WIKIPEDIA TALKS: CHARLIE KIRK WOULD HAVE BEEN THE NEXT PRESIDENT

Charlie Kirk
Kirk in July 2025
Born	Charles James Kirk October 14, 1993 Arlington Heights, Illinois, U.S.
Died	September 10, 2025 (aged 31) Orem, Utah, U.S.
Cause of death	Assassination by gunshot
Occupations	Political activist author nonprofit executive media personality organizer
Years active	2012–2025
Organizations	Turning Point USA Turning Point Action
Political party	Republican
Movement	Conservatism Christian nationalism Trumpism
Spouse	Erika Frantzve ​ (m. 2021)​
Children	2
Kirk’s voice Duration: 1 minute and 36 seconds.1:36 Kirk on the influence of religion on people’s behavior Recorded March 15, 2022
Signature

Charles James Kirk (October 14, 1993 – September 10, 2025) was an American right-wing political activist, entrepreneur, and media personality. He co-founded the conservative organization Turning Point USA (TPUSA) in 2012 and was its executive director. He published a range of books and hosted The Charlie Kirk Show, a talk radio program. Before his death, Kirk was recognized as one of the most prominent voices of the MAGA movement in the Republican Party, and since his assassination has been considered an icon of contemporary conservatism.

Kirk was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs of Arlington Heights and Prospect Heights, briefly attending Harper College before dropping out after one semester to pursue political activism full-time. He worked with various donors to fund TPUSA, rising to prominence via informal college campus debates held at his signature “Prove Me Wrong” table. He extended TPUSA’s influence through initiatives such as the Professor Watchlist and mass rallies aimed at young voters, and has since been credited with generating interest in political conservatism among American youth. Under Kirk’s leadership, TPUSA developed several affiliate groups, including Turning Point Action and Turning Point Faith, with the latter aimed at mobilizing religious communities around conservative issues. Partnering with Pentecostal pastor Rob McCoy in creating Turning Point Faith, Kirk became aligned with the Christian right and advocated for Christian nationalism.

A key ally of Donald Trump, Kirk espoused a variety of conservative stances, including opposition to abortion, gun control, DEI programs, and LGBT rights. His more controversial views included his criticism of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as his promotion of COVID-19 misinformation, false claims of electoral fraud in 2020, and the Great Replacement conspiracy theory.

On September 10, 2025, Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at a TPUSA public debate event on the Utah Valley University campus. His death gained international attention and led to the condemnation of political violence by prominent domestic and international figures. Trump announced that Kirk would posthumously receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

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 father Robert W. Kirk is an architect who was involved in the construction of Trump Tower.^[2] His mother Kathryn (née Smith)^[3] is a former trader at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange who subsequently worked as a mental health counselor.^[4][2][5] He had one sibling, a younger sister Mary, who went on to become an art curator in Chicago.^[6]

Kirk described his parents as moderate Republicans.^[5] They were active in conservative circles and his father was a major donor to the Mitt Romney 2012 presidential campaign.^[1] Raised in the Presbyterian Church, Kirk was a member of the Boy Scouts of America and earned the rank of Eagle Scout.^[7][8] He experienced a period of political awakening in middle school, during which he read books by economist Milton Friedman and became more attracted to Republican Party principles.^[5]

In 2010, during his junior year at Wheeling High School, Kirk volunteered for the successful U.S. Senate campaign of Illinois Republican Mark Kirk (no relation).^[9] Also during his junior year, he began listening to The Rush Limbaugh Show, a prominent conservative talk radio broadcast.^[1] In his senior year, he initiated a boycott of cookies at the school’s cafeteria to reverse a price increase.^[5] He also wrote an essay for Breitbart News alleging liberal bias in high-school textbooks; it led to his first media appearance on Fox Business at age 17.^[10][11]

Kirk applied to the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, but was rejected in 2012.^[10][11] He was accepted to Baylor University in Waco, Texas, but chose to enroll at Harper College, a community college in Palatine, Illinois, a northwestern suburb of Chicago. He dropped out after one semester.^[10][1] In 2015, Kirk was enrolled part-time at King’s College in New York City, where he took online classes.^[12] He never received a college degree during his lifetime, a fact he often noted in debates with academics and students.^[13]

In May 2012, Kirk, then aged 18, gave a speech at Benedictine University‘s “Youth Government Day”, where he met Bill Montgomery, a 72-year-old retiree who was then a Tea Party–backed legislative candidate.^[14][15] Montgomery, who noticed that until Kirk took the floor the speakers at the event “put the kids to sleep”, encouraged Kirk to pursue political activism full-time.^[16][1] A month after they first met, Montgomery and Kirk co-founded Turning Point USA, wanting to start an organization rivaling liberal groups such as MoveOn.org.^[17][14] Kirk described it as a student organization advocating for free markets and limited government.^[18] At the 2012 Republican National Convention, Kirk met Foster Friess, a former investment manager and prominent Republican donor, and persuaded him to finance the organization.^[14][17]

