I was personally never enthralled with Charlie Kirk, as the current OCGFC, Owners and Controllers of Global Financialized Capital, who run the world utilize as one of their main tactics, controlled opposition. You run and control the opposition so that nobody outside your control rises to threaten your power and control, and today that’s preparing the world for Antichrist, their master. That’s why conservative news and people in the movement always leave a lot to be desired and usually let you down. And Charlie Kirk forms Turning Point USA at 18 with the backing of billionaire Foster Friess who ran for governor in Wyoming. Clearly TPUSA was a political organization and you’d have to say Charlie Kirk was groomed for the position. I’m not complaining for the effort as they successfully helped Trump win and give a reprieve from far left liberal policies, but ultimately we’re still on the same trajectory as a nation under judgement. And always best to remember that the people in power are those that Satan controls with God’s permission, as the earth was given to Satan which he stated clearly when tempting Christ who he couldn’t deceive. But just look through Charlie Kirk’s wiki, all the books written, creating a Christian political branch… and tell me this wasn’t an asset being run by the OCGFC (writing too many books is always a red flag for assets as they employ teams of ghost writers).
The No Agenda Show had some interesting coverage of Charlie Kirk, and of interest was John C. Dvorak’s labeling Kirk as a polemist who was perfecting his craft at these college events, being capable of competently arguing either side of any argument. They also had the sound clip of just before the shot which was suspicious given the questions. Consequently, I saw the video, and I was kind of thinking a false flag. The guy has been working so hard, perhaps it was time to retire and we’ll have to see how his assassination is used politically. Will this give a nudge towards nationalizing police like they did with the TSA? John C. Dvorak even mentioned an extraction in the podcast, and it’s believed this will incentivize more to rise up and do what Charlie Kirk was doing. It’s always possible that Charlie was going his own way and having too much of an impact threatening plans, as one could argue that could have been a professional hit with this young man being the fall guy with a couple decoys… But with world events and politics, best to not let them get you emotional weakening your reason, and look at everything through the lens of deception and manipulation which is employed to control. So as things unfold after, we’ll be able to look back and get a better understanding of what happened and possibly why.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kirk
Charlie Kirk
Charles James Kirk (October 14, 1993 – September 10, 2025) was a right-wing American conservative political activist, author, and media personality. He co-founded the conservative organization Turning Point USA (TPUSA) in 2012 and was its executive director. He was the chief executive officer of Turning Point Action (TPAction) and a member of the Council for National Policy (CNP). In his later years, he was one of the most prominent voices of the populist MAGA movement and exemplified the growth of Christian nationalism in the Republican Party, until his killing in 2025.
Kirk was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs of Arlington Heights and Prospect Heights, Illinois. In high school, Kirk actively engaged in politics, supporting Republican candidate Mark Kirk (no relation) and his U.S. Senate campaign. He briefly attended Harper College before dropping out to pursue political activism full-time, influenced by Tea Party member Bill Montgomery. In 2012, Kirk founded TPUSA, a conservative student organization that quickly grew with backing from donors like Foster Friess.
Kirk expanded the organization’s influence through initiatives such as the Professor Watchlist and School Board Watchlist, which sought to fire or silence professors and educators through targeted harassment campaigns for sharing opinions opposed by Turning Point. In 2019, Kirk founded Turning Point Action, a political advocacy arm, and later, with Pentecostal pastor Rob McCoy, formed Turning Point Faith—aimed at mobilizing religious communities on conservative issues. Kirk hosted The Charlie Kirk Show, a conservative talk radio program. A key ally of Donald Trump, Kirk promoted far-right and Trump-aligned causes. He espoused a variety of controversial views, especially regarding his opposition to gun control, abortion and LGBTQ rights; his criticism of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Martin Luther King Jr.; and his promotion of Christian nationalism, COVID-19 misinformation, the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, and false claims of electoral fraud in 2020.
On September 10, 2025, Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at a TPUSA public debate event on the campus of Utah Valley University as part of his American Comeback Tour at his signature Prove Me Wrong table. 22-year-old Utah resident Tyler Robinson is now in custody for murdering Kirk.
