Turning Point USA’s third annual AmericaFest ended its third full day on Monday, featuring speeches by Tucker Carlson, Democrat-turned-independent and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, and NBA star Jonathan Isaac. Candace Owens was scheduled to speak, but due to giving birth to her third child, she submitted a short speech on video instead.
In her speech, Gabbard (pictured above) criticized “neocon” Nikki Haley, who has positioned herself in the Republican presidential primary race as a moderate. Gabbard lambasted the “Democratic elite” repeatedly.
She told how when she first became a member of Congress, she received an invitation to attend an event reading the Constitution into the congressional record. When she told her Democratic colleagues about it, they said they wouldn’t participate in it because it was a “right-wing Republican thing,” which disheartened and saddened her.
She blamed both political parties.
“The war machine made up of both Democrats and Republicans for abusing their power, undermining our God-given rights and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution with one goal and objective in mind — protecting their power at any cost,” she said.
Gabbard observed that “power and liberties are natural enemies.” She said a free society threatens Big Tech, so they will do “all that they can to shut down our open marketplace of ideas, the public and virtual town squares, anywhere that we can debate our positions.”
She frequently mentioned Biblical principles, denouncing “the assault on our God-given rights and freedoms.”
“They are discriminating against people of faith, especially Christians, arresting peaceful pro-life protesters, trying to remove God from every facet of our public life, and as we have seen most recently, bending over backwards trying to placate pro-Hamas Islamist protesters, either because they’re Islamist apologists themselves or they’re afraid of being called Islamophobes and turning a blind eye to the ever escalating levels of antisemitic attacks,” she said.
She defended the Second Amendment, chastising the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms for “turn[ing] law-abiding gun owners like ourselves into criminals.”
She also defended the Fourth Amendment, denouncing the “elites” who conducted “gross violations of our civil liberties by the Secret FISA court, section 702 supporting Department of Justice’s weaponization of law enforcement against the Biden Harris administration’s political opponents.”
After listing those off, Gabbard said, “These are just a few reasons why I left the Democratic Party.”
She explained, “I could no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that’s under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers who are driven by cowardly wokeness. The party that I joined over 20 years ago, which was once a party that largely stood up for free speech, that stood up for working people in this country, that stood up for civil liberties, is gone. The bottom line is that the political party that is actively undermining our constitutional freedoms cannot be trusted and we the people cannot allow them to remain in power.”
Gabbard warned that heading into the election year, “We should not be surprised if they declare new national emergencies that allow them to grab onto more power.”
She added, “They’re trying to create this culture of fear and hopelessness and self-censorship that if they make an example out of a few people, they can get the rest of us to cower in fear, in silence.” She denounced the “continuous assault and weaponization of the Department of Justice and law enforcement to go after President Biden’s major political opponents in this election year,” referencing Donald Trump.
The crowd roared when she said the Left is attacking people for “having the audacity to say that there is such a thing as a woman … there is no greater expression of hatred for women than to deny and erase our very existence.”
She said by saying that the elites are doing this intentionally because they “know where the power lies,” with the people, and so “they are afraid of a free people.” She reminded attendees, “The Lord said, ‘Be not afraid.’”
Isaac’s wife, Takita Nicole, performed a lively Christian rap song before he spoke. Isaac, who plays for Orlando Magic, spoke about how he refused to kneel during the national anthem or wear a Black Lives Matter shirt, the only one on his team. He felt that the gesture wouldn’t do anything to solve racism; the “gospel of Christ” is what would, he told the crowd.
“Christ has been the only answer for me,” he said.
Before he took a stand, he told his pastor that he was nervous about it due to the possible ramifications. His pastor responded, “You cannot stand for God, and God not stand for you,” which gave him courage.
Afterward, his jersey became the second most popular in the NBA, after Lebron James. He wrote a book about his experience, “Why I Stand,” which became a national bestseller. He also refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine and, again, was the only member of his team not to conform.
Isaac launched a merchandising company, Unitus (pronounced “unite us”), which offers sneakers with Christian inscriptions. His first brand ambassador is Riley Gaines, the competitive swimmer who speaks out against men competing as transgenders in women’s sports.
Carlson began his talk with a joke about Haley. He said he was thinking about calling her pretending to be Iran mullahs, offering her a percentage of oil revenues in exchange for her advocacy for the authoritarian regime. She could say nice things about Iran at the next presidential debate. He said he believed she would say yes.
Carlson offered several insights, as is his style. He said he has noticed how leftists are very unhappy people since people who are evil are miserable. He described them, “If you’re channeling an actual evil, if you’re trying to destroy people for the sake of destroying them, if you’re alive for the sake of lying, for the thrill of telling them a lie, and if you are hurting people for the sin of telling the truth.”
He contrasted that behavior with regular bad guys from previous eras, such as Mafia bosses, who generally appeared happy until they were caught.
Carlson pointed out that attacking people viciously is “not politics, that’s theology.”
“What threatens you is not a political movement, it’s a spiritual movement,” he said.
He said flooding the border with illegal immigrants is not meant to help the country but to “destroy the country.” He described what the Left is doing to shut down the right as “humiliation rituals” because he said they believe people on the right are “subhuman” who should not be allowed to speak what they think.
He stated that Western civilization is essentially “Christian civilization” since it encapsulates Christian values. He noted that “no woman ever gave birth to a community,” since Western civilization values people as individuals, it doesn’t treat them as groups.
“Categories demean us and deny the primacy of the soul,” he said.
He pointed out that “we don’t have a history of collective punishment here.” In contrast, in countries like China, if someone breaks a law, the authorities often arrest their family members too. While Christians don’t support that treatment, Carlson said he is concerned that it is catching on among leadership in our government.
He took questions from the audience. A young woman asked him about how unfair it was that children of illegal immigrants are brought here at a young age, but Republicans would deport them, even though they grew up most of their lives in the U.S.
Carlson responded, “How can you say you’re a nation of laws and people from other countries don’t have to obey them?”
He went on and discussed how it also hurts those countries since their best and brightest are the ones leaving and coming illegally to the U.S. He said many of those countries — even El Salvador — aren’t that bad in many ways, and it might be better for the migrants to remain there rather than come to the U.S. to get on food stamps and live in a ghetto-like downtown Los Angeles.
A young man asked Carlson if he would support a Christian theocracy. He said no, “because when Christianity mingles with politics, Christianity dies.” He pointed to Western Europe and said the reason people are deserting Christianity there is because the church is an “organ of the state.”
Owens said she wanted to tell the attendees four things she has learned. First, she said once she realized “trials and tribulations” are inevitable in life, she became much happier and able to deal with the negative things. Second, sometimes evil can turn into good, and good can turn into evil. Third, losing friends is hard; it’s much easier not to speak out and alienate people; it’s easier to be quiet. Finally, she advised attendees to “be a rebel and start a family” like her.
The conference wraps up on Tuesday morning. Coverage of the first day is here, and the second day is here. The full agenda is here.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Tulsi Gabbard” by Turning Point USA.
Those speakers were all excellent.
Trump should strongly consider Tulsi Gabbard as VP.