Kirk remained the executive director, chief fundraiser, and the public face of Turning Point USA until his death in 2025.^[19][20][18] He became known for visiting college campuses to debate with ideological opponents, typically students, and persuade them to consider conservative candidates.^[21] According to the Associated Press, video clips of Kirk’s campus appearances spread online, helping him “secure a steady stream of donations that transformed Turning Point into one of the country’s largest political organizations”.^[18] Turning Point eventually began holding massive rallies in which top conservative leaders addressed tens of thousands of young voters.^[18] In 2025, TPUSA said it had chapters at more than 2,000 college and high school campuses, and that it had received 32,000 inquiries about starting new chapters in the days after Kirk’s death.^[22]

In a March 2025 interview with Gavin Newsom, Kirk said that while building TPUSA, “I recognized that there was an ideological imbalance on a lot of these college campuses, and we wanted to provide a counterpoint rooted in conservative, pro-freedom, pro-liberty, America First ideas.”^[23] He said that when TPUSA began, about 75% of college students voted Democrat, and that the organization’s goal was to shift the youth vote at least 10 points toward Republicans—a target they achieved by the 2024 U.S. presidential election.^[23]

TPUSA’s activities include publication of the Professor Watchlist and the School Board Watchlist.^[24] Critics of these watchlists say they threaten academic freedom and have led to the targeted harassment of academics.^[25][26] In 2019, the Professor Watchlist was briefly suspended by its web host.^[27] In 2020, ProPublica investigated TPUSA’s finances 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.^[28] In 2020, Turning Point USA had $39.2 million in revenue.^[29] Kirk earned a salary of more than $325,000 from TPUSA and related organizations.^[30]

In 2021, TPUSA announced it would launch an online academy as an alternative to schools “poisoning our youth with anti-American ideas”. Turning Point Academy was intended to cater to families seeking an “America-first education”.^[31] 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)”.^[31] 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.^[31]

In 2022, Turning Point partnered with Dream City Christian School, a private school that has campuses in Glendale and Scottsdale, Arizona, and is affiliated with Dream City Church.^[32][33] In the 2022–2023 school year, the school received $900,000 in Arizona school voucher funds.^[32]

In May 2019, it was reported that Kirk was preparing to launch Turning Point Action, a 501(c)(4) entity designed to elect more conservatives.^[34] In July 2019, Kirk announced that Turning Point Action had acquired Students for Trump along with “all associated media assets”.^[35] He became chairman and launched a campaign to recruit one million students for the 2020 Trump reelection campaign.^{[36][better source needed]} The unsuccessful effort led TPUSA and the 2020 Trump campaign to blame each other for an overall decline in Trump’s youth support.^[37] 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”.^[38]

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”.^[39][40] A spokesman for Turning Point said that the groups ended up sending seven buses, not 80, with 350 students.^[39][41] In the lead-up to the storming, Kirk said he was “getting 500 emails a minute calling for a civil war”.^[42] 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 rally.^[43]

Afterward, Kirk said the violent acts at the Capitol were not an insurrection and did not represent mainstream Trump supporters.^{[44][better source needed]} Appearing before the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack in December 2022, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. His team provided the committee “with 8,000 pages of records in response to its requests”.^[45] In another closed-door meeting of the House January 6 Committee, Ali Alexander blamed Kirk and TPUSA for financing the travel of demonstrators to the Save America rally.^[46] TPUSA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet 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 bogeyman 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.”^[47]

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.^[48][49] “Falkirk” was a portmanteau of “Falwell” and “Kirk”.^[49] Fellows included Antonia Okafor, director of outreach for Gun Owners of America; Sebastian Gorka, former deputy assistant to Trump; and Jenna Ellis, a senior legal counselor for Trump.^[50]

In 2020, the Falkirk Center spent at least $50,000 on Facebook advertisements promoting Trump and Republican candidates.^[51] Students and alumni raised objections to the organization’s aggressive political tone, which they considered inconsistent with the university’s mission.^[49] 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”.^[49]

After Liberty University did not renew Kirk’s contract with the Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty in 2021, Kirk and Pentecostal pastor Rob McCoy founded Turning Point Faith, an organization that encouraged pastors and other church leaders to be active in local and national political issues.^[49][52] Its activities include faith-based voter drives and promotion of TPUSA’s views, with the stated goal to help churches become more civically engaged so that American society can “return to foundational Christian values”.^[53] 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'”.^[54]