Early life and education
Charles James Kirk was born on October 14, 1993, in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, Illinois,[1] and raised in nearby Prospect Heights. His mother is a mental health counselor, and his father is an architect.[2] Kirk was a member of the Boy Scouts of America and earned the rank of Eagle Scout.[3] In 2010, during his junior year at Wheeling High School, he volunteered for the successful U.S. Senate campaign of Illinois Republican Mark Kirk (no relation).[4]
In his senior year, Kirk created a campaign to reverse a price increase for cookies at his school.[2] He also wrote an essay for Breitbart News alleging liberal bias in high school textbooks, which led to an appearance on Fox Business. Kirk attended Harper College near Chicago, but dropped out before completing a degree or certificate.[1]
At a speaking engagement at Benedictine University‘s “Youth Empowerment Day”, Kirk met Bill Montgomery, a retiree more than 50 years his senior, who was then a Tea Party–backed legislative candidate.[5][6] Montgomery encouraged Kirk to engage in political activism full-time.[1] He subsequently founded Turning Point USA (TPUSA), a “grass-roots organization to rival liberal groups such as MoveOn.org“.[7] At the 2012 Republican National Convention, Kirk met Foster Friess, a prominent Republican donor, and persuaded him to finance the organization.[5][7]
Organizations
Turning Point USA
Main article: Turning Point USA
Kirk was CEO, chief fundraiser, and the public face of Turning Point USA from its founding to his death in 2025.[8][3] He co-founded the organization in 2012 at 18 years of age.[9] According to The New York Times, he turned the organization into a “well-funded media operation, backed by conservative megadonors like the Wyoming businessman Foster Friess”.[10] TPUSA’s activities include publication of the Professor Watchlist and the School Board Watchlist.[11] Critics of these watchlists say that they threaten academic freedom and have led to the targeted harassment of academics.[12][13] In 2019, the Professor Watchlist was briefly suspended by its web host.[14]
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In 2020, ProPublica investigated the finances of TPUSA and found that the organization made “misleading financial claims”, that the audits were not done by an independent auditor, and that the leaders had enriched themselves while advocating for Trump. ProPublica also reported that Kirk’s salary from TPUSA had increased from $27,000 to nearly $300,000 and that he had bought an $855,000 condo in Longboat Key, Florida.[15] In 2020, Turning Point USA had $39.2 million in revenues.[16] Kirk earned a salary of more than $325,000 from TPUSA and related organizations.[17]
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In 2021, TPUSA announced an online academy targeted towards students in schools “poisoning our youth with anti-American ideas”. Turning Point Academy was intended to cater to families seeking an “America-first education”. Arizona education firm StrongMind initially partnered with TPUSA with plans to open the academy by the fall of 2022 and assessed its “potential to generate over $40 million in gross revenue at full capacity (10,000 students)”. The partnership ended after StrongMind received backlash from its own employees and key subcontractor Freedom Learning Group, which prepared course content for the academy, also backed out.[18]
Turning Point Action
Main article: Turning Point Action
In May 2019, it was reported that Kirk was preparing to launch Turning Point Action, a 501(c)(4) entity designed to target Democrats.[19] In July 2019, Kirk announced that Turning Point Action had acquired Students for Trump along with “all associated media assets.”[20] He became chairman and launched a campaign to recruit one million students for the 2020 Trump re-election campaign.[21] The unsuccessful effort led to TPUSA and the Trump campaign blaming each other for an overall decline in youth support for Trump.[22] In December 2022, Kirk announced the Mount Vernon Project, an initiative by Turning Point Action to remove members from the Republican National Committee who were not “grassroot conservatives”.[23]
On January 5, 2021, the day before the Washington, D.C., protest that led to the January 6 United States Capitol attack, Kirk wrote on Twitter that Turning Point Action and Students for Trump were sending more than 80 “buses of patriots to D.C. to fight for this president”.[24][25][26] A spokesman for Turning Point said that the groups ended up sending seven buses, not 80, with 350 students.[24][27] In the lead-up to the storming, Kirk said he was “getting 500 emails a minute calling for a civil war.”[28] Publix heiress Julie Fancelli gave Kirk’s organizations $1.25 million to fund the buses to the January 6 event. Kirk also paid $60,000 for Kimberly Guilfoyle to speak at the Trump rally.[29]
Afterward, Kirk said the violent acts at the Capitol were not an insurrection and did not represent mainstream Trump supporters.[30][31] Appearing before the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack in December 2022, Kirk pleaded the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. His team provided the committee “with 8,000 pages of records in response to its requests”.[32] In another closed-door meeting of the House January 6 Committee, Ali Alexander blamed Kirk and Turning Point USA for financing the travel of demonstrators to the Stop the Steal rally.[33] Andrew Kolvet, a Turning Point USA spokesperson denied that Kirk advocated for violence and gave a statement saying “Charlie wants to save America with words, persuasion, courage and common sense, The left is desperate to conjure up some Christian boogeyman that simply doesn’t exist. We’re telling churches: Either get involved and have a say in the direction of your country or you’ll leave a void that someone else who doesn’t share your values will fill.”[34]
Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty
In November 2019, Kirk and Jerry Falwell Jr. co-founded the “Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty”, a right-wing think-tank funded, owned and housed by Liberty University.[35][36][37] “Falkirk” was a portmanteau of “Falwell” and “Kirk”.[37] Fellows included Antonia Okafor, director of outreach for Gun Owners of America; Sebastian Gorka, former deputy assistant to President Trump; and Jenna Ellis, a senior legal counselor for Trump.[38][36] In 2020, the Falkirk Center spent at least $50,000 on political Facebook advertisements promoting Trump and Republican candidates.[39]
