Clemson Turning Point USA hosted Benny Johnson at the Strom Thurmond Institute on Tuesday, Nov. 18.

Johnson is a conservative political commentator and podcaster with a prominent presence on the social media platform X. He’s a contributor to TPUSA, boasting over 7 million followers across his social media accounts. He worked with Charlie Kirk, former TPUSA CEO, for a decade during his time at the organization.

Formerly, he served as the chief creative officer for TPUSA from 2019 to 2022. He has called Kirk an American martyr, saying that he gave his life for the United States.

“No one dies for a lie. Charlie died for truth,” Johnson said about Kirk during the Clemson event. “He died defending truth. He died doing what he loved, and part of that was passing on gifts, the treasure of the American dream, to the next generation.”

Charlie Clontz, president of Clemson TPUSA, said at the beginning of the event that “it’s not always easy to stand firm in your beliefs, especially as a conservative on a college campus.”

Johnson sparked controversy on Clemson’s campus when he reposted a post from End Wokeness portraying an image of the Twin Towers falling on Sept. 11, 2001 with the caption “New York already forgot.” Clemson TPUSA reposted Johnson’s sharing of the post.

Clemson NAACP released a statement on Nov. 12 arguing that Johnson is connected to several conservative media outlets and has “built his platform on misinformation, discrimination, and conspiracy.”

NAACP called for TPUSA to rescind its invitation to Johnson, and for Clemson University to reconsider its decision to allow Johnson to speak on campus.

Upon taking the stage, Johnson said that “it’s particularly great to be here at Clemson University, because I have a little list … A list of professors who celebrated the assassination of the founder of this organization, my dear friend, a prophet in our time, and what I believe would have certainly been a future president of our United States of America, Charlie Kirk.”

He referred to Charlie’s murder as “completely an act of Satan … and that evil is accelerated and personified by some of the professors here at Clemson.”

Johnson then listed the professors and thanked the administration for firing them.

“It’s not back down. We are here on this campus to stand strong for what Charlie not only preached in his life, but also died believing in.”

As for dissenters who may disagree with him, Johnson said he hopes to expose their “absurdity” and “meme (them) crying.”

“We need more memes,” he continued. “We love you, by the way, to our liberal friends. You make it easy on us.”

Marriage and children

One of the first things Johnson discussed was the importance of marriage and having children, as outlined in The Bible. He said that Kirk would repeatedly text him asking when he would have kids after getting married.

“Charlie, stop being so obsessed with my sex life, dude, it’s so weird! Calm down, man. But he was right,” Johnson said.

To Johnson, Kirk was right about getting married and having children because “he was Christ-focused.” He mentioned that one of the first commandments God gave man and woman was “go have sex” or “go be fruitful.”

Johnson said it was “God encouraging man to fall in love, get married, start a family, have children, own land.”

He said this was the American dream, which he wants to deliver to Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Johnson said that he doesn’t want people to live out the alternative to that, “which the left is offering.”

He then referenced the newest mayor-elect of New York City.

“Mamdani-style socialism is ‘we will pay for your rent-controlled apartment, you will literally own nothing, and you’ll be happy’ … And this is why the future is either MAGA or Marxism in this country,” Johnson said.

Later, he discussed how fulfilling it is to have a family and children and that conservatives are the ones making families.

“We’re the ones actually having kids and embracing what makes America great … The other sides are cutting their dicks off,” he continued.

Home owning

The next issue Johnson confronted was what he believes to be one of the biggest problems for younger generations.

“I am particularly horrified that there are imbeciles in our government who, over the past 40 years, has eroded your ability to buy a home,” he said, mentioning that the average age of first-time homebuyers is 40 years old. According to the National Association of Realtors, this is an all-time high.

He said that this was one of the last things he was working with Kirk on, and that Kirk also “saw this as the ability to unlock the American dream.”

To fix the issue of young people’s inability to buy homes in the United States, Johnson said that there are “a couple quick things to make homes more affordable.” To him, these include mass deportations of “every criminal alien” in the country, as well as banning private equity from buying homes.

“Private equity can’t buy a nuclear weapon; you also shouldn’t be able to buy a private home that is meant for an American family,” Johnson said.

The final fix he offered was a 100% tax on homes bought by “foreigners.” He said this enables American families with American children to have American homes.

Before opening up the floor for a Q&A, Johnson apologized for his “incredibly offensive speech,” but then said he believes all of it and that he’s not apologizing to anyone.

Q&A

During the Q&A, Johnson answered a question about what he believes the current administration should do to fix the problems he listed. Johnson did not specifically mention any criticisms or recommendations for the Trump administration, but referenced an announcement that he and Larry Goodwell would make.

The announcement will be “pushing for a home ownership credit for young people under the age of 35,” in the form of a $50,000 tax credit.

Johnson mentioned that data says “boomer couples, on average, own 2.8 homes per couple.”

Additionally, Johnson referred to the inheritance tax as evil. Inheritance tax is a state-level tax levied on assets that a beneficiary receives from a deceased person’s estate, and the beneficiary bears the tax burden. Currently, only five states impose an inheritance tax, and South Carolina is not one of them.

He related this to Jamestown, and how English settlers didn’t want to come over until they began offering acres of land to them.

“It’s in our DNA, bro … We are descendants of these people, and it’s … woven in our blood,” he said.

Abortion

One member of the crowd asked, “We’ve got the Congress, the Senate and Presidency, and we’ve done little to nothing to stop the mass slaughter of innocent babies in the womb. It’s like 600,000 to a million in a year.”

Johnson responded that it’s unfortunate this country has forgotten about its Christian groups.

“If you don’t believe that God created all life and made it precious, then you’re going to be totally okay with killing of life,” he continued. “Whether that’s Charlie Kirk, whether that’s putting a bullet through a President’s head … whether that is mass genocide, which by the way, collectivists do better than anybody, over the past hundred years.”

He believes an “entire generation” was killed through abortion, and that he wants there to be more Americans.

He said it is an “uphill battle” to get complete bans on abortion and advised people to move to states with “severe restrictions” on abortion.

College education

Johnson said it’s more productive for parents to provide a down payment on a home to their children once they’re married, compared to providing a college education for them.

“Something horrible happened where an entire generation … was lied to about college education and the value of them,” he said.

Johnson also discussed student loans and how they’re the reason colleges inflate the prices of education.

Media bias

When asked by an audience member, “What is the best way to stay properly informed, and how do I know I can trust sources?” Johnson replied that X, the social media platform, is the best method.

“I really like X because there is a system that uses collective information in order to have, in the very least, get to the rudimentaries of truth,” he said.

Johnson is not satisfied with the investigation into Charlie Kirk’s assassination, which he believes was “the biggest assassination since JFK’s.”

He said that the CIA lied to the public and that the federal prosecutors “better bring it at trial.”

Zohran Mamdani’s social media post

A member of the audience asked Johnson about his 9/11 Twin Towers repost, which sparked controversy on campus when Clemson TPUSA also reposted.

“Let’s have an entire conversation where we don’t even say Islam or Muslim, all right?” Johnson responded, adding that his reasoning for reposting was that Mamdani intends to defund the NYPD.

“Do you know what that’s going to do? That’s going to kill more cops.”

He said he did not wish to discuss the religion of the 9/11 hijackers, adding that they “were criminal aliens who overstayed their visas … As we have learned over the past couple of weeks, criminal aliens here in this country, overstaying visas, are here to act criminally.”

Johnson also mentioned the death of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was murdered by Jose Ibarra in 2024. Ibarra’s status as an undocumented Venezuelan immigrant spearheaded many discussions about immigration.