Charlie Kirk, got up from Conservative teenage campus activist To President Donald Trump’s top podcaster, cultural warrior and allies, He was shot and killed on Wednesday One of his trademark public appearances at Utah’s universities. He was 31 years old.
Kirk died of doing what made him a powerful political force. This time, we gathered rights on a university campus at Utah Valley University. The event launched a series that was scheduled to appear in Kirk College, known from Colorado as the “American Comeback Tour” in Virginia.
His shootings were one of the numbers of attacks on politicians, from the assassination of a Minnesota Democrat and her husband to the Trump shooting last summer.
Trump announced Kirk’s death on his social media site Truth Social.
President Donald Trump will shake hands with moderator Charlie Kirk on Thursday, March 22, 2018 at the next generation White House Forum in the Executive Office Building in Eisenhower, in Washington’s White House Complex.
Kirk has personified pugnasious, populist conservatism It took over the Republican Party during Trump’s time. Kirk, an embarrassing Christian conservative who often made provocative statements about gender, race and politics, launched Turning Point USA in 2012, targeting young people and challenging liberal university campuses where many GOP activists are trampled on.
It is located in the heart of the central universe
During the president’s first 2016 run, Trump supporter Kirk scored a turning point in the heart of the central universe from one of the conservative group’s constellations funded.
The political wing of Turning Point has run a boring effort for Trump’s 2024 campaign, sought to invigorate dissatisfied conservatives who rarely vote. Trump won by 5% points after scoring 5% points in 2020 at Turning Point home state Arizona. The group is known for its events featuring strobe lighting and fireworks. It claims more than 250,000 student members.
Trump praised Kirk on Wednesday. Kirk started out as an unofficial advisor during Trump’s 2016 campaign and has recently become a confidant. “He was a very good friend of mine and he was an incredible person,” Trump told the New York Post.
Conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk speaks to supporters of President Donald Trump at a Phoenix rally outside the office of Maricopa County Recorders on Friday, November 6, 2020. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)
Kirk showed off his apocalyptic style on popular podcasts, radio shows and campaign trails. During his appearance with Georgia’s Trump last fall, he said Democrats “support everything God hates.” Kirk called the Trump vs. Kamala Harris choice “a spiritual battle.”
“It’s a Christian nation, and I want to see it stay that way,” Kirk told about 10,000 Georgians.
It will impact new generations of conservatives
Kirk was a regular presence on college campus. Last year, he faced off against 20 liberal college students for the social media program “Surrounded” and defended his perspective, including that abortion was murder and should be illegal.
Kirk, the author of several books, including the Second Amendment, was a solid supporter of gun rights.
At the 2023 Turning Point event in Salt Lake City, Kirk added that gun deaths cannot be reduced but not gone, so unfortunately I think it’s worth the cost of gun deaths to protect rights from other gods.
The worshippers emphasized that he enjoyed debate and free exchange of ideas about all of Kirk’s conflicting rhetoric. “His entire project was built on reaching beyond speech, not violence, to address and solve problems!” William Wolf, executive director of the Baptist Leadership Center, was posted on X.
Kirk’s style was influential for a new generation of conservatives. Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna spoke about Capitol’s stairs after the shootings Wednesday, reflecting on Kirk’s impact on her political journey.
“I was supposed to go to medical school. Charlie Kirk called me the day before I was supposed to leave and recruited me as the organization’s National Hispanic Outreach Director,” Luna said. “I was with him with a lot of them and we discussed those kids. That conversation needs to happen. You can’t hold it back.”
Kirk married podcaster Erica Franzbe. They have two young children.
Enthusiasm for challenging liberals
Turning Point was founded in 2012 by 18-year-old Kirk and Tea Party activist William Montgomery converting on university campuses for low tax and limited government. It wasn’t a success right away.
But Kirk’s enthusiasm for standing up against liberals in academia ultimately outperformed a set of influential, conservative investors.
Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk will speak at the Turning Point event ahead of Republican Vice Presidential Candidate JD Vance, R-Ohio, Speaking, September 4, 2024, Mesa, Arizona (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File).
Despite early uncertainty, Turning Point was enthusiastic about Trump after he decided to nominate the GOP in 2016.
Soon, Kirk was a regular on cable television, where he leaned against the culture war and praised the then president. Trump and his son were equally enthusiastic, often talking at Turning Point meetings.
Kirk announced on January 6, 2021 that he was organizing the bus to Washington to travel to Back Trump, and later evoked the Fifth Amendment, rather than answering questions from the January 6th subcommittee.
Also, in 2021, when he intensified criticism of the material movement of black lives on university campuses, Kirk was called George Floyd. This is the black man who caused the protest that a 2020 murder at the hands of Minneapolis police hit “Skanbags” in Trump’s final year.
“Don’t completely ruin this state,” Kirk said at an event in Mankato, Minnesota. “It was built by the wonderful Scandinavians, and it seems like it’s now rather deliberately destroyed.”
As the money was poured, Kirk purchased a $4.75 million Spanish-style property at the Arizona Country Club at Gate. Turning Point has stepped up millions of dollars on contractors owned by Kirk and his fellow Republicans were skeptical when they announced they had led the frequently-played attempts to get voters out during Trump’s 2024 campaign.
However, as the younger voters changed right in 2024, Trump ran a five-point victory margin in Arizona, Kirk and his allies claimed that he had substantiated his views of a sharply low-bowed, cultural war-oriented conservatism.
Advocates of the new Christian conservatism
Kirk Evangelical Christian beliefs were intertwined with his political perspective.and he argued that there was no true separation between the church and the nation.
He also referenced the orders of seven mountains that designate seven Christian-led regions – politics, religion, media, business, family, education, arts and entertainment.
In the foreword to the book, which the Pastor and Turning Point staff will be releasing next week, Kirk wrote:
Kirk advocated a new conservatism that challenges freedom of speech, big technology and the media, and defends working-class Americans as a center beyond the nation’s capital.
“We have to ask questions as a conservative movement. Will we return to the current ruling class party?” he said in a speech to hold a 2020 Conservative Political Action Conference.
“Or are you going to learn from what I call the maga doctrine? The maga doctrine, the renewal doctrine of America, is the doctrine of America as the greatest country in the history of the world.”
The American flag on Northern Lawn in Washington’s White House will be reduced to half the price after Turning Point USA CEO and co-founder Charlie Kirk was murdered on Wednesday, September 10, 2025 at an event in Orem, Utah.
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Thomas Beaumont of Des Moines, Iowa, Joey Capelletti of Washington, Brian Slodisco, Matt Brown and Hillel Italy of New York contributed to this report.
