For once, it wasn’t Charlie Kirk who was creating the controversy.
He left that to his host.
In March 2025, Kirk appeared as the first guest on California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom‘s podcast and they parried.
‘Would you say no men in female sports?’ Kirk pressed, flipping the script on his interviewer.
‘I completely agree with you on that,’ conceded Newsom. ‘It is an issue of fairness. It’s deeply unfair.’
The Left was outraged, upset over Newsom’s admission and, perhaps more, by the way he legitimized Kirk, who had come a very long way.
From 18-year-old college dropout, to builder of a $100 million-a-year political action group, to close ally of President Donald Trump and now – at just 31 years old – interrogator of a likely Democratic White House hopeful, the future for Kirk was, indeed, promising.
But on Wednesday, Kirk, was shot and killed while appearing at an event for his organization, Turning Point, on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
From 18-year-old college dropout to builder of a $100 million-a-year political action group, to close ally to President Donald Trump and now – at just 31 years old – interrogator of a likely Democratic White House hopeful
In March 2025, Kirk appeared as the first guest on California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom ‘s podcast and they parried
The gathering of hundreds of students was part of his movement’s ‘America Comeback Tour.’ A campaign for which he was always the star.
The presumed political assassination has sparked bipartisan shock and outrage – even in a country riven by political violence.
The shooting comes two days after the start of the trial of a man charged with attempting to assassinate Trump. Ryan Routh, 59, aimed a rifle at Trump through a fence at his West Palm Beach golf course in September 2024.
And that incident followed just two months after the first attempt on Trump’s life: in Butler, Pennsylvania. A bullet whizzed past Trump’s head, clipping his right ear, leaving the presidential candidate bloodied but defiant.
Kirk, a devout Christian, said at the time that Trump was saved by divine intervention, suggesting a ‘gust of wind’ may have ‘pushed that bullet ever so slightly.’ He added that ‘the Holy Spirit in scripture is often associated with a gust of wind. God’s hand is on Donald Trump.’
On Tuesday night, less than 24 hours before his midday appearance in Utah, Kirk, as usual, was in the midst of the action.
His latest remarks, delivered on his chart-topping conservative podcast, were being dissected by a CNN panel.
Kirk had claimed that a black man who fatally stabbed a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina on August 22 had been motivated by race hatred. Van Jones, a liberal CNN commentator, strongly rejected Kirk’s argument, calling it ‘race-mongering’ and ‘hate-mongering.’
Kirk, a devout Christian, said at the time that Trump was saved by divine intervention, suggesting a ‘gust of wind’ may have ‘pushed that bullet ever so slightly’ (Pictured: Trump rushed off Butler, PA stage on July 13, 2025)
On Wednesday, Kirk, was shot and killed while appearing at an event for his organization, Turning Point, on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah
In his final post on X, Kirk wrote: ‘If we want things to change, it’s 100% necessary to politicize the senseless murder of Iryna Zarutska because it was politics that allowed a savage monster with 14 priors to be free on the streets to kill her.’
Indeed, it was Kirk’s personal mission to take the rhetorical fight to his – and more recently, Donald Trump’s – political opponents.
‘Trump won,’ Doug Deason, a major Republican and Turning Point donor, told the New York Times in February. ‘But would he have won it without Charlie? I don’t know.’
For his part, Kirk wasn’t bashful about claiming credit for his work.
‘High school boys are the most conservative that they have been in the last 50 years,’ he told a room of political backers at Turning Point’s annual donor meeting in December.
The 2024 exit polls, he pointed out, showed that compared with 2020, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris had lost up to 24 percentage points of support among voters under 30 in six of seven swing states.
‘The youth vote won Trump the White House,’ Kirk boasted.
Though, perhaps surprisingly, Kirk was initially on the fence about Donald Trump.