From October 2020 until his death, Kirk hosted a daily three-hour radio talk show, The Charlie Kirk Show, on Salem Media Group‘s “The Answer” radio channel.^[55][56] According to internal data from TPUSA, Kirk’s podcast was downloaded between 500,000 and 750,000 times each day in 2024.^[57] As of December 7, 2021, The Charlie Kirk Show was the 21st-most-popular podcast on Apple Podcasts.^[58] Kirk’s “Turning Point Live” was a three-hour streaming talk show aimed at Generation Z. TPUSA’s monthly online average grew to 111,000 unique visitors in 2021.^[59] 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.^[60]

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 and tried to murder her husband with a hammer.^[61][62] 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 it.^[63][64]

In April 2024, Kirk created a TikTok account after previously expressing skepticism of the social media platform. His account gained popularity after he posted numerous videos of himself talking to college students on his campus tours, with some videos garnering as many as 50 million views.^[65] In February 2025, Kirk signed with the Trinity Broadcasting Network to host a weekday talk show, Charlie Kirk Today.^[66]

Kirk co-wrote, along with Brent Hamachek, the 2016 book Time for a Turning Point: Setting a Course Toward Free Markets and Limited Government for Future Generations,^[67] which was published by Post Hill Press, a subsidiary of Simon & Schuster.^[68] Under the same publisher, Kirk wrote the 2018 book Campus Battlefield: How Conservatives Can WIN the Battle on Campus and Why It Matters.^[67][68] Donald Trump Jr. wrote the foreword for the book.^[67][68] In a review for The Weekly Standard, Adam Rubenstein described the book as a “hot mess”, “nothing more than a marketing pitch for TPUSA” and said the “thin” book was “stuffed with reprintings of his tweets and quotes from others”.^[69]

In 2020, Kirk wrote The MAGA Doctrine: The Only Ideas That Will Win the Future,^[70][71] which was published by Harper Collins.^[67][68] In 2022, The College Scam: How America’s Universities Are Bankrupting and Brainwashing Away the Future of America’s Youth was published.^[72] In 2024, Right Wing Revolution: How to Beat the Woke and Save the West, was released.^[73] His last two books were both released by Winning Team Publishing, a conservative publishing house co-founded by Trump Jr.^[67][68]

While influential within the conservative movement, particularly among young Christians,^[74][75] Kirk’s outspoken political activism received criticism and controversy.^[76] The New York Times said Kirk symbolized hope for the Christian right.^[77] 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: “Disagreement is a healthy part of our systems.”^[78] Kirk’s positions have been described as far-right by a variety of outlets and academics,^{[79][80][81][82]} while others state these positions are the mainstream in American conservatism.^{[83][84][85][86]}

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”,^[87] according to the CNP’s September 2020 membership directory leaked in February 2021.^[88][89][90] He was a spokesperson for CNP Action, the political arm of the CNP.^[89][91] In March 2025, Donald Trump appointed Kirk to the United States Air Force Academy Board of Visitors.^[92][93] Kirk’s last political rally took place in Kentucky, where he appeared alongside U.S. Senate candidate Nate Morris.^[94][95]

In an interview with Wired magazine during the 2016 Republican National Convention, he 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.^[96] Kirk flipped to supporting Trump at the convention and spent the remainder of the campaign assisting with travel and media arrangements for Donald Trump Jr.^[97] 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.^[98]

In July 2019, Kirk became chairman of Students for Trump, which had been acquired by Turning Point Action, and launched a campaign to recruit a million students for the 2020 Trump reelection campaign.^[36] The unsuccessful effort led TPUSA and the Trump campaign to blame each other for an overall decline in Trump’s youth support.^[37] 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.”^[97]

On March 3, 2020, Kirk released his book The MAGA Doctrine, a manifesto for the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, in which he wrote 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”.^[99] 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!”^[87] In December 2022, Kirk urged the Republican National Committee to listen to their grassroots voters, saying, “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.”^[38] In 2023, Kirk called for the imprisonment or the death penalty of Joe Biden for “crimes against America”.^[100]

Kirk was an early investor in 1789 Capital, which invests in MAGA businesses. Trump Jr. joined 1789 Capital in November 2024, after Trump won the 2024 election.^[101][102] Before 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 engaged and debated students on many topics. According to Turning Point Action, the tour produced around two billion views on social media.^[103] The tour has been praised as having a “critical role” in Trump’s election.^[104] Kirk aided the president-elect in choosing leadership positions for his administration, including cabinet positions.^[105] During 2025, Kirk endorsed a number of Republican candidates, including Andy Biggs in the Arizona Governor contest and Nate Morris in the Kentucky U.S. Senate primary.^[106][107] On July 15, 2025, Kirk conducted extensive interviews about Jeffrey Epstein on his podcast and pressured Trump’s administration to release more information.^[108] By then, Kirk was one of the most prominent figures in the MAGA movement and often called the face of the movement.^{[109][108][110]}

