Charlie Kirk memorial had six attendees — four were asked to leave.
The one year anniversary of Turning Point USA’s controversial presence on campus is coming up! To celebrate in true neo-conservative fashion, journalists were almost barred from a public event hosted by the club. On Sept. 10, 2026, TU’s Turning Point chapter held a Charlie Kirk memorial event at Sharp Chapel in which the organizers screened episodes of The Charlie Kirk Show. The memorial was held on the death date of the late, conservative podcaster and founder of the organization. There were two members of TPUSA’s executive board and four reporters from the University of Tulsa’s television broadcast, TUTV, in attendance.
Upon arrival, Anderson Bell, Aristotle Orsini, Carter Reed, and Riley Wilson were immediately informed that Turning Point would be “unable to provide a statement because of TPUSA National’s rules.” Despite a lack of evidence behind this rule actually existing (Chapter Handbook 2025 pg. 43-61), the journalists accepted this and informed the executive members that they still intended upon staying. A few minutes later, the TUTV members were asked to leave the event by the TU Turning Point president, Nathaniel Robonovitz. The event was publicly advertised by flyers and social media posts as open to all TU students, so this unwarranted request was rather shocking. Robonovitz followed up by voicing concerns that the two members of the club would be uncomfortable with being shown on TUTV. “So, the president was concerned that the members of this club wouldn’t want to be associated with the club?” Junior Aristotle Orsini asked Senior reporter Carter Reed, on TUTV’s second episode of the 2026 fall semester. “Yes, that is what I picked up on,” responded Reed.
The journalists stayed for the full duration of the event. They pleaded that they were attending the memorial to report on it in an unbiased fashion, as they would with any other club-hosted, campus event. After threatening to call campus police, Turning Point begrudgingly allowed the reporters to stay.
Following the publication of the events that unfolded at the Charlie Kirk memorial on TUTV’s YouTube channel, the Turning Point president left a seething comment berating TUTV for alleged harassment of TPUSA’s female members.
Turning Point USA, as an organization, claims to advocate for non-partisan discussions and debates, while strongly affirming FirstAmendment protections — yet, the TU chapter seems to only want the “right” coverage. In his comment, Robonovitz mentioned that TUTV’s four male reporters were alone with a female member of TPUSA during a portion of the event- suggesting this was intentionally threatening and endangering. According to Orisini, “The closest they got to ‘being alone’ with her was being in a separate room with glass walls.” This claim insinuated harassment, yet no misconduct, nor did the female member in question say anything beyond Robonovitz’s statement.
Robonovitz tried to attack the credibility of Orsini because of his belief that Turning Point USA is a “Nazi organization.” However, the Nazi allegations that TPUSA and Charlie Kirk have faced are far from unwarranted, considering the podcaster’s willingness to give a platform to white supremacists like Steve Sailer and Curtis Yarvin, and his shameless downplaying of the Holocaust. In his lifetime, Kirk proudly used Nazi slogans like “Deutschland uber alles” ( Kirk saying “Deutchland uber alles”) and once even argued that “conservative Germans are too scared to be radical because they’ve been ‘told’ their grandfathers did bad things” (Charlie Kirk: German Conservatives Too Scared to Be Radical; The Charlie Kirk Show).
Turning Point’s presence on the TU campus has been controversial since its founding last year. Even the approval of the club, in 2025, sparked heated debates within the Student Government Association and amongst the student body. TPUSA’s antagonizing unwillingness to cooperate with TUTV at the Kirk memorial has only inflated tensions between organizations and set a dangerous precedent for future collaborations between clubs with different politics. Further, the Turning Point president’s inflammatory comment about the ineptness of reporters and biased media begs the question: if the club does not stand for the freedom of speech and press, what is its purpose?