As late as the Republican National Convention in 2016, Kirk was quoted saying that he ‘was not the world’s biggest Donald Trump fan.’ He was won, he says, by the younger generation of Trumps – Don Jr, Eric and Lara Trump – who saw the articulate and passionate youngster’s potential and working to bring the then-22-year-old into the fold.
‘Trump won,’ Doug Deason, a major Republican and Turning Point donor, told the New York Times in February. ‘But would he have won it without Charlie? I don’t know.’
As late as the Republican National Convention in 2016, Kirk was quoted saying that he ‘was not the world’s biggest Donald Trump fan.’ He was won, he says, by the younger generation of Trumps – Don Jr, Eric (pictured with Kirk) and Lara Trump
‘I traveled the country for about 70 days straight carrying Donald Trump Jr.’s bags and getting his Diet Cokes,’ Kirk told conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh in February 2019. ‘Helping book flights and taking pictures and coordinating media, essentially being the youth director of the campaign and also being Don Jr.’s body man.’
The president also took note. He began to see Kirk as the voice of a pro-Trump generation, and a vital link to younger voters.
Kirk’s passions – backing conservative Christian values; raging against the indoctrination of students and DEI initiatives – fed into Trump’s own policy platform.
It was Kirk who first coined the term ‘China Virus’ to describe COVID-19; a term Trump would co-opt with great relish. And Trump regularly retweeted Kirk’s musings and invited the young activist to the White House and Mar-a-Lago.
Kirk, in turn, transformed his proximity to the president into a media and activism powerhouse. He published five books, and launched his own podcast and YouTube channel, which has 3.8 million subscribers.
Born to a mental health counselor mother and architect father in the northwestern suburb of Arlington Heights, Kirk always said his family was conservative, but not particularly political.
A young Kirk was an Eagle Scout, and dreamed of getting into West Point, the US military academy which trains officers.
In a 2015 speech to the Conservative Forum of Silicon Valley, he said getting into the Army was his ‘No. 1 dream in life’, but that he was passed over in favor of ‘a far less-qualified candidate of a different gender and a different persuasion.’
The rejection appears to have been pivotal: around that time, in 2012, he wrote an opinion piece for the right-wing website Breitbart railing against the indoctrination of teenagers by liberal textbooks.
Kirk then enrolled at Harper College, a community college in the Chicago suburbs, but dropped out on the encouragement of Bill Montgomery, a conservative businessman who became Kirk’s mentor, and with whom Kirk co-founded Turning Point in 2012 at the age of 18.
Kirk took TPUSA, as it became known, and grew it into a machine focused on ‘freedom, free markets, and limited government.’
Kirk’s passions – backing conservative Christian values; raging against the indoctrination of students and DEI initiatives – fed into Trump’s own policy platform
Kirk leaves behind his wife, former beauty queen Erica Frantzve Kirk, 36, whom he married in May 2021 – and their two children, a three-year-old daughter and a 16-month-old son
Along the way, he made powerful friends and courted deep-pocketed allies: Foster Friess, an evangelical Christian businessman, gave TPUSA its first mega donation, with Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus’s foundation soon opening its checkbook.
The DeVos family – relatives of Trump’s first education secretary Betsy DeVos – donated heavily, and wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, Ginni Thomas, sat on TPUSA’s board.
In 2016 the two nonprofit entities, Turning Point USA and the political-action organization Turning Point Action, reported a total revenue of $4.3 million: by 2023, that had rocketed to $92.4 million.
Such was Kirk’s power that, at the inauguration in January, a Daily Beast reporter tweeted: ”Charlie Kirk has better seats than every member of Congress. Tells you how little Trump thinks of Congress,’ one GOP lawmaker tells me.’
Senator Jim Banks, a Republican of Indiana, replied 20 minutes later: ‘Charlie Kirk has done more than most members of congress combined to get us to this point today.’
Kirk leaves behind his wife, former beauty queen Erica Frantzve Kirk, 36, whom he married in May 2021 – and their two children, a three-year-old daughter and a 16-month-old son.