Students and alumni raised objections about the organization’s aggressive political tone, which they considered to be inconsistent with the university’s mission.[36][37] Falwell resigned as president of Liberty University in August 2020, and the university did not renew Kirk’s one-year contract in late 2020. In 2021, the university renamed the organization “Standing for Freedom Center”.[37]
Turning Point Faith
After Liberty University did not renew Kirk’s contract with the Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty in 2021, Charlie Kirk and Rob McCoy founded Turning Point Faith, an organization that encouraged pastors and other church leaders to be active in local and national political issues.[37][40] Its activities include faith-based voter drives and inculcating TPUSA’s core values.”[41] According to TPUSA’s 2021 Investor Prospectus, the program—with a budget of $6.4 million—”will ‘address America’s crumbling religious foundation by engaging thousands of pastors nationwide’ in order to ‘breathe renewed civic engagement into our churches’.”[42]
Media
From October 2020 until his death, Kirk hosted a daily three-hour radio talk show, called The Charlie Kirk Show, on Salem Media‘s “The Answer” radio channel.[43][44] According to internal data from Turning Point USA, Kirk’s podcast was being downloaded between 500,000 and 750,000 times each day in 2024.[45]
As of December 7, 2021, The Charlie Kirk Show podcast was ranked as the 21st-most-popular podcast on Apple Podcasts.[46] Kirk’s “Turning Point Live” was a three-hour streaming talk show aimed at Generation Z. Turning Point USA’s monthly online average grew to 111,000 unique visitors in 2021.[47] A February 2023 Brookings Institution study found Kirk’s podcast contained the second-highest proportion of false, misleading and unsubstantiated statements among 36,603 episodes produced by 79 prominent political podcasters.[48]
In a 2022 episode of his podcast, Kirk called for a “patriot” to bail out of jail the man who broke into Nancy Pelosi‘s house and attacked her husband with a hammer.[49]
Also in 2022, journalist Bari Weiss released a report of internal Twitter documents dubbed “The Twitter Files“, which alleged that Twitter was censoring conservative personalities on the social media platform. Weiss posted screenshots of Twitter tools that moderators could use to limit the reach of posts and accounts. According to Rolling Stone magazine, Kirk’s Twitter account was flagged under “do not amplify”, which meant algorithms would not highlight tweets coming from those accounts.[50][51]
In April 2024, Kirk created a TikTok account after previously expressing skepticism of the social media platform. Kirk’s account gained popularity on the platform after he posted numerous videos of him talking to college students during his campus tours, with some videos garnering as many as 50 million views.[52] In February 2025, Kirk signed with Trinity Broadcasting Network to host a weekday talk show, Charlie Kirk Today.[53]
Books
Kirk co-wrote, with Brent Hamachek, the 2016 book Time for a Turning Point: Setting a Course Toward Free Markets and Limited Government for Future Generations (Simon & Schuster).[54] Kirk wrote the 2018 book Campus Battlefield: How Conservatives Can WIN the Battle on Campus and Why It Matters. Donald Trump Jr. wrote the foreword for the book.[55] In a review for The Weekly Standard, Adam Rubenstein described the book as a “hot mess”, “nothing more than a marketing pitch for [Turning Point USA]” and said the “thin” book was “stuffed with reprintings of his tweets and quotes from others.”[56] Other books include The MAGA Doctrine: The Only Ideas That Will Win the Future (2020),[57][58] The College Scam: How America’s Universities Are Bankrupting and Brainwashing Away the Future of America’s Youth (2022),[59] and Right Wing Revolution: How to Beat the Woke and Save the West (2024).[60]
Political positions and activities
Kirk’s outspoken political activism received criticism and controversy. The New York Times described Charlie Kirk as symbolizing hope for the Christian right.[61] His rhetoric was described as divisive, racist, xenophobic, and extreme by groups that studied hate speech, including the Southern Poverty Law Center. Kirk disagreed with critics that he created a toxic environment online, arguing that “Disagreement is a healthy part of our systems”.[62]
Kirk was the William F. Buckley Jr. Council Member of the Council for National Policy (CNP), a group “that has served for decades as a hub for a nationwide network of conservative activists and the donors who support them”,[63] according to the CNP’s September 2020 membership directory leaked in February 2021.[64][65][66] He was a spokesperson for CNP Action, the political arm of the CNP.[65][67] In March 2025, President Trump appointed Kirk to the United States Air Force Academy Board of Visitors.[68][69] Kirk’s last political rally had taken place in Kentucky, where he appeared alongside Senate candidate Nate Morris.[70][71]
Republican and pro-Trump activism
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Kirk addressed the 2016 Republican National Convention.[72] In an interview with Wired magazine during the convention, Kirk said that while he “was not the world’s biggest Donald Trump fan”, he would vote for him, and that Trump’s candidacy made Turning Point’s mission more difficult.[73] Kirk flipped to supporting Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention and spent the remainder of the campaign assisting with travel and media arrangements for Donald Trump Jr.[74] In October 2016, Kirk participated in a Fox News event along with Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Lara Trump that had a pro-Donald Trump tone.[75]
In July 2019, Kirk became chairman of Students for Trump, which had been acquired by Turning Point Action, and launched a campaign to recruit one million students for the 2020 Trump reelection campaign.[21] The unsuccessful effort led to TPUSA and the Trump campaign blaming each other for an overall decline in youth support for Trump.[22] In April 2020, Matthew Rosenberg and Katie Rogers wrote in The New York Times that Kirk “[walks] the line between mainstream conservative opinion and outright disinformation” and that “with a powerful ally in the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., Mr. Kirk both amplifies the president’s message and helps shape it.”[74]
