In this IHIP News episode, hosts Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan respond to a cancellation campaign led by Turning Point USA and activist Andrew Colvett after they apologized for laughing at a joke about gun violence and donated to Everytown for Gun Safety. They play clips of Colvett refusing to condemn Nazi group chats and of Charlie Kirk's remarks on race, and they argue the criticism reflects hypocrisy on the other side.
The discussion also covers Turning Point's losses in the midterm elections, criticism from a former Arizona GOP chair, and attacks from some Democrats. Listeners will hear how the hosts frame accountability and apology, and how they connect the controversy to wider debates over gun violence, racism and the political role of youth voters.
In this episode Angie Sullivan, Jennifer Welch
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You get both feeds in one. All right. Last Thursday on our flagship podcast, I've Had It, Pumps and I laughed at a joke. The next morning I came in and told my team, "Take the joke out of the episode." We went too far. We were on a sugar high from the win. I want to be better than everybody else. I don't like gun violence. I don't like making light of violence. And so we did that. The next day we put out an apology. And because I condemn all forms of violence, particularly gun violence, we made a donation to Everytown for Gun Safety.
And for the people who are trying to cancel us, which is mainly spearheaded by Turning Point USA, that's not enough. They don't want to end gun violence. They mocked our donation. And this is all spearheaded by a guy named Andrew Colvett, and he responded to our apology. Pop this up. He says, "Dear Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan, thanks for the video, but it's not that hard. Just don't legitimize political violence."
And further in this report here, I'm going to show you how Turning Point legitimizes violence all the time. But let me read what else he wrote here. "You can blame me or Turning Point all you want, but we're not the reason all your sponsors are fleeing. You are. Your lack of remorse is the least surprising thing of all. I never once expected you to listen to me, but maybe, just maybe, you'll listen to the brands that no longer want to be associated with you." Andrew, the difference between you and me is when I make a mistake that I personally don't feel good about, I apologize for it because I want to always strive to be better and more inclusive.
You, Andrew, let's take a little stroll down history lane, Pumps, at Andrew's statements. Pop this up. Andrew says, "What's fascinating to watch is who the left chooses as its mascots. There was the victim of police brutality and racism George Floyd, who was actually a drug addict who died of a fentanyl overdose when stopped for using counterfeit money. This is gaslighting. We all saw with our own eyes the police brutality and the murder of George Floyd."
Then he goes on to say, "There was Marilyn Dadd, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was actually a wife-beating illegal and human trafficker. Now we have Renee Good, a mom who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, who was actually a militarized lesbian whose wife was trained by anti-colonial Minnesota ICE watch to harass and disrupt ICE operations. You have to completely suspend all logic and common sense to believe the lies."
This is who our biggest critic is. So judge us by our enemies. George Floyd was murdered. And the reason that there's a statement in a group called Black Lives Matter is because in Turning Point, they dehumanize Black people. In Turning Point, they dehumanize Abrego Garcia. They dehumanize him and say his life doesn't matter. They want to say that there's such a group called militarized lesbians.
What?
This woman was shot and killed by state-sanctioned violence, gun violence. And then she was called a fucking bitch. And then her government called her a terrorist. And her family is grieving. There's no accountability for this. We condemn all of this. The difference between you and us, Andrew, is I want my side of the street to be clean because I want to advocate against all of these things.
You know, when I saw that, I thought, isn't it interesting that every single one of the victims of domestic violence in that group, that's fine to hurt and beat up them because Turning Point USA is just a complete swamp of white supremacy. And I will just say, nothing about the hypocrisy surprises me. This is an organization that says, "I can say whatever I want, but nobody else can." That's who they are. That's how they run.
You're not allowed to quote what Charlie Kirk said back to me. No, no, no, no, no. He can say it, but you can't repeat it. That's who we have found out they are, you know, time and time again.
Here is Colvett, this guy, our biggest critic who's leading the cancellation campaign of all of our sponsors and online. And Andrew, we're not going anywhere. We funded this on our own four years ago. We're ladies of a certain age that have had careers for a certain amount of years. We're going to be just fine. Here is Andrew Colvett refusing to condemn Nazi group chats. Play the clip.
Yes. We saw these Nazi group chats, which I'm sure you condemn, right? This Nazi group chat.
Well, we can talk about it.
Do you condemn it?
Talk about it.
