Trump to speak at Turning Point USA rally in Phoenix. What to know

Turning Point USA (TPUSA) is expected to hold a rally in Phoenix on April 17, with President Donald Trump scheduled as a speaker and local advocacy groups are gearing up for a protest.

The event, titled “Build the Red Wall”, will take place at Dream City Church’s Phoenix location. Erika Kirk, CEO of TPUSA and one of the scheduled speakers at the event, has previously used the term “red wall” to refer to swing or purple states like Arizona, Nevada and New Hampshire, which are seen as key battlegrounds for the upcoming midterm elections. 

In addition to Trump and Kirk, Arizona gubernatorial candidate Andy Biggs is listed as the rally’s third speaker.

Turning Point USA is a conservative nonprofit organization — linked to pushing controversial viewpoints, including supporting the immigration enforcement activity that has escalated across the country — that, according to its website, aims to “identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government.”

In addition to promoting a MAGA agenda ahead of the midterms, the event has also been seen as part of a national, conservative voter data collection effort by TPUSA. Registration for the event is powered by Vote.Online and according to reporting from KJZZ, the nonprofit organization’s address — which has since been removed from its site — is an office in the same building as TPUSA’s headquarters in Phoenix. 

The “Build the Red Wall” rally will also take place days after the TPUSA and its sister organization, Turning Point Action, ran an unsuccessful spending campaign to help elect conservative candidates onto the board of the Phoenix’s Salt River Project, the largest utility company in the state. A majority of clean-energy backers won the election that took place on April 7.

In preparation for the president's visit, local advocacy groups, including 50501 Arizona and East Valley Unite, announced a protest on social media with a post reading, “[Trump]’s coming to town. Come tell him what you think.”

Connections between TPUSA and the Trump administration go back as far as 2019, when then-CEO Charlie Kirk led a campaign for the president as part of the Students for Trump movement. In 2020, Kirk was a keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention, where he called Trump the “bodyguard of western civilization”. Trump has since appeared at numerous TPUSA events in Phoenix, including conferences and Students for Trump rallies.

Trump’s last appearance in Phoenix was during TPUSA’s annual AmericaFest event in 2025, which also included appearances from Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro and Nicki Minaj.

After Charlie Kirk was killed in September 2025, his wife, Erika Kirk, was named CEO of TPUSA, where she began to work more directly with the U.S. government. In March of this year, she was appointed by Trump to the Air Force Academy Board of Visitors, a position previously held by her husband.

Dream City Church has long supported Trump and TPUSA events. Ahead of a Students for Trump event in 2020, the church claimed in a video to have installed an air filtration system that was 99% effective against COVID-19, later removing the video after it was found that COVID-19 was not among the viruses filtered by the system.

Street closures and delays related to event security have not been officially announced by the City of Phoenix, but delays are expected along Cave Creek Road near Dream City Church. Doors are scheduled to open at 10 a.m. on Friday morning. Trump is expected to speak at 2 p.m.

River Graziano is a freelance journalist for CALÓ News. They grew up in the Ahwatukee area of Phoenix and later attended ASU in Tempe, where they spent two years as an editor at The State Press. Their reporting with CALÓ News covers advocacy efforts impacting Latine communities across the Valley.