly wrong,” he said.
Campus officials disputed portions of that characterization. UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof said no tear gas had been used.
The event also featured a Q&A as homage to Charlie Kirk’s trademark one-on-one debating. Questions ranged from personal inquiries about Schneider’s comedy career to political ones about free speech.
“Last month you tweeted that children didn’t get sick when you were a kid, so there weren’t children’s hospitals,” one attendee said, during the Q&A portion. “My question is: does your wife firewall block Google, or are you just unfathomably r*tarded?”
Despite tense exchanges between speakers and attendees, Schneider ended optimistically. “It is this campus, more than any other campus in the United States, that has the foundational principle of free speech,” he said.
Schneider and his colleagues left amid loud cheers and scattered boos. Police held the perimeter as they filed out.
Outside the event, however, over 150 protesters crowded against the barrier between Headlands Brewing and the Cal Student Store, blocking the entrance to the plaza in front of Zellerbach Hall and heckling attendees for the duration of the event. Several rows of armed police stood behind the barrier as protesters yelled insults, and more were stationed at entrances.
The crowd maintained its ferocity for the full event with a variety of chants targeting Turning Point USA, Donald Trump, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“It’s gonna take all of us changing our lives and changing our priorities, making ‘Trump must go down’ our number one priority, not capitulating, not backing down, not letting any of these institutions bow down to Trump,” John* said.
Other chants included “in the name of humanity, we refuse to accept a fascist America,” “no ICE, no KKK, no fascist USA,” and “Charlie Kirk is going to hell.”
“People shouldn’t be surprised at his [Charlie Kirk’s] death. I don’t think people should be necessarily sad because he advocated for this,” Michael* said. “I don’t think people should be dying, but it’s kind of like depressingly poetic justice.”
“Charlie Kirk was that guy in right wing spaces, especially for young people,” Berkeley sophomore Charlie Horowitz said. “We’re in a media landscape that judges big figures based on small quotables versus actually dissecting the ideas that are being said.”
Despite considering himself to be “somewhere in the middle” on the political spectrum, Horowitz fears being labeled as a “fascist.” “I’m a political science major, so I’m in a bunch of progressive liberal circles. A lot of people aren’t exposed to differing points of view, and if they are, they’re not being said from the people who actually express those views,” Horowitz added. “I feel like I have to be very careful what I say.”
A protester is arrested for stepping over a barrier. 
A protester holds up a ripped Turning Point USA shirt. 
Protesters videotape police just before the barrier. 
A woman is heckled for allegedly being a Trump supporter. 
A protester joins in with chants. 
A masked protester watches from the side. 
Protesters hold up signs. 
Police stand before fierce protesters.
Protests began to disperse as the event wrapped, though remaining protesters continued on with statements like, “you will be forgotten in time, we are on the right side of history,” and “Christian fascists want to remake America, in a white Christian evangelical fascist remaking of society.”
“Far left, far right, chill the f*ck out. People are so self absorbed in what they believe,” visiting Dougherty Valley High School senior Nicholas Schultz said about the political climate. “Not a single person walking out there is gonna think, ‘I want to be a liberal now,’ because what they’re saying is basically, ‘f*ck you, we don’t care about you because you’ve associated with this one guy.’”
One protester held a sign promoting BAMN.com, a movement dedicated to defeating Trump “by any means necessary,” while others had flyers advertising a “Flood DC” protest linked to the website refusefascism.org.
“Words are very powerful, and the ideology that he’s [Kirk] kind of, expressing, is making it okay to continue to harm marginalized communities. I don’t think we should let that happen,” Michael* added.