I want to talk about it.
Wait. So when they said gas chambers.
When they say gas chambers, you won't. So you're like JD Vance. You just won't condemn this? Well, I actually had JD on the show today. We had a whole conversation.
You guys can all condemn this, right?
Oh, yes.
Thank you. Hold on.
All right.
Hold on.
Chris, can you condemn that?
Here's the point. Of course.
All right. I condemn the Nazi group chats, Andrew. I condemn gun violence. I condemn myself for laughing at that joke. I condemn Pumps. Pumps, do you condemn me?
Yes, I do.
Okay.
We went too far.
That's the difference. That's the fundamental difference. Multiple Turning Point USA chapters have faced scandals involving members caught sharing racist and anti-Semitic messages in private group chats, including incidents at Florida International University and Texas A&M. And this is where we have to talk about this, and we get to talk about it. The reason why a lot of people didn't grieve Charlie Kirk's death, and I just want to say that I condemn gun violence no matter who the recipient is.
Somebody we love very, very much was shot two years ago, and I don't ever want to make light of gun violence. That's the difference between us, Charlie Kirk, and Andrew Colvett. But here's a super cut of Charlie Kirk in his own words. Play this clip.
Black pilot, I'm going to be like, boy, I hope he's qualified. The civil rights act was a mistake.
More cops should be around your neighborhood.
Why do Blacks have a broken family? White person were to come up and say, you know, Black America really needs to get its act together and stop sleeping around all the time, and it needs to actually have enough.
Why would you spell that?
Because it's true.
When Blacks in America did not have the same rights they had today, they were less murderous. There was less break-ins. Black America is worse than it has been in the last 80 years. What percentage of young Blacks have both a mom and a dad raising them?
Of course we pander to Blacks. They're in every TV commercial.
And they're saying, "I'm only here because of affirmative action." Yeah, we know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously.
If I'm dealing with somebody in customer service who's a moronic Black woman, I wonder.
Okay, I can't take it anymore. He goes on to talk about, "Man, it's a joke. Can you take a joke?" The funny thing about all of this is, it's not funny. The ironic thing about all of this is, I condemn with everything in me, every single thing that that man said. He was a vile, unrepentant racist. The guy who's carrying the torch for him, Andrew Colvett, refuses to condemn Nazis, gaslights his followers about state-sanctioned murder that we saw of George Floyd.
Because why? Because you heard there, Charlie, in his own words, "Black lives don't matter to them." But for those of you that have watched this channel for four years and have ridden with us all of this time, you know who we advocate for, and it's everyone. We can make blatant statements that they cannot make. I condemn gun violence. I support the LGBTQ+ movement, and I want them to have equal rights. I condemn racism. I condemn homophobia. I condemn Islamophobia.
I condemn political violence, state-sanctioned violence. And because I want to put my money where my mouth is, we donated to Everytown for Gun Safety. And here's all you need to know about this movement. Ronald Reagan was shot, and two other people got shot with him. And one of the guys that got shot was his press secretary, Mr. Brady. Mr. Brady and his wife led common sense gun reform, and that was a political assassination. Andrew's trying to say, "Oh, Charlie was political.
It was a political assassination. It wasn't gun violence." Well, back in the day, before Republicans were this depraved, the Brady family fought very, very hard and ultimately passed the Brady Bill for common sense gun legislation. And they saw the damage of guns, and they wanted to make a change. They broke with their party rank on this. They broke with the NRA and fought for the safety and security of every American.
The fundamental difference between the people at Turning Point and this channel and all of our millions of followers on this channel is, it's unacceptable that the number one killer of children in this country is guns. And we want to do everything in our power to be on the right side of that. And then here's another video. No one had a problem when Charlie Kirk made jokes like this. Play the clip.
The gay person would go to Gaza. They'd throw you off at tall buildings, right? Now they don't have any tall buildings left, so I don't. Is that too soon? I'm sorry. Maybe you shouldn't kill Jews, stupid Muslims.
Okay. So this is the difference. And for those of you that are like, "Why did you apologize?" It's because I want to be better. I approach politics and life with an open mind and an open heart and fierce protection of marginalized groups. And I want to be better. When I look at something that I said or my behavior that's wrong, I want to rectify it. And that's for me. That's because I have to put my head on the pillow at night. And when I advocate for Palestinians, when I advocate for marginalized groups in the United States, I want my side of the street to be as clean as possible, Pumps.
