Charlie Kirk’s murder silenced a modern-day Paul—faith-driven, disciplined, and unapologetic—who built Turning Point USA from 2,000 to 65,000 members while rejecting secularism’s moral void. Frank Turek calls his death a global wake-up call, sparking conversions in Denmark, Australia, and London, as Kirk framed truth battles against "light vs. dark" threats. His marriage to Erica, loyalty to Trump (despite policy clashes), and hiring of blacklisted Blake Neff—risking career backlash—showed a fearless, egalitarian Christian leader. Carlson’s bond with Kirk, forged over shared faith and anti-marijuana libertarianism, reveals how devotion to Jesus allowed Kirk to admit past mistakes, like supporting the Iraq War, without shame. Kipling’s If—enduring lies, serving higher purpose—mirrors his life: a WASP-era moral compass in an era of elitism, where his legacy demands faith over politics. [Automatically generated summary]
But listen, we'll blow the brakes when we have to.
So if you're watching on stream, if you're watching on Real America's Voice, you're watching on one, you know, a video platform, you'll probably be fine.
We're just going to, we're just going to have fun today.
It was unbelievable because there's really no one in public life who talked about Jesus more than Charlie Kirk.
And I'll just, now I'm revealing one of my ugly biases, but some of the people whose job it is to talk about Jesus are not, you know, I don't think is credible and believable.
I'm just being honest, as I think Charlie was.
He really meant it.
He wasn't being paid to say it.
I think everything that he did, everything that he thought, the way he lived were all informed by his love of Jesus.
And I don't think I'm overstating it.
And I said this to him recently when he was at my house in Maine.
And I've had wave after wave of revelation of what we were actually doing.
You know, I was so in the weeds.
We were so in the weeds that it was impossible to fully understand even what we were doing.
But I, yes, you know, I'm and I, Charlie and I bonded at the very earliest days because we were both like really strong Christians and that was such a central part of who we were.
But we didn't, we, you know, we didn't talk about it all the time necessarily publicly.
But as the years went on, we both knew that we had each other in that way.
And I've tweeted, there's two tweets that I've posted.
I have realized in the days hence that he was a prophet, not a fortune teller like people think of prophecy.
He was like a biblical prophet that would go into a nation and call it to repent.
I don't know why I thought it was like political organizing or something, which I, on one level, it was, but that's not, well, you guys were there all the whole time.
It felt like there's this little group of people singing and it's Koreans.
And this Korean congregation of like nine people has taken over the church, rented it on Sundays because, of course, no whites are going to church, of course.
And I just thought to myself, this was God's way of reassuring me that even though the world that I grew up in is gone and totally, you know, everyone's fallen away and it hasn't worked at all, that Jesus still lives.
But, you know, his name is spoken in other languages.
And one of those is Korean.
And there's something about watching Koreans worship that just, oh, it's my favorite thing ever.
Very, very, very non-denominational evangelical way to phrase it.
I got saved in college, radically saved.
So I had this Catholic background, but then I found myself in a non-denominational setting alone at a school in Seattle, like the second least church city in the country.
And I ended up getting radically saved.
And so, but I've never cared about the distinctions.
And one of the things I hope you guys live to your 50s because, and I'm sure you will, but because when you get there, you're like, wow, I've been wrong about so much.
And you think that middle-aged people are wishy-washy.
And low testosterone does account for some of that, just a fact.
But part of it is just the recognition of how wrong you've been.
And that is the Christian.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
It's like first you meditate on how fallen you are, and then you realize you don't have a basis upon which to judge other people, actually, and you can forgive them.
And that is the process that's prescribed in the Lord's Prayer.
Of course, it's a center of Christianity, but it's also just like a human process.
And you get there and you realize, like, yeah, I'm mad about Mary.
And I promised I wouldn't get into any of that, but I will say, and I'm not going to, but I will say, because I want this to be about Jesus and his love for Jesus and what he did to spread the word of Jesus throughout the world.
But I will just say this, that whenever I would come and do a gig for you guys, which was a lot because I really enjoyed it.
And he was so kind to invite me and defend my being there.
But I would always, he's the only person I did this with.