On March 3, 2020, Kirk released his book, The MAGA Doctrine, a manifesto for the Make America Great Again movement, in which he said that the Republican Party is “in some sense no longer a conservative party, no longer the party of Reagan, but instead a Trump-remade populist party”.[76] At an August 2020 meeting of the Council for National Policy, Kirk said: “Democrats have done a really foolish thing by shutting down all these campuses … It’s gonna remove ballot harvesting opportunities and all their voter fraud that they usually do on college campuses – so they’re actually removing half a million votes off the table. So please keep the campuses closed – it’s a great thing. Whatever!”[63] In December 2022, Kirk urged the Republican National Committee to listen to their grassroots voters. Kirk stated that “If ignored, we will have the most stunted and muted Republican Party in the history of the conservative movement, the likes of which we haven’t seen in generations.”[23]
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Kirk was an early investor in 1789 Capital, which invests in conservative “MAGA” businesses. Trump Jr. joined 1789 Capital in November 2024, after Trump won the 2024 election.[77][78] Prior to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Kirk visited approximately 25 college campuses, marketed as the “You’re Being Brainwashed” tour. His aim was to stir up more Gen Z voter turnout, and he would engage and debate with students on many different relevant topics. According to Turning Point Action, the tour produced around two billion viral views on social media.[79] The tour has been praised as having a “critical role” in helping Donald Trump’s election.[80] Kirk aided the president-elect in choosing leadership positions for his administration, including cabinet positions.[81]
On July 15, 2025, Kirk conducted extensive interviews about Jeffrey Epstein on his podcast and pressured Trump’s administration to release more information.[82] By then Kirk was one of the most prominent figures in the populist MAGA movement and often described as the face of the movement.[83][82][84]
Promotion of falsehoods and conspiracy theories
According to Forbes, Kirk was known for “his repudiation of liberal college education and embrace of pro-Trump conspiracy theories”.[85] Kirk promoted the Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory and described universities as “islands of totalitarianism“.[3][86][87]
In a 2015 speech at the Liberty Forum of Silicon Valley, Kirk stated that he had applied for nomination to the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, and was not accepted.[8] He said that “the slot he considered his went to ‘a far less-qualified candidate of a different gender and a different persuasion'” whose test scores he claimed he knew.[3] He told The New Yorker in 2017 that he was being sarcastic when he said it.[3] He told the Chicago Tribune in 2018 that “he was just repeating something he’d been told”,[2][88] while at a New Hampshire Turning Point event featuring Rand Paul in October 2019 he claimed that he never said it.[88]
In July 2018, Kirk falsely claimed on social media that Justice Department statistics showed an increase in human trafficking arrests from 1,952 in the year 2016 to 6,087 in the first half of 2018. He deleted the tweet without an explanation the next day, after a fact-checker had pointed out that the false 2018 number had originated on the conspiracy site 8chan.[89][90] In December 2018, Kirk falsely claimed that protesters in the French yellow vests movement chanted “We want Trump”. These false claims were later repeated by President Trump himself.[91]
Kirk spread falsehoods about voter fraud,[92][93] as well as the COVID-19 pandemic.[85] In defending the Trump administration‘s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Kirk falsely stated that, during the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, it “took President Barack Obama ‘millions infected and over 1,000 deaths'” to declare a public health emergency.[94][95] In fact, when the Obama administration acknowledged the WHO‘s declaration of a public health emergency on April 26, 2009,[96] there were less than 280 cases of H1N1 infection reported in the U.S.,[97] and the first confirmed death (of a Mexican toddler on vacation) occurred the next day, April 27.[98] The WHO projected 1,000,000+ U.S. cases on June 25, after declaring a pandemic on June 11.[99]
Immediately after Donald Trump lost the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Kirk promoted false and disproven claims of fraud in the election.[100][101] On November 5, 2020, Kirk was the leader of a Stop the Steal protest at the Maricopa Tabulation Center in Phoenix.[102] Kirk was considered a “big name” social influencer in Rudy Giuliani‘s communications plan to overturn the 2020 election.[103]
On the Minnesota leg of the tour on October 5, 2021, Kirk called George Floyd a “scumbag”.[104] Kirk promoted several debunked claims about Floyd, such as that he was “illegally counterfeiting currency”, and had once “put a gun to a pregnant woman’s stomach.”[104] On Facebook, YouTube and Rumble, Kirk repeatedly promoted the false claim that the medical examiner who performed the autopsy declared Floyd had died of an overdose. Following a fact check by AFP that noted the doctor stood by the classification of Floyd’s death as a homicide, corrections were added to Kirk’s posts on social media.[105]
COVID-19 misinformation
Kirk spread false information about COVID-19 on social media platforms, such as Twitter, in 2020. Kirk sharply criticized Democrats’ criticism of Donald Trump’s withdrawal of WHO funding and referred to COVID-19 as the “China virus”, which was retweeted by Trump.[74] Kirk alleged that the WHO covered up information about the COVID-19 pandemic. He was briefly banned from Twitter after falsely claiming that hydroxychloroquine had proved to be “100% effective in treating the virus”;[74] he alleged that Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor of Michigan, threatened doctors who tried to use the medication.[74] These falsehoods were retweeted by Rudy Giuliani, whose account was then suspended by Twitter as well.[74][106]