And I would just say this. When you have a movement that is so happy to revel in the marginalization of others, in the racism that they cultivate, and the absolute, "We are the supreme beings," and you sit around and you do all these things, and you're so ugly and hateful and harmful, you're just flat out harmful. But then when someone points it out or when someone does what you do, instead of looking in the mirror and saying, "You know, I don't feel good about that.
I should have handled this differently," they just double down because at the end of the day, they are transparently hypocrites. They really don't have a stand other than racism and misogyny. And so again, I want to reiterate that our apology has nothing to do and is not directed at Turning Point or this bozo Andrew. It is directed at ourselves because we believe in doing the right thing. And that's something that Turning Point has never once believed in.
And it's directed to anybody who believes in our movement, that the millions of people that started following two middle-aged white moms out of Oklahoma to build a coalition, that we have this position and we want to use it for good. And we want our side of the street to be clean. Here is a video of Charlie Kirk advocating for the violence that Andrew Colvett says he doesn't want legitimized.
Play the clip.
It's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.
I condemn that statement because every single life, to me, matters. We know from what I've played you from Turning Point thus far, they don't believe that. They only believe certain lives matter. Certain jokes are okay only by certain people. These people manufacture outrage, and they are very selective about it because they are bad-faith actors. They are bad-faith actors that got their asses handed to them on Tuesday. They lost everything. And Turning Point is a group that goes out to college campuses to rally the youth vote.
Let me tell you why they're going after us. Number one, because we've been effective. In a very short time, across all platforms, we have over 5 million followers. And they realize, "Oh, this is a threat." They ran on transphobia. They ran on homophobia. They ran on dehumanizing immigrants. They ran on, "It's all the Black people's fault. It's all the Muslims' fault." The racism that was spewed at Abdul El-Sayed and Zohran Mamdani, these people love it. And let's see how well the Republican Party did in the electoral map on last Tuesday with those 30 and under.
Pop this up. For those of you listening, every single state is blue. The 2026 midterms, if only voters under 30 voted. It was a complete wipeout. Turning Point is losing their legitimacy and losing their stronghold. So they're coming after us, and we will survive this. Looking at that map, I don't think they're going to. I think it's going to be curtains for Turning Point, and it should be. It should be because they won't condemn any of the stuff I played because Charlie Kirk, in his own words, said, "Never apologize.
Double down." They don't believe in having an open heart and an open mind and atonement and learning and building coalitions to try to stamp out gun violence, to try to deal with anti-Black racism, to humanize and help refugees and immigrants. They don't believe in that because they have no policy. They believe in making scapegoats. And Kylie, put that up one more time. Andrew, these are the results. These are your results. This is what you got. And then let's just continue because I'm sure we're going to be on Fox News all day today.
And so Fox News is going to claim the moral high ground in all of this. And let's just remind everybody, this is the dehumanization that is acceptable on Fox News. And just for the record, I'm going to say before I play it, I condemn this, Pumps.
I condemn this. Absolutely.
Go ahead.
They have given billions of dollars to mental health and the homeless population. A lot of them don't want to take the programs. A lot of them don't want to get the help that is necessary. You can't give them a choice. Either you take the resources that we're going to give you, or you decide that you're going to be locked up in jail. That's the way it has to be now.
Or involuntary lethal injection or something. Just kill them.
I mean, it just rolls off the tongue because only they matter. Only their group of people matter. And so that is why when I see the comments online and the people attacking us from Turning Point and others, it bothers me zero. It makes me feel stronger and want to go harder because I see them as weak and failing and exactly the kind of thing voters last Tuesday said, "We're done.
We're done with the racism and the cruelty. We want decency. We want respect. We want other Americans." You know, a lot of the candidates, James Tellerico and Adam Hamilton, that both won in deep red states, they ran on a platform of love thy neighbor. They can't do that at Turning Point because they hate their neighbor unless their neighbor looks like them.
Of course, Andrew Colvett in his bios, it says Christian. All right. So we just played in his own words all of the stuff that he does. He weaponizes faith to try to lure in young people. And he was completely, completely repudiated, as he should be, as this movement should be. And it's getting worse for them and this kind of the pile-on that they are, you know, the dog pile-on that they're manufacturing all of this outrage against us. They don't want the apology. They want our scalps. And they're never going to get them.