External videos
Charlie Kirk ~ The Conservative Forum ~ 9-8-2015 on YouTube (Liberty Forum of Silicon Valley) (at 2:10–3:20)

According to Forbes, Kirk was known for “his repudiation of liberal college education and embrace of pro-Trump conspiracy theories”.^[111] He promoted the Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory,^{[112][113][114]} and called universities “islands of totalitarianism”.^[8] In a 2015 speech at the Liberty Forum of Silicon Valley, Kirk said he had applied for nomination to the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, and was not accepted.^[115] 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.^[8] He told The New Yorker in 2017 that he was being sarcastic when he said it.^[8] He told the Chicago Tribune in 2018 that “he was just repeating something he’d been told”,^[5][116] while at a New Hampshire Turning Point event featuring Rand Paul in October 2019 he claimed he never said it.^[116]

Kirk promoted debunked claims about George Floyd, such as that he was “illegally counterfeiting currency” and had once “put a gun to a pregnant woman’s stomach”.^[117] 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. After a fact check by Agence France-Presse 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.^[118]

In July 2018, Kirk falsely claimed on social media that U.S. 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 explanation the next day, after a fact-checker had pointed out that the false 2018 number had originated on the conspiracy site 8chan.^[119][120] 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 Trump.^[121]

Ahead of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Kirk spread falsehoods about voter fraud,^[122][123] and immediately after Trump lost the 2020 election, Kirk promoted false and disproven claims of fraud in the election.^[124][125] On November 5, 2020, he led a Stop the Steal protest at the Maricopa Tabulation Center in Phoenix.^[126] Kirk was considered a “big name” social influencer in Rudy Giuliani‘s communications plan to overturn the 2020 election.^[127] In August 2025, Kirk called for the elimination of Jasmine Crockett‘s congressional district as a part of the 2025 Texas redistricting, justifying the erasure of her district by claiming she was a part of an “attempt to eliminate the white population in this country”.^[128]

In 2020, Kirk spread false information and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 on social media platforms, such as Twitter. He sharply criticized Democrats’ criticism of Trump’s withdrawal of WHO funding and called COVID-19 the “China virus”, which Trump retweeted.^[97][129] 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”;^[97] he alleged that Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor of Michigan, threatened doctors who tried to use the medication.^[97] These falsehoods were retweeted by Rudy Giuliani, whose account was then also suspended.^[97][130]

In defending the Trump administration‘s response to the pandemic, Kirk falsely stated that during the 2009 swine flu pandemic it “took President Barack Obama ‘millions infected and over 1,000 deaths'” to declare a public health emergency, with the meme shared by Kirk confusing the point at which Trump declared a public health emergency and the point at which Obama issued a national emergency.^[131][132] When the Obama administration acknowledged the WHO‘s declaration of a public health emergency on April 26, 2009, there were fewer than 280 cases of H1N1 infection reported in the U.S., and the first confirmed death (of a Mexican toddler on vacation) occurred the next day, April 27. The WHO projected 1,000,000+ U.S. cases on June 25, after declaring a pandemic on June 11. A spokesman for Turning Point USA acknowledged that its “social media team confused the two different types of emergency declarations”, and Trump had not yet issued a national emergency.^[131][132]

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.^[97] In 2020, he said he refused to abide by mask requirements because “the science around masks is very questionable”.^[111][133] In July 2021, Kirk promoted misleading claims about the efficacy and safety of COVID-19 vaccines.^[30] On the Fox News show hosted by Tucker Carlson, Kirk called mandatory requirements for students to take the COVID-19 vaccine “medical apartheid“.^[134] He called for parents to protest at school board meetings, urging them to push back against mask-wearing.^[135]

At first, Kirk was critical of the evangelical right, but he came to reverse his position. In 2018, he told Dave Rubin, “We do have a separation of church and state, and we should support that.”^[47] In 2019, Kirk met Rob McCoy, a pastor of a megachurch in Ventura County, California, who convinced him that America’s founding documents were derived from the Bible.^[47] In 2021, Kirk told a congregation, “The Bible says very clearly to ‘Occupy until I come'”, a verse often cited by followers of the Seven Mountain Mandate to assert that before Jesus returns evangelical Christians must dominate seven areas of society: government, media, education, business, family, religion, and entertainment. Kirk later interviewed with the creator of the Seven Mountain concept.^{[47][136][137][138]} Kirk frequently collaborated with Christian nationalist pastors and preachers, having them as guests on his shows as well as appearing as a speaker at their events,^{[139][138][140]} with the Anti-Defamation League accusing Kirk of promoting Christian nationalism.^[141]

