By Arden Berry | Copy Editor
Volunteers clad in white TPUSA shirts with black text reading “freedom” lined the aisles while pop songs and red, white and blue lights filled Waco Hall Wednesday evening as the room prepared for Baylor’s stop on the TPUSA tour.
Students were periodically encouraged to chant, “USA,” do the wave and pose for pictures. The seats available on the floor section were nearly full, though sections in the back and all balcony spaces were blocked off.
The Lariat, along with all other news outlets that requested credentials, was denied media access Wednesday morning after Turning Point closed the event to the press in the interest of its students.
The Lariat instead reported on the night from general admission seating. The Lariat consulted the Student Press Law Center and followed all rules posted to attendees before publishing its coverage.
The event featured Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, “Border Czar” Tom Homan and political commentator Benny Johnson.
Opening the event, Paxton briefly discussed his experience at Baylor and his journey to running for Texas Attorney General.
“I thought to myself, I wonder what happens if you ask God for a very specific answer you don’t do,” Paxton said. “Well, I didn’t want to find out.”
Turning Point Baylor President Peter Fernandez addressed the students, speaking about Baylor TPUSA’s general mission.
“When we table, we’ll ask a controversial question,” Fernandez said. “We’ll also make sure that it’s known that it’s OK to disagree with us. My favorite days of tabling are those days when the agrees and the disagrees are pretty even because those are the days when the most civil discourse is happening. And those are the days that Charlie would be the most proud of.”
Johnson said he would talk about conservative “wins,” singling out Rep. Ilhan Omar’s financial disclosures and providing charts documenting young men’s rising religiosity, immigrant population decline in major American cities and the number of children conservatives are having.
“That means that by the year 2100 … 80% of America will, by that year, will be the progeny of conservatives,” Johnson said.
Johnson referenced a variety of political figures and issues throughout his speech and ended with a focus on civil discourse and Christianity.
“I wanted to say there are good things happening,” Johnson said. “You can have good-faith disagreements. It’s important to have that, good-faith debate … Don’t get down on yourself. Make sure that you remember that there are actually really good things ahead. And most importantly, if you’re a Christian, you know that God’s got us.”
Homan’s speech centered on his experience as border czar. Homan served under both Barack Obama and Donald Trump, and he returned as border czar after Trump’s first term. He expressed dismay with Joe Biden’s handling of immigration and a desire to find 300,000 missing children.
“We’ve got plenty of time because of the four years of open border,” Homan said. “The children are the most difficult because they don’t have that digital footprint … They found 146,000. But President Trump has made a promise. We won’t run down every single lead until we find every one of them.”
Students clapped, laughed and cheered throughout the event. However, Temecula, Calif., junior JT Nichols said Johnson made a joke that “did not land well.”
“For Benny Johnson, a guy I looked up to for a long time … today he made a couple remarks about making fun of liberal women,” Nichols said. “One of the seminary students asked a question about it, which I thought was a totally fair question, and he treated it as a joke, which I think if we are going to speak the truth and love, that’s not the best way to go about it.”
The Q&A at the end involved students addressing questions to Johnson and Homan. Question content ranged from ICE to the current Iran conflict to being American.
“What is an American exactly?” Johnson said. “America, up until the last 200 years, was founded, created, built, all of the infrastructure, all of the culture, Christian European. That was plus 90% of all immigration to America. That was the original founding. That was the original founders and how they structured our nation. The Bible calls to God and calls to a Christian God are throughout.”