I would always say, hey, you know, let's like meet in my hotel room or have a meal.
Like, oh, I loved talking to him.
And it wasn't just to catch up on everything that's going on in the political world.
He would always bring it back to God every single time.
And it was so, and there's no one around.
Like, so he didn't need to be like, oh, yeah, I really love God.
Well, and not only don't lie, I mean, without even getting into it, but like if you run a huge nonprofit and TC is all about huge nonprofits, I know everyone who runs them.
Boy, there are temptations and there was never any of that here ever.
And Tro and I talked about that a lot.
Like, here are the pitfalls in a man's life.
Here's how people get ensnared.
It happened to David.
I mean, we know this is a thing.
He was so, and again, I just had this conversation with him right before he died because I'm very focused on because I've seen so many people destroyed, who destroyed themselves.
And by the way, when, and I think that gave him the freedom to kind of just go, huh, I'm hanging out.
And I mean, if you had to add him up, I've got hundreds of these hours and they're some of the most amazing because he was so funny and so curious.
And so, so he did, but it was like you had to get him in this mode where you literally trapped him on a plane and he couldn't get out and he was stuck.
So my theory on that, Tucker, is I think in order for this whole God plan to work in Charlie's life, he had to like, he had to impress in him almost subconsciously, hardwire it, whatever it was, he was going to maximize the juice, the output.
And Charlie disciplined his body.
He didn't put alcohol into his body.
He didn't put drugs into his body.
He didn't put anything into his body that he thought was going to slow him down or reduce his productivity.
He was obsessed with biohacking.
He was like, and I thought it was just this weird quirk because I'm thinking, Charlie, you're going to be alive because you're younger than me.
You're going to be alive when I'm gone.
Like, chill out, relax, have some fun.
But somehow he knew there wasn't a moment to waste.
And I'm finding these things, Tucker, that he found time to do.
Erica's telling me he somehow found time to journal obsessively.
I love about this Blake story too because I and I don't want to I'm not going to ruin the punchline here but I would just say I one of the strongest testaments to Charlie is the fact that this guy's a tough judge and I know when he's He works.
And when he first started working with us, I could tell that he was a little unsure.
You know, you probably had the questions you're back.
Charlie spoke the language of the people, and you're a Dartmouth kid that's a total egg, egghead, nerd, you know, like beautiful mind kind of person.
And, but Charlie would cut through all that, and he would speak right to the people and cut people's hearts in two and make them choose the side they were going to go and go on.
And that was not the language of Blake Neff, but we needed a Blake Neff.
And I knew we needed a Blake Neff.
And I just, there was this moment where I forget why, but you took this moment and I remember being really touched by it.
And you paid Charlie a tremendous compliment.
And I knew it was like two years after the fact.
And it was, I, Charlie texted me like directly.
He goes, whoa, did you hear, did you hear Blake?
Like, because it really meant the world to him that he had won your respect.
I remember talking to you about that because I actually was weighing another employment option and I was going, you know, as you said, I was like, I think you maybe were behind that one too.
And it does because he's so completely, intently sincere and fully all in on it.
And I think that's what like amazed young people.
Like, you know, when you go to these campus events and, you know, I think there's a lot of, you know, you'll see these people online who are like very like performatively trad or Christian or whatever because it like owns the libs or whatever.
Charlie is just like, no, no, I like 100% believe in this.
And because I believe it is true and because it is important, and I want everyone else to believe in it because it is true, and I think it is the most important decision they will ever make.
And it would always shine through in what he was doing and how he behaved, that he really believed that.
Well, and I mean, I think, and you know this because you were at some of the campus stops.
I was at some of the campus stops.
90% of the interactions, as he got older, right?
The brand of Charlie was almost cemented, you know, in 2018 where he was much younger and he was like a peer to the kids on college.
And he would say, Charlie Kirk destroys the libs or whatever.
And that was just titling.
It wasn't actually in Charlie's heart.
But Charlie, by the way, didn't determine the titles.
You know, like people didn't destroy any of them.
No, behind the scenes.
That's, you know, that's a social media team that's doing the titling.
That wasn't Charlie picking the title.
