“This kid is a prime example of the issues in this country,” is what hundreds of people on Instagram were commenting towards former CHS student Paul Weder. The comments started flooding in after former Fox commentator and supporter of Turning Point U.S.A, Megyn Kelly, went to Virginia Tech on September 24th trying to continue to spread her late friend Charlie Kirk’s message of republican politics through his famous college debates.
Weder started the debate by asking Kelly, “I want to know why you support a president who contributes to the rhetoric that got your friend Charlie Kirk killed. We saw his rally recently. He said, ‘I hate my enemies.’” Kelly answered the question by saying that he was assuming facts not present in the evidence.
Next, Weder cited a study done by the Department of Justice that stated right-wing political violence is far more common than that from the left wing. In the study, which was conducted from 1920-2024, it was stated that right-winged extremists committed 227 politically motivated attacks resulting in deaths, while left-wing extremists only committed 47 attacks resulting in death. The study was removed from the website days after Kirk’s assassination.
Kelly denied the truth of the study, saying, “That’s not true. Once you pull the crazies out of there, it is overwhelmingly left-wing violence,” she replied to Weder. Shortly after, the crowd started to ‘boo’ Weder, and that is when he asked them all to look the study up. He remarked that “the DOJ just pulled it from their website.” Kelly continued by saying the original question is “a blatant lie. It’s a defamatory, blaspheme, and it’s inappropriate in this setting.”
Kelly continued to recite evidence about how Charlie Kirk’s murderer was motivated because of the killer’s left-wing political views. “Is it okay for the President to be inciting violence against liberals?” Weder retorted.
She continued to rebut and disagree with his questions, and ended the debate by mentioning that “Trump has every right to loathe his enemies. They tried to put him in jail for the rest of his life. They tried to bankrupt [him]. They tried to put his family in jail, and they tried to kill him.” Weder replied to this with “rightfully so.”
This debate quickly reverted to uncivil discourse, as most debates between opposing sides do in these days of extreme political polarization. However, Weder was mostly blamed for the shouting and heckling that took place, despite being a freshman college student debating an experienced commentator and debater. As an experienced debater, Kelly should know that to have a productive conversation civil discourse is required.
When interviewing Paul Weder, he talked about how he didn’t know if he would get the chance to speak at the Turning Point debate, but he did research before to form a thought out question just in case.
KTR asked him how he was able to keep his cool during a very heated debate. He responded, “I wouldn’t say I kept my cool exactly. Why a lot of people actually thought I looked angry was because I couldn’t hear myself speak. There were speakers, and I was trying to hear myself over the speakers while also trying to make sure she [Kelly] could hear me.”
When Weder was asked about how he dealt with people’s response on social media, he mentioned that “I always expected people to say crazy things, but I didn’t expect people to come and attack my character.” There were thousands of comments on the post, saying ‘He’s wild and investigate him before he loses it and hurts someone because he has no idea what’s going on’ and ‘It really is sad that this young man has so much anger, all liberals do.’ People even went as far to say Weder is the next mass shooter.
However, when he was asked if there was anything he wished he would have said or done differently, he said, “I wished I would have been better prepared more and not have stepped away from the mic as soon as I did.” He explained how the person who was holding the mic pulled it away from him and that’s why he stepped away.
The debate ended up turning uncivil, that being said Weder took most of the heat of the mean comments on social media due to it being posted on conservative accounts. However, for the situation Weder was in he was able to keep an engaging debate, not back down, and asked the important questions that sparked debates with opposing sides. Politics is an extremely tense topic, but making sure we have across the aisle conversation allows us to move forward as a country.