Kirk described the public health measure of social distancing prohibitions in churches as a “Democratic plot against Christianity” and made the unfounded assertion that authorities in Wuhan, China, were burning patients.[74] In 2020, Kirk said that he refused to abide by mask requirements, stating that “the science around masks is very questionable.”[85][107] In July 2021, Kirk promoted misleading claims about the efficacy and safety of COVID-19 vaccines.[17] On Fox News’ Tucker Carlson show, Kirk called mandatory requirements for students to take the COVID-19 vaccine “medical apartheid“.[108] Kirk called for parents to protest at school board meetings urging parents to stand up and push back against mask-wearing.[109]
Social policy
Christian nationalism
In the 2020s, Kirk was a Christian nationalist who called the separation of Church and state in the United States a “fabrication”.[110][111][112] In 2024, Kirk stated, “One of the reasons we’re living through a constitutional crisis is that we no longer have a Christian nation, but we have a Christian form of government, and they’re incompatible. You cannot have liberty if you do not have a Christian population”.[113] He referenced the Seven Mountain Mandate, which says that evangelical Christians must dominate seven areas of society: government, media, education, business, family, religion, and entertainment.[114][115] Appearing at a Trump campaign rally in the same year, he declared “This is a Christian state. I’d like to see it stay that way”.[116] Before the 2020s, Kirk had been more secular. He told Dave Rubin in 2018: “We do have a separation of church and state, and we should support that”.[112]
Kirk believed in the superiority of the Western world. In a 2023 speech, he said that “all men are created equal in the eyes of God, all men and women, but not all cultures are created equal. To say that, you get attacked in every direction, but excuse me when I say that Western civilization is the best that humanity has produced. It’s an outgrowth of the Bible.”[117]
LGBTQ rights
According to a 2024 NBC News report, Kirk was relatively secular liberal regarding LGBTQ rights in the United States in 2018, but shifted towards more religious conservative stances.[118]
On July 26, 2017, after President Donald Trump announced via Twitter a ban on transgender individuals serving in the U.S. military, Kirk praised the move as “common sense”, saying the military should focus on “winning wars, not social engineering.”[119] On January 21, 2025, Kirk praised President Donald Trump for revoking Executive Order 14004, which had allowed transgender individuals to serve openly in the U.S. military, and said, “Sorry, if you’re Jeff and you think you’re Jill, you are not going to serve in the U.S. military. Go find something else to do.”[120] On March 19, 2025, when U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes issued an injunction blocking the ban, Kirk denounced the decision, saying: “Now, a district court judge ordering the US military to continue enlisting mentally delusional transgender troops is justifying her ruling by quoting the musical Hamilton.”[121]
On June 11, 2019, following the Letsweletse Motshidiemang v. Attorney General ruling in Botswana that struck down colonial-era sodomy provisions, Kirk tweeted crediting the country’s decriminalization of homosexuality to President Donald Trump’s “global push to decriminalize homosexuality.” He framed the ruling as evidence of Trump’s international influence on LGBTQ rights and asked whether major U.S. media outlets such as CNN and MSNBC would give the administration credit for what he called a “monumental achievement.”[122] The phrase referred to a campaign announced in February 2019 by the Trump administration, led by U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, to encourage countries to repeal laws criminalizing same-sex relations.[123]
On November 22, 2019, Kirk stated “I believe marriage is one man one woman,” but added that gay people should be allowed in the conservative movement.[124][125] In 2022, during an episode of The Charlie Kirk Show streamed on YouTube, Kirk criticized the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. He referred to LGBTQ activists as the “alphabet mafia”, claiming that the movement “is not just about two dudes being able to get married.” Kirk described Obergefell as a “national takeover of our laws” and argued that conservatives mistakenly thought the issue of same-sex marriage would end after the ruling, instead concluding that “they are not happy just having marriage” and “want to corrupt your children.”[126]
On October 14, 2021, Kirk stated that “the facts that there are only two genders; that transgenderism and gender ‘fluidity’ are lies that hurt people and abuse kids.”[127] In early 2023, Kirk said that transgender women in women’s locker rooms should be “taken care of the way we used to take care of things in the 1950s and 60s.”[128] On April 1, 2024, Kirk called for Trump to run for a nationwide ban of gender-affirming care for transgender people.[129] On the same day, he called for the imprisonment of doctors who perform gender-affirming care and demanded “Nuremberg-style” trials for them.[130]
In mid-2024, Kirk argued there is an “LGBTQ agenda“.[118] On September 26, 2024, Kirk responded to a student who identified himself as a gay conservative. Kirk welcomed the student “to the conservative movement” while also saying that, from a Christian perspective, he did “not agree with that lifestyle.” He added that sexual orientation should not be the primary basis of identity, stating, “I don’t think you should introduce yourself just based on your sexual attraction.” Despite his personal opposition, he emphasized that shared political values such as “strong borders” and “a strong country” were more important for inclusion in conservatism.[131]
On June 8, 2024, while criticizing YouTuber Ms. Rachel for quoting Leviticus 19:18 (“Love your neighbor as yourself”), Kirk responded by citing Leviticus 20:13 (“If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them”), which he described as “God’s perfect law when it comes to sexual matters”.[132][133] In the same podcast episode, Kirk described being gay as an ‘error’ and likened the LGBTQ pride movement to encouraging drug addicts.[134]
