The Dictatorship
Turning Point USA’s annual convention begins in the shadow of Charlie Kirk’s killing
In any other year, under different circumstances, AmericaFest would be one big celebration for the Grand Old Party.
Last year, Turning Point USA’s annual convention served as a victory lap for Donald Trump, who’d won reelection in no small part thanks to the tens of thousands of students who make up TPUSA’s sprawling network of campus Republican organizations.
This year’s convention will feature a decidedly different tone — and higher stakes — following the shooting death of TPUSA’s leader and co-founder, Charlie Kirk, in September. The last few weeks have been particularly tumultuous for the Turning Point organization, which sits at the center of Republican infighting and conspiracy theories surrounding Kirk’s death.
But the show must go on. AmericaFest, beginning Thursday in Phoenix, Arizona, and running through Sunday, will feature an array of MAGA figureheads vying for time in front of Kirk’s audience — many of whom have been warring since his death over how it happened and who his natural heir might be.
The official program includes a laundry list of party officials, right-wing pundits, media celebrities and pastors. Many of them sit in Trump’s immediate orbit, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Donald Trump Jr., longtime Trump confidante Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro. They’ll speak broadly about Kirk’s legacy and host breakout discussions on issues important in the Trump-era GOP: The intersection of conservative and Christian values, the ongoing fight to rebuild American education in the party’s image, and the perceived and nebulous threat of liberalism and anti-fascism.
All eyes will be on Kirk’s widow Erika, who’s grappling not only with the death of her husband, but the MAGA movement and its penchant for building conspiracy theories around high-profile news cycles.
She has spent recent weeks on a press tour to combat a deluge of baseless claims — from the likes of far-right podcaster Candace Owens, Alex Jones, Carlson and Bannon — that the widely accepted account of Charlie Kirk’s killing might be suspicious or wholly fabricated.
Owens in particular has been a thorn in the side of Erika Kirk and TPUSA since Charlie was shot and killed at a speaking event in Utah, allegedly by 22-year-old Tyler Robinson. On her podcast Owens has offered, without evidence, an array of alternative suspects for the assassination, including the Israeli government, the French government, and unnamed members of TPUSA, upon whom she also lodged vague accusations of financial fraud (also without evidence). Robinson was arrested and charged with aggravated murderamong other counts, and authorities believe he acted alone.
In response to Owens, Turning Point officials scheduled a livestream event and invited the podcaster to join them for a debate earlier this week. The event fell apart, but on Monday, Owens and Erika Kirk opted to meet privately for what Owens described as a 4.5-hour conversation. Details are unclear, but the conversation doesn’t appear to have settled the drama — Owens said afterward that she remains unconvinced that Robinson is the primary suspect in Charlie Kirk’s killing.
“Everyone always has to think there’s more to the story. Well, sometimes there’s not,” Erika Kirk said in an interview with CBS News’ Bari Weiss. To Owens directly, she said: “Stop. That’s all I have to say. Stop.”
Kirk’s death leaves a number of question marks for TPUSA, including who might fill his shoes in the podcasting and punditry space, where he garnered an audience of millions. Though Erika Kirk currently sits atop TPUSA as its CEO, her husband’s audience and podcasting empire remain very much up for grabs.
Since September, “The Charlie Kirk Show” has seen a revolving door of Republican politicians and commentators vying for screen time, but none have emerged as a clear replacement for the charismatic talking head, let alone as a leader of a nationwide political youth movement. But the events at AmericaFest may narrow the field: meet-and-greets have been scheduled with far-right provocateurs who built substantial podcast followings of their own amid Trump’s rise to power, including Jack Posobiec, Alex Clark and Michael Knowles.
AmericaFest will also feature a fair bit of peacocking from the GOP, which will have its first chance this weekend to impress TPUSA’s network of young voters since Kirk’s killing. Vice President JD Vance — who may have already secured TPUSA’s support for a presidential run in 2028, as Erika Kirk suggested — will speak on Sunday, his first real opportunity to pitch himself as a party leader to Kirk’s audience.
Other 2026 political hopefuls will also have some stage time, including Vivek Ramaswamy, who announced a gubernatorial bid in OhioTexas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who’s running for U.S. Senateand Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs, running for governor in his state.
