Turning Point USA Weighs Lawsuit Against ABC News After It ‘Smeared and Lied’ About Group

Charlie Kirk speaks onstage during Politicon 2018 at Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, Calif., on Oct. 20, 2018. (Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Politicon)

Turning Point USA (TPUSA) founder Charlie Kirk has said he is “in talks” with lawyers regarding a potential lawsuit against ABC News after co-hosts of the show “The View” criticized TPUSA because so-called Nazi protestors appeared outside its recent Student Action Summit at the Tampa Convention Center in Florida.

TPUSA aims to “identify, educate, train, and organize” conservative students to “promote the principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government.”

The group took to Twitter on July 26, where it disputed comments made earlier this week on the show by its hosts, including Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar.

“Yesterday, The View and Whoopi Goldberg smeared and lied about TPUSA regarding an incident where supposed ‘nazis’ showed up outside of the Student Action Summit,” TPUSA said.

“While [the hosts] were forced by their legal department to correct two of these misrepresentations live on air, Whoopi continued to insist that TPUSA somehow welcomed ‘nazis’ into our event ’metaphorically.’”

During the July 25 segment of The View, co-host Behar told viewers that “Neo-Nazis were out there in the front of the conference with antisemitic slurs and, you know, the Nazi swastika and a picture of a so-called Jewish person with exaggerated features, just like Goebbels did during the Third Reich. It’s the same thing, right out of that same playbook.”

She then said that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis “did nothing,” despite DeSantis attending the event on July 22, the day before the so-called neo-Nazis appeared.

Legal Disclaimer

Later in the show, an on-air legal disclaimer was read to viewers, informing them that Turning Point USA condemns the so-called neo-Nazi protestors who they said had “nothing to do” with the organization.

But shortly after the disclaimer was read, Goldberg stated: “But you let them in, and you knew what they were, so you are complicit.”

The show then cut to a break, before coming back on air as Goldberg told the audience she wanted to make a “quick clarification” about the alleged neo-Nazis who had been at the event, explaining that they were “outside protestors” and had not been let in by TPUSA.

“My point was metaphorical, that you embraced them at your thing, I felt,” Goldberg said of the event. “I know they were not in the building, but they were in the mix of people at the thing [the event],” she added.

Sharing segments of the recent action summit event on Twitter, TPUSA explained: “After a group of Antifa and left-wing protesters showed up, predictably, to protest our event, they eventually dispersed; then minutes later these ‘nazis’ appeared. Who are these people? We have no idea, and apparently ABC and other news media aren’t curious enough to find out.”

It added that TPUSA students had “confronted and argued with these individuals” and that the group’s security team had attempted to remove them from the area, but were unable to do so because they were “standing on the public sidewalk” on public property.

“TPUSA students ultimately left the scene, at which point these individuals dispersed,” it added.

‘Talking to Lawyers’

Furthermore, TPUSA reiterated that had the so-called Nazis stepped into the event, they would have been promptly removed by security; but because they remained outside on the sidewalk on public property, security guards were not permitted to do so.

It added that TPUSA “100 percent condemns those ideologies in the strongest terms.”

Kirk promptly took to Twitter, where he hinted that the group is considering taking legal action against The View.

“Talking to lawyers. Many think we have a strong case,” Kirk wrote on Twitter on July 27. “You cannot smear minors as Nazis and get away with it. It impacts them for the rest of their life.” He added the hashtag #SueTheView, which has been posted repeatedly on the platform over the past few hours.

The Epoch Times has contacted ABC News and Turning Point USA for comment.

The annual TPUSA gathering drew many big-name headliners and guest speakers this year, including former President Donald Trump and Governor Ron DeSantis, as well as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), among others.