You know, anyways, but the point is, as he got older, he transitioned to a much more big brother.
And people started observing this incredible Herculean patience that he would exhibit in these interactions with sometimes bad faith people, but sometimes people that just had bad ideas.
And 90%, if you went and sat there and watched the entire three-hour prove me wrong, 90% of it is him being kind and gentle and thought-provoking and working through whatever was the lie that was stuck in this kid's head, or sometimes professors, but he would work with them through it and use the Socratic method to draw out the truth.
And it was a beautiful thing.
And, you know, he doesn't get nearly enough credit for that because the Charlie Destroys the Libs clip goes mega viral, right?
I have to say, when all that happened to you, I just cannot say how painful I, well, you know, because we've talked about it many times, but that was like one of the most painful things that's ever happened to me in my life.
Because, you know, we have such a tight staff and the same staff.
Like, I don't have new people working for me really ever.
So I have an insight into that piece of the story because I was aware of this other job opportunity.
And I see it now all as like God's plan.
And I was working on kind of a panel show idea, but I didn't have that.
It was just like a nugget of an idea.
It was back in my head.
And I remember kind of just intuiting that in order to like restore this man that had been so wronged by Oliver Darcy or whatever and CNN, these scumbags, I thought, you know, I do forgive Oliver Darcy.
So, but, you know, and by the way, I saw, I ended up in that moment in that when we were talking with Blake at the beginning, I looked back at your monologue from that night.
Maybe it wasn't your monologue.
Maybe it was the finish, final segment, but you said, you really were defiant and it was beautifully done because you were back at you.
You were part of something and only had so much control at that moment, right?
I was in the parking lot of a place in, I was in Bozeman, Montana fishing, and she called me and I went outside to do my pre-show bathroom break, always outside if I can do it.
And she called me and she said, you need to say what he said was wrong.
And I said, I'm not doing that, period.
And you can fire me and the show's live in 10 minutes.
I'm not doing that.
And she goes, well, I guess I can't make you.
And until the day she fired me, she never really talked to me after that.
But to your point, your hands were tied in that moment.
And you defiantly said, I remember you said, I just want everybody to know that you are gloating over a young man's life being ruined and shame on you.
You basically, I'll never forget that.
And I remember thinking, okay, like if Tucker's got his back in this moment, this guy's pretty great.
But it takes the bravery of an individual to get there.
So like everything is fine now and Blake can do whatever he wants and people know who he is because they get to see him and they can make their own judgments about him.
But when Charlie made that decision and he's the one who would have been blamed if it had gone wrong, people didn't know who Blake was apart from what they read in the New York Times.
Slander devised by CNN and Oliver Darcy.
That's a fact.
And not helped by a lot of other people who I shouldn't be attacking.
He was connected to, funded by a close friend of ours called Foster Freeze, who's a wonderful man from Wilmington, Delaware, really from Wisconsin, but lived in Wilmington and then Jackson, Wyoming, and was an investor in a company that we had.
And more important, like an actual friend, really the only investor I've ever had in anything.
And in a very enthusiastic Christian man and the kind of person who was just a collector of people, you know, I met this person.
He was so enthusiastic.
And almost everybody around him was just wonderful.
But because he was so rich and so generous, he did collect.
There were phonies in the orbit because there always are when someone's rich, right?
And so he tells me at dinner about this kid he's met.
I've always been opposed to college my whole life.
I tried to convince all my kids not to go.
I mean, I really meant it.
And so he's like, you would love this guy.
He's not going to college.
And I was like, man, I love that because I really am opposed.
And I mean it.
And I'm like, he sounds great.
And he's like, and I'm thinking, oh, man, some fast-talking kid has configured throwing back Reagan quotes or something at poor Foster, you know, who's in his 70s and like late 60s and he doesn't know.
And I really thought, assumed that Charlie was just some predator.
And I didn't like it at all.
And of course, there's the bias against young people.
I mean, Charlie's literally the age of one of my children.
So like, oh, and I felt this probably is totally conventional telling old people what they want to hear or sucking up to the donors, whatever.
So I meet him.
I thought he was smart as hell, but I was very skeptical.
Then I have this, he calls me, would you do an event?