Abortion
In a September 2024 debate hosted by Jubilee Media, Kirk argued that there may be situations wherein abortion could be medically necessary if the mother’s life is at risk. However, he also argued that abortion is murder and should be illegal. He opposed exceptions for rape, including for children as young as 10.[135] Kirk compared abortion to the Holocaust, and said that abortion is worse.[136]
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Gun rights and the Second Amendment
Kirk was a gun owner and gun rights advocate. After the Parkland shooting in February 2018, he spoke for the National Rifle Association in Parkland, Florida.[137][138] Kirk was invited by a student to a pro-gun event in the school where the shooting happened, but the event was cancelled. He had said that guns, armed guards and gun detectors could be used in order to prevent shootings in schools and campuses.[139][140] In an April 2023 Turning Point USA event in Salt Lake City, Utah, Kirk said: “I think it’s worth it, I think 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.”[141][142][143][144]
Relationships and “sexual anarchy”
In October 2021, Kirk said on his podcast that Democrats wanted Americans to live where “there is no cultural identity, where you live in sexual anarchy, where private property is a thing of the past, and the ruling class controls everything.” Following social media backlash, he released a statement on the website of the Claremont Institute doubling down on and expanding his remarks.[145][146][147]
According to Media Matters, at the TPUSA Young Women’s Leadership Summit 2022 Conference, Kirk said that the “biblical model” for women to pursue in romantic relationships is a partner who is “a protector and a leader, and deep down, a vast majority of you agree” and that “if you want to go meet conservative men that have their act together, that aren’t like, woke beta men, like, start a Turning Point USA chapter, you’ll meet a lot of them.”[148] Kirk stated that birth control makes women angry and bitter, which he alleged suited the political leanings of the Democratic Party. He also believed the medication “screws up female brains”.[149]
Race
On his radio program, Kirk said, “The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different.”[150] Kirk posted, “The ‘Great Replacement’ is not a theory, it’s a reality”, alongside a false Fox News headline that read, “7.2M illegals entered the U.S. under Biden admin[istration], an amount greater than population of 36 states,” which is how many only reached the border and omits removals, returns, and expulsions.[151] Assuming “more hard-right positions”, he said that Democratic immigration policies were aimed at “diminishing and decreasing white demographics in America,”[66][152] and, “The American Democrat party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white.”[150] He also said “prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people” in urban America.[150] Kirk said that the concept of white privilege is a myth and a “racist idea”.[153][8][154]
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In a November 2021 Fox News article, Kirk wrote that he believed state power should be used to stop teachers from instructing children on critical race theory: “directly confronting the left, and promising to fight their illiberal ideology with state power when necessary, is the key to winning everyday Americans.”[155][156] Kirk served on President Donald Trump’s 1776 Commission, a response to the 1619 Project.[157] In October 2021, Kirk began the “Exposing Critical Racism Tour” of a number of campuses and off-campus venues to “fight racist theories on America’s college campuses!”[158][159]
African Americans
In 2018, Kirk cited single motherhood in Chicago’s Black community as a cause of gun violence, blaming the absence of a father from some Black households on “a broken culture problem”.[160][161] Kirk praised Martin Luther King Jr. prior to December 2023, variously calling him a “hero” and a “civil rights icon”. That December, however, he used a speech at AmericaFest to describe him as “awful … not a good person” and as someone who is admired only because he “said one thing he didn’t actually believe.” The speech also saw Kirk condemn the Civil Rights Act of 1964, calling its passage a “huge mistake” and alleging that it had created a “permanent DEI-type bureaucracy”.[156] Kirk called the legal apparatus of the Civil Rights Act an “anti-white weapon”.[162] Kirk told The New York Times, “I take the Caldwellian view, from his book The Age of Entitlement, that we went through a new founding in the ’60s and that the Civil Rights Act has actually superseded the U.S. Constitution as its reference point. In fact, I bet if you polled Americans, most of them would have more reverence for the Civil Rights Act than the Constitution. I could be wrong, but I think I’m right.”[52]
In January 2024, Kirk said that a “myth” had been created around King which had “grown totally out of control” and that King was currently “the most honored, worshiped, even deified person of the 20th century” despite “most people” supposedly disliking him during his life. Responding to accusations by Malcolm Kenyatta that he was working to undermine King and the Voting Rights Act, Kirk called this claim “a lie” and “fear-mongering”, and added that telling the “truth” about King “should not be trampling sacred ground” since he was “just a man … a very flawed one at that” and a “mythological anti-racist creation of the 1960s.” Kirk later said he had “found the sacred cow of modern America” in criticizing King.[163]
Also in January 2024, Kirk blamed DEI programs for national aviation issues, saying, “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.'”[164][165][166] He had previously expressed opposition to DEI programs, describing them as “anti-White”.[167] NBC News further reported that Kirk’s comments about DEI programs and his comment about Black or African American airline pilots resulted in ongoing conflict with the Republican National Committee over outreach to Black voters.[45] Kirk called Ketanji Brown Jackson a “recipient of Affirmative Action” and said she was nominated for the Supreme Court because of her race.[168] Kirk blamed the high death toll of the July 2025 Central Texas floods on DEI.[169] On September 9, 2025, while speaking about the killing of Iryna Zarutska, an unprovoked murder of a Ukrainian refugee woman in Charlotte, North Carolina, Kirk accused Democrats of spreading a “false narrative” that “that there is a relentless assault against Black people on behalf of white people”,[170] saying “White individuals are actually more likely to be attacked, especially even per capita, by Black individuals in this country.”[84]
