Washington student leader targeted with racist threats after starting TPUSA chapter
The president of a Washington state Turning Point USA chapter said he expected political debate when he started the group, not harassment targeting him and his family.
Geonwoo Lee and Michael Reihing, students at Henry M. Jackson High School, launched their TPUSA chapter to carry on the movement's mission. Lee, the club’s president, said that within 24 hours of the launch, anonymous hate pages began appearing online.
Lee, who is of Asian descent, told "Fox & Friends First" he has been "compared to people like Mao and Kim Jong Un."
"Multiple hate pages got made of me. I received dozens of hostile messages on both my club and personal accounts," he added.
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Lee said online critics "weaponized" his ethnicity against him, while others labeled his club "racist, fascist and white supremacist." One message included a racial slur and warned that Lee and his family were "one ICE report away" from being removed from the country.
Still, Lee remains committed to the chapter, citing his faith as a motivator.
"As a Christian, I believe that I have a duty to fight for what is good and what is right. And I know that takes a lot of conviction," he added.
Reihing said the chapter was started after TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk’s death last year. He feels a "civic duty" to uphold and grow the message Kirk championed.
"In a world where there's so much hate and there's so much evil, you being able to look past differences and be able to communicate is one of the most beautiful things," Reihing said.
Other TPUSA chapters have reported similar harassment. Amy Rose Lombardo, of the Northern Arizona University chapter, said her members have faced increasing incivility.
"A woman came by the table and dropped off a note that was a depiction of Charlie's murder and the comments on it [about] free speech, and only a good Nazi is a dead Nazi," she said in December.
The hostility follows the killing of Kirk, who was shot during an event at Utah Valley University last year. Twenty-two-year-old Tyler Robinson is currently facing charges in connection to the shooting.