They're never going to get them.
But some other people want their scalps. And the call's coming from inside the house. Here is former Arizona GOP Chair Gina Swoboda. And she's blaming Turning Point USA for their losses in the midterms. Let's hear it straight from the horse's mouth. Play the clip.
May be to blame.
I think that Turning Point action should be disbanded because there's a large amount of Republicans who just decided not to vote at all. And that was a protest vote. And that's because there was no candidate on the ballot that would make them come out and vote. They have to take ownership of that. Turning Point action is never and never has and never will function in the way that they intended to. And the donors should stop giving money to an organization that is going to fund our destruction as a party.
I mean, that's pretty damning. And so when you realize that what they're trying to do right now is rile up the base and all they have is this horrific murder that happened to a horrible person, Charlie Kirk. But I condemn the murder, even though I condemn everything that ever came out of Charlie Kirk's mouth. And to try to say, "Look at these crazy white women. Look at these crazy white liberal women. We have to cancel them," because they're trying to show the Republican Party, "Look, we can get these people canceled."
They don't realize that when you look at their electoral map and you look at the impact ourselves and other people in left-wing, pro-democracy, independent media made on this election, that people are repudiating this. We condemn Nazis. Andrew does not. We condemn racism. Andrew does not. I condemn anybody who goes after lesbians. I'm serious. I mean, lesbians are a plus asset in the world. So the entire LGBTQ+ community is an asset to this world.
They condemn it. They condemn the people that we love. If this was a group that genuinely fought for good, that's not what we're dealing with here. These are abject hypocrites to the highest order. And here's more reporting, bad reporting for Turning Point from The New York Times. Pop this up. Turning Point bet on the midterms and lost. Some Republicans are furious. In the group's home state, were registered Republicans outnumber Democrats.
Mr. Biggs lost to Governor Katie Hobbs by more than 10 points, and Democrats thumped Turning Point's chosen candidates for statewide and congressional races. And every single day on this platform, we will continue to get up and fight for our Black community, our immigrant community, our LGBTQ+ community with everything in us, with everything in us. And if we misstep or do something that we don't feel good about, we'll own it.
And we'll apologize for it. And we'll put our money where our mouth is and make a donation to atone for that. These people don't do any of that. They are bad actors. At the end of the day, they might go after us and get this sponsor to cancel and get this sponsor to side with Turning Point. They can do that all they want to. The people have spoken. I've had it podcast. It's going to go on. We're going to be here tomorrow. We're going to be here the day after that. We're going to be here next year. And we're going to be here the year after that. And we're going to celebrate in 2028 an even bigger victory and a Democratic president where we can make bold change that delivers materially for every American, especially those Americans that the people at Turning Point actively dehumanize.
And so judge us by our enemies. Judge us by our enemies. Turning Point USA put over $18 million in Andy Biggs campaign only for him to get thumped by 10 points. Turning Point Action, the political arm, ran a $3.44 million deficit in the fiscal year of 2025. Complaints under an Arizona dark money law alleged that TPA and Turning Point PAC filed no required reports. And an outlet called it the only organization in Arizona with open complaints under the law.
Its chapter claims do not hold up. Seven Philadelphia area schools listed as clubs said they had none and several chapters quit and were denied. This is their final breath coming after us because the transphobia, the anti-Black racism, the Islamophobia didn't work. And they're like, "God damn it. Let's blame these people." But let me just say, we put ourselves in this situation.
We did.
I take accountability for that. I take complete accountability for that. The fundamental difference is we're big girls. We want to be better at every turn because I want to, when I advocate for these people, I want to do it clean and clear. I want people to know that you have an ally in me and an ally that when we misstep, we correct. And if they want to sit in bed wet and pearl clutch for days, just watch them. They're going to continue to do it.
They will.
They never wanted an apology. They don't care that we donated to Everytown for Gun Safety because they don't want to resolve the issue of gun safety. They're fine that every single day we wake up and put on our phones and there's some gun violence that is being reported. And then a weird thing happened, Pumps. So this is clearly the cancellation of us is driven by Turning Point. That's undisputed. But then some quote-unquote Democrats, and I'm going to call these people the Haley Stevens wing of the Democratic Party, jumped on.