American Jews and antisemitism
Kirk had been accused of antisemitism by multiple people and organizations;[171][172] the Jewish Anti-Defamation League accused Kirk of creating a “vast platform for extremists and far-right conspiracy theorists”.[171] In October 2023, he said on The Charlie Kirk Show that “Jewish donors have been the Number 1 funding mechanism of radical, open border, neoliberal, quasi‑Marxist policies … This is a beast created by secular Jews, and now it’s coming for Jews”. He also suggested that these Jews control “not just the colleges; it’s the nonprofits, it’s the movies, it’s Hollywood, it’s all of it”. Soon after, he said that “Jews have been some of the largest funders of cultural Marxist ideas and supporters of those ideas over the last 30 or 40 years”.[173] Kirk called on American Jews to “Stop subsidizing your own demise by supporting institutions that breed Anti-Semites and endorse genocidal killers”.[171]
In November 2023, Kirk said that “Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them“.[174] He went on to claim “the philosophical foundation of anti-whiteness has been largely financed by Jewish donors”, but said he was glad that some donors were reconsidering.[175]
Kirk said that “No non-Jewish person my age has a longer or clearer record of support for Israel, sympathy with the Jewish people, or opposition to antisemitism than I do”.[171] In July 2025, Kirk warned his followers against hatred of Jews, calling it “evil” and “demonic”.[176] Some Jewish public figures have defended Kirk against accusations of antisemitism, citing his pro-Israel stance. Kirk was funded by some Jewish donors, including Bernie Marcus.[177]
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Islam
Following the victory of Zohran Mamdani in the 2025 New York City Democratic mayoral primary, Kirk posted that “24 years ago a group of Muslims killed 2,753 people on 9/11. Now a Muslim Socialist is on pace to run New York City.” Liberal Fox News commentator Jessica Tarlov asked Kirk to take down the “gross and islamophobic” post.[178] In a separate post, Kirk argued that “It’s not Islamophobia to notice that Muslims want to import values into the West that seek to destabilize our civilization.”[179] Earlier in 2018, Kirk spoke at the annual conference of anti-Muslim group ACT for America, an organization with multiple ties to Turning Point USA.[180]
Following the October 7 attacks, Kirk criticized Ilhan Omar‘s comments about Hamas and called for her deportation.[117][181]
Immigration
At a 2023 event at Missouri State University, Kirk said that immigration to the United States should be completely stopped.[117] In the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, Kirk promoted the false claim that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio were eating residents’ pets and other wildlife.[182][183]
Opioid epidemic
Kirk blamed the Chinese Communist government and drug cartels for the opioid crisis in the United States, telling the audience that “almost nobody in this audience has a friend that you’ve lost to the Russian government but you do have a friend or a family member that has died because of the cartels and the Chinese Communist Party with a fentanyl coming into our communities”.[184]
Foreign affairs
Israel and Palestine
Kirk was highly supportive of Israel.[185] During a 2019 visit to Jerusalem, he told an audience “I’m very pro-Israel … and my whole life I have defended Israel”.[171] In August 2025, he said “I have a bulletproof resumé showing my defense of Israel … I believe in the scriptural land rights given to Israel. I believe in fulfilment of prophecy“, and added that he would “fight for” Israel.[186] Kirk often repeated pro-Israeli talking points about the Gaza war and Gaza genocide.[186] He blamed Hamas for the deaths of civilians in Gaza,[186] and denied that Israel is starving Palestinians.[171]
He backed Republican crackdowns on the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses.[171] In April 2025, he dismissed the Trump administration’s efforts to punish pro-Palestinian students on campus as an attack on free speech, saying: “Once ‘antisemitism’ becomes valid grounds to censor or even imprison somebody, there will be frantic efforts to label all kinds of speech as antisemitic — the same way the left labeled all kinds of statements as ‘racist’ to justify silencing their opposition.”[171] In May 2025, Kirk opposed a bipartisan bill to expand anti-BDS laws, which punish the boycott of Israel.[187] He said the bill would “only create more antisemitism, and play into growing narratives that Israel is running the U.S. government”.[188] Kirk opposed US involvement in the Iran–Israel War.[189]
Although Kirk was a staunch defender of Israel, he also shared some critical views of the Israeli government. Shortly after the October 7 attacks on Israel in 2023, Kirk had promoted a conspiracy theory alleging the Israeli government knew that Hamas was going to launch the attack, and that Netanyahu allowed it to go ahead as part of a plan to remain in power.[190] Shortly before Kirk’s death, he suggested that Jeffrey Epstein had been an Israeli intelligence agent.[186]
Several Israeli government ministers, politicians and political activists mourned Kirk’s death, with many describing him as a “friend of Israel” and a few linking his killing to anti-Zionists.[191] Netanyahu said he had recently invited Kirk to Israel, while Morton Klein said Kirk had recently accepted an invitation to speak at the Zionist Organization of America‘s national gala.[171]
Russian invasion of Ukraine
Kirk often advanced pro-Russian talking points about the Russo-Ukrainian War.[192] In the days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kirk characterized the tensions as a “border dispute” and repeated false claims from Russian state media that Ukrainian forces had been shelling a Russian separatist enclave. Kirk’s spokesman said at the time that while Kirk disagreed with the Russian invasion, he was “rightly questioning” U.S. foreign policy.[193]