In 2022, Kirk called the separation of church and state in the United States a “fabrication”.^[47] In 2024, he said, “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.”^[142] Appearing at a Trump campaign rally in the same year, he said: “This is a Christian state. I’d like to see it stay that way.”^[109] By 2024, Kirk’s shift to Christian nationalism exemplified its growing approval by the Republican Party under Trump.^{[79][47][138][143][80]}

Kirk believed in the superiority of the Western world, credit for which he gave to the role of Christianity in civilization. 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.”^[144]

Kirk strongly opposed abortion. In a September 2024 debate hosted by Jubilee Media, Kirk argued that abortion is murder and should be illegal. He opposed exceptions for rape, including for children as young as 10.^[145] Kirk compared abortion to the Holocaust, and said that abortion is worse.^[146][147]

Kirk was a gun owner and gun rights advocate. He was opposed to gun control.^[148] After the Parkland school shooting in February 2018, he spoke for the National Rifle Association in Parkland, Florida.^[149][150] Kirk was invited by a student to a pro-gun event in the school where the shooting happened, but the event was canceled. He had said that guns, armed guards, and gun detectors could be used to prevent shootings in schools and campuses.^[151][152] In an April 2023 TPUSA 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.”^{[153][154][155]}

According to a 2024 NBC News report, Kirk was relatively secular regarding LGBTQ rights in the United States in 2018, but shifted toward more conservative stances.^[47] On January 21, 2025, Kirk praised Trump for revoking Executive Order 14004, which had allowed transgender people to serve openly in the 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.”^[156] 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 U.S. military to continue enlisting mentally delusional transgender troops is justifying her ruling by quoting the musical Hamilton.”^[157]

On November 22, 2019, Kirk said “I believe marriage is one man, one woman”, but added that gay people should be allowed in the conservative movement.^[158] 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 called LGBTQ activists the “alphabet mafia”, claiming that the movement is not “just about two dudes being able to get married”. Kirk called Obergefell 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”.^[159]

On October 14, 2021, Kirk said “the facts are that there are only two genders; that transgenderism and gender ‘fluidity’ are lies that hurt people and abuse kids.”^[160] In early 2023, he 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”.^[161] On April 1, 2024, Kirk called for Trump to propose a nationwide ban of gender-affirming care for transgender people.^[162] The same day, he called for the imprisonment of doctors who perform gender-affirming care and demanded “Nuremberg-style” trials for them.^[163]

In mid-2024, Kirk asserted there is an “LGBTQ agenda“.^[47] On the June 8, 2024, episode of The Charlie Kirk Show, he called being gay an “error” and likened the LGBTQ pride movement to encouraging drug addicts.^[164]

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 reiterating and expanding his remarks.^{[165][166][160]} According to Media Matters for America, 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.”^[167] 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”.^[168]

Kirk had voiced a belief in the decline and victimhood of White Americans.^{[citation needed]} In 2015, Kirk alleged that he had lost a slot to attend West Point to a candidate of “a different ethnicity and gender”.^[115][8][10] In 2018, Kirk told a college audience that the concept of white privilege is a myth and a “racist idea”.^[115][169] Assuming “more hard-right positions”, he told followers of his radio podcast in 2021 that Democratic immigration policies were aimed at “diminishing and decreasing white demographics in America” and called for Texas to “deputize a citizen force and put them on the border” to protect “white demographics in America”.^{[90][170][171]}

In 2023, Kirk said that “prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people” in urban America.^[172] In 2024, he 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”,^[172] and added, “The American Democrat party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white.”^[172] Also that year, Kirk posted “The ‘Great Replacement’ is not a theory, it’s a reality”, alongside a Fox News headline that read: “7.2M illegals entered the U.S. under Biden admin[istration], an amount greater than population of 36 states.”^[173]

In 2016, Kirk said about TPUSA’s national director Crystal Clanton, “Turning Point needs more Crystals; so does America.”^[174] In 2017, it was revealed that Clanton allegedly sent a text message in the past that read, “i hate black people. Like f— them all… I hate blacks. End of story.”^[174] Kirk responded by having Clanton expelled from the organization.^{[174][175][176]} 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”.^[177][178]

Kirk praised Martin Luther King Jr. prior to December 2023, variously calling him a “hero” and a “civil rights icon”. That December, 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”.^[179]

Kirk thought the 1964 Civil Rights Act was a destructive force in American politics that had been turned into an anti-white weapon.^[180][181] 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.”^[65]