Andy Campbell is a Senior Enterprise Editor for MS NOW Digital. He is also the author of “We Are Proud Boys: How a right-wing street gang ushered in a new era of American extremism.”
California voters will consider a controversial proposal in November to temporarily raise taxes on billionaires after the labor union backing the measure announced Thursday it would forge ahead despite pressure from critics to withdraw it.
The proposal, backed by the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Workers West, would impose a one-time 5% tax on individuals whose net worth exceeds $1 billion and who were living in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026. The goal is to generate $100 billion in revenue, mainly to fund the state’s Medicaid system after federal cuts.
“I am all in on this,” union President Dave Regan said on a Zoom call, adding that opponents of the proposal are “totally out of touch.”
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and many traditional allies of the union oppose the measure. They argue it is a temporary fix for an ongoing problem and that it would push the ultrawealthy to leave the state, taking the money they would contribute in income taxes with them. Newsom, who is considering a presidential run as he prepares to leave office in January, has generally opposed tax increases during his time as governor.
A coalition of healthcare, education and housing groups — including the California Medical Association and California School Boards Association — banded together last week to fight the tax.
“The dangerous wealth tax directly threatens vital funding for education and schools, healthcare and clinics, public safety, and infrastructure projects by making California’s revenue even more volatile,” the coalition said in a statement.
Brian Brokaw, a Newsom political adviser who is leading a political committee opposing the tax, said it would “make California’s biggest challenges worse.”
“Driving away the state’s sustainable tax base for a one-time grab is bad policy and an even worse deal for 40 million Californians who will be left holding the bag,” he said in a statement.
Under the proposal, the state would spend the money generated from the tax over multiple years. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that the proposal would generate tens of billions of dollars in the first few years, but that income tax revenues would subsequently decline by hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Many of the Silicon Valley tech moguls who oppose the measure have already moved their assets to other states or threatened to do so to avoid the possible tax. They have also spent millions to try to defeat it.
Since the proposal was announced in October, Google co-founder Sergey Brin has donated $82 million to a political committee called Building a Better California that backs a variety of initiatives designed to blunt the billionaire tax proposal. It has raised more than $118 million, counting Brin’s contributions, from fewer than a dozen donors.
California relies on its top 1% of earnersfor nearly half of its personal income tax revenue.
The union offered to scale back its proposal last week, asking Newsom to back a 2% tax on billionaires instead. But the governor’s office said the lower rate didn’t change his stance.
The proposed tax may have piqued the interest of many Democrats because it comes at a time when they are particularly concerned about affordability, income inequality and federal cutbacks to government programs, said Martin Gilens, a political science professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“There’s kind of a perfect storm that sort of bolsters preexisting inclinations to be sympathetic to the idea of raising taxes on the well-to-do,” he said.
But there’s a catch. Support for ballot initiatives often declines as the election nears, and if the measure passes, it’s likely to face legal challenges, Gilens said.
Since taking office one week ago, Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligence, has busied himself on social media posting flattering photos of President Donald Trump, trivia about a former counterintelligence agent and praising his current staff.
What the Trump loyalist with no intelligence experience has not done is address the public about his plans, or calm the unease and confusion inside the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which is being described by top officials as “chaotic” amid firings of senior personnel with threats of more to come.
One image posted to the official X account of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, apparently artificial intelligence-generated, features Trump raising a clenched fist in the air with two B-2 stealth bombers in the sky behind him. Another is an image of the president, his fist clenched, glowering as he stands behind the Oval Office’s Resolute Desk.
In another post, Pulte, who was expected to gut the workforce of the National Counterterrorism Center, instead declared the staff there “true professionals and American patriots” after he said he spent time with them, adding “it is a privilege to work beside them.”
And in an apparent attempt at levity, Pulte reposted a message reminding Americans that Tuesday was “National Typewriter Day” and informing them of the role that a former Army counterintelligence agent played.
“Fun CI fact,” the post reads. “Former Army CI Special Agent Leroy Anderson composed ‘The Typewriter’ on October 9, 1950.”
But Pulte’s arrival has sparked anxiety and fear among the office’s workforce, three former U.S. intelligence officials told MS NOW, granted anonymity to address a sensitive topic.
They said that a half dozen political appointees were removed from their posts and several dozen staffers were sent back to their home intelligence agencies. Beyond that, little else is known about Pulte’s plans.
Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told MS NOW that his requests for more information from the office, known by the acronym ODNI, have been rebuffed.
“I’ve been calling over there all day and can’t get my calls returned,” said Himes.
He later said, “I spoke directly to their office of congressional affairs. They said they had nothing for me.”
“It seems like it’s totally chaotic at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on a podcast Wednesday. “There was word that there was going to be firings and then he said he changed his mind. We don’t know.”
Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior CIA official and now an MS NOW contributor, said that staff in the intelligence community do not know what to think.
“Everyone is in the same boat and unsure of what is going on,” he said. “That said, there is no love lost for the DNI, as many believe that there is redundancy that does need to be cut.”
The other former U.S. intelligence officials said they agree that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is in need of reform. The agency was created after a lack of information sharing among U.S. intelligence agencies played a role in the failure to stop the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. ODNI’s mission is to ensure that the country’s now 18 different intelligence agencies share information with one another.
But the former intelligence officials said Pulte is patently unqualified to design or carry out those reforms.
“As with many things Trump alights upon, there is a sliver of truth here but he goes about addressing it in the worst possible way,” a former senior U.S. intelligence official told MS NOW, granted anonymity over concerns of retaliation. “But mass firings without any kind of sense of what you are trying to accomplish is addressing it in the most ham-handed way.”
That former official, as well as Warner and Himes, have said they fear that Pulte’s mission is to use his position as the nation’s top intelligence official to help Trump interfere in the midterm elections in November.
Pulte, who simultaneously serves as the Trump administration’s top federal housing official as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, used government mortgage information to file several criminal referrals against Democrats whom Trump considered enemies, including Sen. Adam Schiff of California and New York State Attorney General Letitia James. None of Pulte’s referrals have resulted in criminal convictions.
One fear expressed by Warner and some former intelligence officials is that Pulte may try to falsely claim that his office has found evidence that foreign governments are secretly funding Democratic candidates.
One way he could do that, they say, is by falsely claiming foreign actors have hacked U.S. voting machines and altered vote totals in favor of Democrats. And Pulte and FBI agents could seize voting machines, ballots and election records in November — as Gabbard did in Fulton County, Georgia, last year at Trump’s behest — as part of voter fraud investigations that please the president.
“I have to tell you, I was extraordinarily concerned about the former director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, interfering in our election,” Warner told NPR earlier this month. “The concerns I had with Tulsi Gabbard now, upon reflection, look small versus the concerns I have with Bill Pulte.”
David Rohde is the senior national security reporter for MS NOW and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Previously he was the senior executive editor for national security and law for NBC News.
Former President Barack Obama slammed President Donald Trump for obsessing over him while serving in the nation’s highest office.
“I obviously, you know, have a room in his head. A suite in his head,” Obama said an an episode of the podcast “All The Smoke,” posted Wednesday.
“Look, first of all, when I was president, the last thing I had time to do was worry about what somebody said, or what my predecessor did,” Obama told the two hosts, former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson. “They’re gone. I’ve got work to do.”
Trump has a long history of publicly insulting the former president, often invoking Obama’s middle name, Hussein.
Trump has also heavily promoted the false and racist “birther” conspiracy theory, which claimed that Obama was ineligible to serve as president because he was born in Kenya rather than the United States.
Earlier this year, Trump drew criticism after sharing a racist artificial intelligence-generated video on his Truth Social account depicting the former president and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes. The video was later deleted, and Trump did not apologize.
Before launching the war against Iran with Israel on Feb. 28, Trump repeatedly criticized the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 diplomatic agreement primarily negotiated by Obama that also limited Iran’s nuclear capabilities in exchange for sweeping economic sanctions relief.
More recently, Trump trashed the newly debuted Obama Presidential Center in Chicago as a “very unattractive building” and “total disaster,” adding that when his presidential library opens, it will be “on time, on budget, best location in Miami.”
Without mentioning Trump by name, Obama criticized leaders who fixate on their predecessors, characterizing their priorities as misplaced.
“If you’re doing the job right, everyday, you’ve got five, ten things that are real hard. And you have to be constantly focused,” Obama said.
“The idea that I’d be worrying about somebody who came before and me trying to measure, ‘What’s he done today?’ Constantly worrying about that is a strange thing to me. It shows me somebody who’s not focused on the American people and the job they’re supposed to do.”
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
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