He opposed the U.S. sending arms to Ukraine or helping the country financially.[192] In August 2025, Kirk disagreed with Trump’s decision to send more military aid to Ukraine, saying: “We were against it with Biden. Why would we be for it now? Unless it gets us to a peace settlement“.[194] He called Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “CIA puppet” and “gangster” who “sent his own people to a senseless massacre”,[195] claiming that Zelenskyy had no interest in ending the war.[184] Kirk said that Ukraine should cut spending on what he called a war it could not “win”.[195] He also claimed that Crimea could not be returned to Ukraine because “it has always been part of Russia”.[195]
In November 2024, Kirk offered an “apology” to the Russian people, stating “very few Americans want war with you” and that “the people obsessed with fighting you forever” were a minority “on their way out of power”. His post was shared by Russian state-owned news agency RT.[196] Kirk believed that the U.S. was “wrong” to view Russia as an enemy, although he said he did not like “the Russian Federation or Russian dictator Vladimir Putin”.[192]
At the February 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference, Kirk said that “the southern border matters a lot more than the Ukrainian border” and “I want every Republican leader […] to call what’s happening on the southern border an invasion because two million people waltzed into our country last year.”[197]
Climate change
In a 2021 video, Kirk claimed that there is no evidence of global warming and that scientists don’t know what is causing it. He later retracted the statement and deleted the video, writing that “the overwhelming majority of scientists have concluded that global warming is primarily human-caused.”[198]
In 2022, Kirk warned that climate activism would erode American sovereignty and private property, describing it as a Trojan Horse for Marxism and likening it to “pseudo-paganism“.[199] He called the statement that climate change is an existential threat “complete gibberish nonsense”, stating that if your biggest worry in life is existential, you have a great life, and added that he doesn’t believe human activity is the driver of climate change.[200]
Personal life
In May 2021, Kirk married Erika Kirk (née Frantzve), a businesswoman, podcaster, and philanthropist who won the Miss Arizona USA pageant competition in 2012.[201][202] The couple’s first child, a daughter, was born in August 2022.[203] Their second child, a son, was born in May 2024.[204]
Religious views
Kirk was an evangelical Christian.[205] The Christian denomination to which he belonged was the Calvary Chapel Association.[40] Prior to the early 2020s, Kirk was described as secular and a critic of religious influence on politics and the state.[112][206] Later he became a Christian nationalist. In 2021, Kirk partnered with California pastor Rob McCoy to launch TPUSA Faith to mobilize conservative Christians to vote Republican. Kirk’s shift was influenced by events such as Trump’s move of the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and COVID-era church closures, which he and his allies portrayed as religious persecution.[112]
Kirk advocated Christian creationism, arguing that evolution is false and that Charles Darwin has been debunked.[207][208] He has debated this topic at his Prove Me Wrong table on campus.[209][210] Speaking on a podcast episode with creationist Stephen Meyer, Kirk said that he was intrigued by Meyer’s argument that there was scientific confirmation for intelligent design, contrary to Darwin.[211] He has discussed with Randy Guliuzza, the president of the Institute for Creation Research, their support for Young Earth Creationism on his podcast.[212]
Death
Main article: Killing of Charlie Kirk
On September 10, 2025, while on stage at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, for a TPUSA event, “The American Comeback Tour”,[213][214] Kirk was fatally shot in the neck. The shooting took place at 12:23 p.m. MDT (18:23 UTC), around 20 minutes after the event began, in front of an audience of about 3,000 people.[215][216][217]
Immediately before being shot, Kirk was discussing mass shootings. A student asked “Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?”, and Kirk’s last words before being shot were his reply, “Counting or not counting gang violence?”[218][219] Kirk was taken to the Timpanogos Regional Hospital in critical condition, where he was pronounced dead later that afternoon at the age of 31.[220][221] FBI special agent in charge Robert Bohls described the investigation as “in its early stages” and encouraged members of the public to come forward with information.[222]
Reactions
Main article: Killing of Charlie Kirk § Reactions and analysis
Following the shooting before Kirk was pronounced dead, President Trump called for prayers for him on Truth Social.[223][224][225] Several prominent political figures from both parties, including all living former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, echoed the sentiment while condemning the act of political violence,[217][226] as well as a number of international heads of state.[191][227][228][229] Trump issued an order for all US flags to be flown at half-staff throughout the United States in his honor until September 14 at 6:00 p.m.[230]
Some politicians responded to the shooting by linking it to broader political debates. Republicans have accused liberals of “inciting violence with rhetoric”, while Democrats have used the event to further discussions of gun safety legislation.[231] Extremists like Laura Loomer called for violence and revenge in the aftermath of Kirk’s killing,[232] and posted identifying details about people they accused of celebrating or justifying Kirk’s death.[233]
Achievements and legacy
Kirk was listed on the 2018 Forbes 30 Under 30 in Law & Policy.[234][235] In May 2019, Kirk was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Humanities (D.Hum.) from Liberty University.[236] A day after Kirk’s death, Donald Trump announced that Kirk will be posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.[237]