He wrote in a 2021 Fox News article that “directly confronting the left, and promising to fight their illiberal ideology with state power when necessary, is the key to winning everyday Americans”.^[182] Kirk served on Trump’s 1776 Commission, a response to the 1619 Project.^[183] 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!”^[184][185] After representative Sheila Jackson Lee said in Congress that she had been “admitted to educational institutions on affirmative action”, Kirk said on his podcast on July 13, 2023, that “we” could now say without being called racist that four prominent Black women, Joy Reid, Michelle Obama, Lee, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, were affirmative-action picks. He then said that they did not have “the brain processing power to be taken seriously” and “needed to take opportunities from someone more deserving”.^[186] He also opposed Juneteenth (a day which commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S.) being declared a federal holiday, describing it as “anti-American” for promoting “a neo-segregationist view” that he alleged sought to supplant Independence Day.^[187]

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.^[188] 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.'”^{[189][190][191]}

NBC News 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.^[57] Kirk called Jackson a “recipient of Affirmative Action” and said she was nominated for the Supreme Court because of her race.^[192] Kirk blamed the high death toll of the July 2025 Central Texas floods on DEI.^[193] On September 9, 2025, while speaking about the killing of Iryna Zarutska, Kirk accused Democrats of spreading a “false narrative” that “that there is a relentless assault against Black people on behalf of white people”,^[194] saying “White individuals are actually more likely to be attacked, especially even per capita, by Black individuals in this country.”^[110]

Kirk was vocal about his disapproval of immigration of Indians, particularly non-Christian Indian Americans, into the US. These positions stem from views on economic competition and religious pluralism. On the topic of the former, Kirk stated that “America does not need more visas for people from India”, arguing that the American workforce has become dominated by Indian-American immigrants effectively decreasing job opportunities for Americans.^[195] On the topic of the latter, Kirk has commented on how race is less important to culture than religion is, stating that America would still be America if it were ethnically 90% Indian, as long as they were Christian Indians.^[196]

He has elaborated on the indigenous Indian religion of Hinduism and his disapproval of its morality due to its polytheism, stating “When you have multiple gods, you get different moralities. And the West has largely embraced the idea that there is a standard of conduct, or a best way to live.” Furthermore, in reply to an inquiry about how that claim was not inclusive of other religious worldviews, he responded saying “I don’t seek to be inclusive, I seek what his best. And the Ten Commandments are what is best. Would it be offensive to a young Hindu kid? Maybe, maybe not. But it also is a reminder they’re living in a country that’s a monotheistic country.”^[197]

In 2025, Kirk wrote that “Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America.”^[198] 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.^[199] 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.”^[200] 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.^[201]

At a 2023 event at Missouri State University, Kirk said that immigration to the United States should be completely stopped.^[144] 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.^[202] Kirk called for the use of force against migrants at the U.S.–Mexico border, including the use of tear gas, rubber bullets and whips. Kirk said that migrants were “bringing force upon themselves” by “invading” the country. In justifying this use of force, Kirk promoted false claims of disproportionate criminality among migrants, saying: “Those are the men that will go into your communities and break into your homes and rape your women, take your children. But, hey, they’re – they’re dreamers.”^[203]

In 2023, Kirk called for Mehdi Hasan to be deported and deplatformed over his views on the COVID-19 pandemic, calling him a “neurotic lunatic” and saying “Send him back to the country he came from. Holy cow! Get him off TV. Revoke his visa.”^[204] In October 2023, Kirk also called U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar a “terrorist sympathizer” and called for her deportation.^[144]

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”.^[205]

In October 2023, Kirk 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”, and 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.”^[206] Kirk called on American Jews to stop “subsidizing your own demise by supporting institutions that breed Anti-Semites and endorse genocidal killers”.^[141]

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.”^[207] 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.^[208] Some Jewish public figures have defended Kirk against accusations of antisemitism, citing his pro-Israel stance. Kirk was funded by some Jewish donors, including Bernard Marcus.^[209]

In July 2025, Kirk warned his followers against hatred of Jews, calling it “evil” and “demonic”.^[210] He was quoted as saying 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”.^[141] However, Kirk was also accused of antisemitism by multiple people and organizations;^{[141][207][211]} the Anti-Defamation League accused Kirk of creating a “vast platform for extremists and far-right conspiracy theorists”.^[141]

Kirk was highly supportive of Israel.^[212] During a 2019 visit to Jerusalem, he told an audience “I’m very pro-Israel … and my whole life I have defended Israel”.^[141] 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.^[213] Kirk often repeated pro-Israeli talking points about the Gaza war.^[213] He blamed Hamas for the deaths of civilians in Gaza,^[213] and denied that Israel is starving Palestinians.^[141] Kirk said of Palestine, “I don’t think the place exists”.^[214]

Kirk backed Republican crackdowns on the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses and activist deportations in the second Trump presidency.^[141][198] Kirk opposed crackdowns on pro-Palestinian speech if they were targeted at American citizens. He said: “We’ve allowed far too many people who hate America move here from abroad, but the right to speak freely is the birthright of all Americans.”^[198] In April 2025, he expressed concerns that the Trump administration’s crackdowns on campuses threatened free speech and were a weaponization of antisemitism, 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.”^[141]

