Trump’s Black Church Stunt Was Bad. His Next Event Was Even Worse.

Donald Trump visited a half-assed, half-white event at a Black church on Saturday, in a desperate and botched attempt to stir up support among Black voters in Detroit—but none of that is as bad as what he did next.

Trump went on to deliver the keynote speech at the Turning Point USA “People’s Convention,” alongside his old buddy, far-right activist Charlie Kirk. 

Kirk, a meme-loving fascist who is known for getting booed off of college campuses and then whining that the girls there don’t like him, happily announced that he’d be partnering with the Trump campaign earlier this month. For someone trying to court the support of the Black community, taking the stage with someone as openly racist as Kirk is nothing less than mind-boggling. 

Earlier this year, Kirk tried to make waves by suggesting that the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, was a “mistake” and that the efforts of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. helped to create a “permanent DEI-type bureaucracy,” which he believes to be harmful to white men like himself.  

Last year, Kirk posted to X (formerly Twitter), “Whiteness is great. Be proud of who you are.” Earlier this year on his podcast he fretted over flying in an airplane flown by a Black pilot. 

“I’m sorry. If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified,’” he said, before insisting that it’s not what he believes, but how DEI initiatives make him feel. To Kirk, unabashed racism is a necessary “thought crime,” one that sets him apart and gives him power. 

Kirk founded Turning Point USA in an attempt to consolidate the conservative youth movement and then systematically draw them further and further right. Trump hopes to harness this power to reach the conservative youth vote, which Kirk purports to influence, but honestly, even that doesn’t seem like it’s going well. 

If Trump’s Black church roundtable failed to draw in Black audience members, it seems that Turning Point USA’s pull for the youth vote was also unsuccessful: The crowd skewed distinctly old, according to Mother Jones.