A College Republicans chapter is facing criticism for disavowing its own guest speaker who gave a passionate speech in which he called for young conservatives to be “willing to die” to save America.
Boston College Republicans hosted conservative podcast host Nick Solheim during its Oct. 20 chapter meeting. Solheim delivered a speech urging chapter members they “need to be willing to be killed” while still condemning political violence, according to multiple reports. Solheim’s remarks prompted the chapter’s executive board to issue a statement denouncing their invited guest’s comments days later. The chapter then hosted a Democratic member of Congress on Thursday, according to The Heights, an independent Boston College student newspaper.
Solheim is the CEO and co-founder of American Moment, a group that provides professional training for young conservatives, including for jobs in the Trump administration.
The chapter, an affiliate of College Republicans of America (CRA), immediately received blowback from its parent organization’s leader, who called on Boston College Republicans President Jake Wiepert to resign or be removed.
“Cowardice and disloyalty will not be tolerated. If the Boston College ‘Republican’ President doesn’t resign, CRA will disaffiliate,” CRA founder and chairman William Branson Donahue wrote in a Saturday night post to X. “It would be a shame to lose a flagship chapter, but it’s been taken over by the opposition. The members need to remove Jake Wiepert. Now.”
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, minutes earlier, sent an X post defending Solheim’s comments saying the guest speaker was “right, and he’s a patriot for saying so.”
“The future won’t belong to soft men chasing comfort. It will belong to those who risk safety to defend their homeland, their families, and their faith,” Roberts added in his post.
Solheim replied to the major conservative think tank leader writing, “Grateful for your mentorship over the years. Proud to be rowing in the same direction with you.”
Solheim, in his Oct. 20 speech to Boston College Republicans, reportedly encouraged his audience to “live in recognition of the fact that they will kill you and everybody that you love to get what they want — open borders, sex changes for minors, so-called gay marriages, health care for illegal immigrants, and so on.”
“If they’re willing to kill the people making this policy, they’re more than willing to kill the people who voted for it, too,” he added, according to reports.
“The likely next attorney general of the State of Virginia has called for the death of little fascist two- and five-year-old children of one of his Republican colleagues and has not been denounced by a single Democrat in or seeking federally elected office,” Solheim reportedly added in his speech, referring to embattled Democratic Virginia Attorney General nominee Jay Jones.
Solheim also mentioned the Sept. 10 assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk in his remarks to Boston College Republicans, according to reports. Tyler Robinson, 22, the suspect in Kirk’s murder, reportedly had a transgender boyfriend. According to Robinson’s mother, her son “had become more political and had started to lean more to the left – becoming more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented,” a charging document shows.
The speaker reportedly denounced political violence during his speech while appearing to draw a contrast between the left and the right, saying, “We don’t assassinate, attack indiscriminately, or violate our enemy.”
Boston College Republicans’s executive board, in a statement to The Heights, called Solheim’s “views and rhetoric were unprecedented and unrepresentative of the views of our club members,” adding that it does “not endorse any of these views.”
“We uphold the notion of civil discourse and believe that there is always a time for respectful discussion, even with those who do not agree with us,” the executive board’s statement continued. “This lapse in understanding was a procedural oversight and result of a sincere miscommunication while organizing our event.”
The Republican group on Thursday then privately hosted Democratic Rep. Jake Auchincloss, according to The Heights. Auchincloss voted with his party to impeach President Donald Trump in 2021 and voted against Trump’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act multiple times.
One of several organizations under the “College Republicans” umbrella, CRA was founded in 2023 and now consists of 200 chapters across the country, according to its website.
CRA describes its mission on its website as “to provide young conservatives with the resources, training, and networking opportunities they need to advocate for Republican principles, support GOP candidates, and effect positive change in their communities.”
Solheim’s organization, American Moment, “was founded in 2021 to identify, educate, and credential young Americans who will implement public policy that supports strong families, a sovereign nation, and prosperity for all,” according to its website.
American Moment states that it finds, trains, and places “young talent in the 15,000 influential positions across public-policy organizations, congressional offices, presidential administrations, and allied businesses,” emphasizing that the young people it selects must “have a worldview that places America first.”
A Politico profile piece published in November 2023 described American Moment as “a small but scrappy organization that’s quietly reshaping the conservative establishment in Washington.”
“What we’re trying to do is credential people who would otherwise not be able to get here [Washington],” Solheim told Politico at the time. “People who didn’t go to elite universities, people who don’t have rich parents.”
Solheim, Boston College Republicans, and College Republicans of America did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.