Kirk 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.^[215] In May 2025, Kirk opposed a bipartisan bill to expand anti-BDS laws, which punish the boycott of Israel.^[216] He said the bill would “only create more antisemitism, and play into growing narratives that Israel is running the U.S. government”.^[217] Kirk opposed U.S. involvement in the Iran–Israel War,^[218] warning that a prolonged war would destabilize the region and could trigger a refugee crisis and civil war in Iran.^[218] Shortly before his death, Kirk suggested that Jeffrey Epstein had been an Israeli intelligence agent.^[213] 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.^[211] 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.^[141]

Kirk often advanced pro-Russian talking points about the Russo-Ukrainian War.^[219] 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.^[220]

Kirk opposed the U.S. sending arms to Ukraine or helping the country financially.^[219] 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“.^[221] He called Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “CIA puppet” and “gangster” who “sent his own people to a senseless massacre”,^[222] claiming that Zelenskyy had no interest in ending the war.^[205] Kirk said that Ukraine should cut spending on what he called a war it could not “win”.^[222] He also claimed that Crimea could not be returned to Ukraine because “it has always been part of Russia”.^[222]

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.^[223] 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“.^[219] 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.”^[224]

Kirk told his listeners in 2025, “I would say, sadly if we took Taiwan, it would probably start a nuclear war. Our leaders have largely mishandled China. We probably should have taken it in 1950 right after World War II.”^[225]

He commented on the US conflict with Iran in July 2025, stating, “I do not support the US involvement in this war. Why are we so eager to place our trust in our intelligence agencies? We have only been in office for 101 or 102 days. Suddenly, we are expected to rely on Biden’s oversight of our intelligence agencies to inform us that Iran is nearing the development of a nuclear weapon, despite their history of deception?” Some argue that this is a case of one in, one out. How often have they accurately predicted an attack and a withdrawal? Initially, we aimed to conduct a few strikes in Libya. Yet, we still maintain a military presence in Libya. The stark reality is that America cannot afford to engage in a war with Iran.^[226][227]

Kirk opposed the 2016 Paris Agreement on climate change.^[228] Kirk promoted climate change denial, calling global warming a hoax.^[229] In 2021, a Turning Point USA video featuring Kirk and Candace Owens claimed there is “no factual data to back up global warming” and that scientists do not know the cause; Science Feedback rated the claims inaccurate. Kirk later issued a correction and the video was removed.^[230] 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“. 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 did not believe human activity is the driver of climate change.^[231]

In 2017, Kirk admitted that TPUSA had accepted funding from the fossil fuel industry. He spoke out against targeting fossil fuels and opposed student campaigns that pressured universities to divest from fossil fuels.^[232][228]

In May 2021, Kirk married Erika Kirk (née Frantzve), a businesswoman and podcaster who won the Miss Arizona USA pageant competition in 2012.^[233][234] The couple’s first child, a daughter, was born in August 2022.^[235][236] Their second child, a son, was born in May 2024.^[236]

Kirk’s company, Turning Point, gained financial momentum after 2016 once Kirk became politically allied with Donald Trump, embracing his presidential campaign. Afterwards, contributions to Turning Point accelerated. According to public tax filings, by 2022, contributions exceeded $79 million.^[237] Kirk’s real estate portfolio consisted of three properties, including a $4.75 million estate in Scottsdale, Arizona,^[238][239] and a beachside condominium on the Florida Gulf Coast purchased for $855,000.^[240][241]

Kirk was an evangelical Christian,^[242] belonging to the Calvary Chapel Association.^[52] Prior to the early 2020s, Kirk was described as secular and a critic of religious influence on politics and the state.^[47][243] He later 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.^[47]

Kirk advocated Christian creationism, arguing that evolution is false and that Charles Darwin has been debunked. He has discussed with Randy Guliuzza, the president of the Institute for Creation Research, ICR’s support for Young Earth Creationism on his podcast.^[244] His YouTube page includes footage of debate on this topic at Kirk’s signature Prove Me Wrong table on campus.^[245] 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.^[246]

As a religious practice, Kirk said that he kept “a Jewish sabbath“, considering it to be a commandment for Christians.^[247][248] A book written by Kirk, titled Stop, in the Name of God: Why Honoring the Sabbath Will Transform Your Life, was to be released months after his death, and became a posthumous bestseller.^[247]

On September 10, 2025, while on stage at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, for a TPUSA event, “The American Comeback Tour”,^[249][250] 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.^{[251][252][253]}