They piled on us. One of them is this gal Nira Tandem, who if you follow her on Twitter, if you see, all she does is fight with Mehdi Hassan and Hassan Piker all the time. And pop this up. She started smearing us. She says, "I have often wondered who Jennifer Welch is and who she speaks for. She shits on Dems for sport. Toxic podcasters are no better than toxic Twitch streamers from California." What does she think, that we have, what, a group of militant lesbians over here?
You know.
Militarized.
I mean, it's just, it's so ridiculous. But yes, we do have lesbians in our group. And we do have a bunch of white wine moms. And we have Black people in our group. And we have immigrants in our group. We are a group of people that have come together to fight out corporate politics. And that's the very politics that Nira Tandem supports. Another Haley Stevens Democrat is a gal I'd never heard of until somebody sent this to me. Her name is Stephanie Feldman, and she worked for Joe Biden, I believe. Pop this up. She says, "Jennifer Welch represents the very worst of the online left influencers, and I cannot take seriously anyone who does not see that she has horrible judgment and horrible character."
For those of you that have listened to us for four years or a year or four months, you know what we stand for. You know what we advocate for. And then this gal, Shannon Watts, she, I believe, really fought for Mom's Demand Action, like was really for ending gun violence, which I want to join her in that. Like I want to align with her in this. But bizarrely, she came after us and Midas Touch.
Pop this up. Okay, so Lisa says, "Other online left casters shouldn't promote her talking about me, although Midas Touch has become very similar." And Shannon Watts says, "Yes, I love the guys at Midas Touch."
Yes, love them.
I'm sorry. That's just whatever. I mean, we get mouthy, yes. Do we cuss too much? Yes. Do we bully the bullies as hard as they bully marginalized groups? Fuck, yes, we do. Midas Touch, I'm sorry. They're the gold standard in all of this. Do not come for our boys. I mean, fuck all the way off on that. Midas Touch paved the way for all of us to build this huge independent media. So Midas Touch has the receipts of Shannon Watts begging them to come on their podcast.
Pop this up. Brett Michaelis, I love you so much. So she's begging basically, "I'd love to come on your podcast to talk about my new book, blah, blah, blah." Midas Touch is always like, "If you want to defeat Republicans and you're pro-democracy, join us." That's their ethos. That's their motto.
They lift everybody up.
They lift everybody up. And they bully the bullies and they are MAGA slayers. So anyway, y'all can go online and read this because she's begging to come on. Of course, the Michaelis brothers, gracious party of three, your table's now available. We're like, "Yes, we'd love to have you come on." And now she's saying the online left, I mean, come on. Do we deserve? I mean, do we cuss and do? Yes, we do. We feel this passionately and our brand of fighting fascism and our brand of MAGA slang and Turning Point slang is not for everybody, but it's for those of you that tune in every single day and support us and you have found a home with us.
And for that, we thank you so, so much. We are not going anywhere. Make sure you're subscribed. Just to subscribe to YouTube or anywhere you get your podcasts is free. If you want to sponsor us financially, you can become a member on YouTube or join us on Substack. Follow us on all social media because at the end of the day, ever since Turning Point put a target on us, our numbers have grown. And they're going to continue to grow all week. And also, go buy my book. It's called Not Today Fascists.
The link is right below because that's what this whole movement is about. And our movement includes everyone. And Turning Point, Pumps, they can't say that, can they?
No, they cannot. And let me tell you something. They're losing political power, hand over fist. And I suspect you're exactly right. That's where this comes from. They are just choking at the bottom of the pool trying to swim up. And I don't think they're going to.
Just as we go out, let's look at Turning Point's election results. Kyla, if you'll pop up that political map one more time.
They banged up job Andrew.
Bang up job, Andrew. You crushed it.
Good job.
Thank you for helping us. Let's send Turning Point out on a 50 state tour because these are their results. All blue. The map under 30 is a total wipeout. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you so much for supporting us. And we're going nowhere. We continue to fight the good fight and we will continue to find good trouble. And when we misstep, we will apologize because we want to be better people and we want this movement to be clean and clear.
Don't worry. This is the episode where we had to dress up as being in the news cycle. We'll be back in a couple of hours right in our wheelhouse with just some straight-up MAGA bashing because we will go full tilt and we will continue to go full tilt. We love you all.
Turning Point wants to cancel us.
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