Immediately before being shot, Kirk was debating mass shootings in the United States. Hunter Kozak, a Utah Valley University undergraduate student, asked, “Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?”, to which Kirk responded, “Too many”.^[110] Kozak followed up with, “Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?”,^[254] and Kirk’s last words before being shot were his reply, “Counting or not counting gang violence?”^[255][110] The New York Times noted that this was “a grim coincidence that has fed into online conspiracies and speculation” and Kozak later said, “I couldn’t have asked a worse question.”^[256]

Kirk was taken to Timpanogos Regional Hospital in a critical condition, where he was pronounced dead later that afternoon.^[257][258] 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.^[259] Authorities arrested the suspected shooter, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, in Washington, Utah, on September 12.^[260] Four days later, he was formally charged with aggravated murder, felony discharge of a firearm causing serious bodily injury, two counts of obstruction of justice, two counts of witness tampering, and commission of a violent offense in the presence of a child.^[261]

Following the shooting and before Kirk was pronounced dead, Trump called for prayers for him on Truth Social.^[258][262] 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,^[253][258] as did a number of international heads of state.^[211][263] Internationally several vigils were held in honor of Kirk outside of the local U.S. embassies.^[264] The vigil in Vienna was attended by the youth wing of the far-right Freedom Party of Austria, as well as far-right activist Martin Sellner.^[265]

The American right has demanded severe penalties for the individuals responsible for the assassination of Kirk. Steve Bannon, who previously served as an adviser to Trump, has advocated for widespread arrests and a stringent response towards universities. In the meantime, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has instructed his staff to identify and discipline service members who either mocked or expressed approval of Kirk’s murder.^[266] Following the announcement of Kirk’s murder, Russian state media reported on social platforms that the United States was gearing up for a potential civil war. Chinese state media depicted the incident as indicative of a disordered and deteriorating society, afflicted by political turmoil and gun violence. Iranian media asserted that Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency was probably implicated in Kirk’s assassination.^[267]

In the days after Kirk’s death, Americans were equally likely to have a favorable or an unfavorable opinion of him, with many having no opinion.^[268] Despite divided public sentiment, commentators and political allies have described Kirk as an icon of contemporary conservatism, citing his influence on youth activism, Christian nationalism, and the MAGA movement.^[269][270] 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 control legislation.^[271] Trump and congressional Republicans received criticism for immediately blaming Democrats and liberal beliefs for the shooting without evidence,^[272][273] drawing allegations of exploiting the death for political gain.^[274][275]

On September 14, 2025, a public vigil was held for Kirk at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and was attended by Trump administration officials and Republican lawmakers including House Speaker Mike Johnson, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, and Health and Human Services director Robert F. Kennedy Jr.^[276] A memorial service was held on September 21 at State Farm Stadium in Arizona, which reached full capacity, and a total turnout of nearly 100,000 people.^[277] Prominent figures in attendance included President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Kennedy Jr., and Hegseth. The list of speakers included political commentator Tucker Carlson, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and Kirk’s widow Erika.^[278]

Far-right activists such as Laura Loomer called for violence and revenge in the aftermath of Kirk’s assassination,^[279] and posted identifying details about people they accused of celebrating or justifying Kirk’s death.^[280] Right-wing activists and members of the Trump administration’s initial demands—that people allegedly celebrating Kirk’s death be silenced and fired—soon evolved into a campaign to punish people who voiced criticism of Kirk.^[281] The administration’s involvement lead to comparisons with McCarthyism and cancel culture;^[281] the New York Times called it “a conservative version of the cancel culture that only a few years ago was wielded by the American left”^[282][274] and evidence of the rise of a “woke right“.^[274] A USA Today analysis showed that, by September 18, more than 100 people – including lawyers, doctors, first responders, and more than 50 high school teachers and college professors — had been censured, suspended, dismissed, or were under investigation.^[283] Various commentators and publications discussed the issues of cancel culture and free speech in the United States in the aftermath of Kirk’s death, including, among others, The Guardian,^[284] NBC News,^[285] USA Today,^[286] and Reuters.^[287]

Kirk was listed on the 2018 Forbes 30 Under 30 in Law & Policy.^[288][289] In May 2019, Kirk was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Humanities (D.Hum.) from Liberty University.^[290] A day after Kirk’s death, on September 11, 2025, Trump announced that Kirk would be posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.^[291] Miriam Feirberg-Ikar, the mayor of the city of Netanya, Israel, announced that a traffic circle in the city will be renamed in honor of Kirk.^[292]

On September 10, 2025, Trump ordered that the flag of the United States be flown at half-staff at the White House, on all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the federal government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its territories and possessions, as a mark of respect for Kirk. The order remained in effect until sunset on September 14.^[293]

At Kirk’s memorial on September 21, 2025, Hillsdale College president Larry Arnn announced that he would be posthumously awarded an honorary degree.^[294] Hillsdale also announced that it would be establishing a scholarship fund for both of Kirk’s children.^[295]