Sure, I was going to be in the state anyway.
So I do it.
And we have this kind of sort of debate, not really a debate.
Well, what actually happened was I was going to give a speech and I got there.
We were backstage.
He's like, well, actually, let's just do a Q ⁇ A. And I was like, I don't know, son.
I don't think you want to do that with me because I'm kind of a jerk, you know, which I am in those settings, right?
I just, I think you really got at it where, you know, one, he was totally unafraid of being in a huge minority on an issue and being frank about it.
You know, people would ask and he'd, he'd be like, they'd ask him about like abortion and he'd be like, look, you know, my position on that is a tiny minority in the United States and I'm going to keep trying anyway.
And he'd say that on, you know, gay marriage where the polls would say, you know, a big majority support it and all of that.
And at the same time, yeah, the zero like shame about if he had to change his views.
You see that so often with politicians.
Well, actually, that was a different situation.
You know, I voted that way because, you know, it wasn't like that.
And Charlie's example of admitting the truth about himself in public is the most edifying and important thing you can ever do because it shows people you can take the leash off and you can live in freedom because you know you're loved.
You can tell the truth.
We're all going to die anyway.
This is the deepest truth.
And your job is to be honest and to be loving to other people.
It was our first Amfest and we really needed somebody of your caliber and your, your, I'm going to say it, your fame, your, your, your, the weight that you held in the movement, especially, I mean, it was an honor to us to have you there.
Yourself, but make allowances for their doubting too.
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or being lied about, don't deal in lies.
Or being hated, don't give way to hating.
And yet don't look too good nor talk too wise.
If you can dream and not make dreams your master, if you can think and not make thoughts your aim, if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools or watch the things you gave your life to broken and to stoop and build them up with worn-out tools.
If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss and lose and start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word about your loss.
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after you are gone and so hold on when there is nothing in you except the will which says to them, hold on.
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue or walk with kings nor lose the common touch.
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, if all men count with you but none too much.
If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run, yours is the earth and everything that's in it.
for the fallen Blake can read poetry in a very heterosexual way which is are you saying that I just did it in a non no no no no that was that was so straight it was unbelievable I'm just saying.
You don't meet a lot of guys who are like, I want to share some poetry with you.
I just want people to understand that Tucker, I mean, I've seen you backstage, I don't know, more times than I can count now.
And you are the exact same with the guy who's taking out the trash as our PAs and our assistants and the people in between as you are with Charlie or me or Blake.
You are the exact same human.
And I really want everybody to know that about you because you wouldn't say it about yourself.
You treat everybody.
I can't tell you how many times that has occurred to me because I'll be needing to drag you somewhere where you need you to go, but you're deep into a conversation in the corner with the assistant that like, I don't even know that I necessarily knew the name of this because we have so many employees around it.
And you would just be like engrossed in this deep conversation.
And I would feel bad, you know, oh, I got to grab Tucker.
He's got to go on stage in like five minutes or so.
Everyone hates the WASPs and I beat up on them constantly.
But in the club that I spent my life at, I don't even know if they're clubs anymore, but the only thing you could do to get booted from the club was to be rude to the staff, period.
Hey, I just want to piggyback on something Tucker just said.
The only worldview that agrees with what Tucker just said is Christianity.
You know, in Hinduism, there's a caste system.
In Islam, if you're not a Muslim, you're a second-class citizen.
In the secular world, there's no way to ground these moral values and the moral worth that every individual has.
The only worldview that does that is Christianity.
And that was the worldview that Charlie and everybody here at this table right now wants to demonstrate is true and try and persuade young people to follow.
I mean, that's that actually hasn't bothered me all that much, to tell you the truth.
I just think it's so colossally stupid that if somebody wanted to shoot somebody, they'd need a guy standing 25 feet from them to signal, hey, get him.
He's the guy.
I mean, he's, it makes absolutely no sense at all.
So it was just a terrible day, but we all did the best we could to try and help and save Charlie.
And then once we couldn't, all we could do was take Erica's lead and your lead, Andrew, and Mikey's lead, because you were all there to march forward and take his legacy to new levels.
But as to what happened, again, totally fair in my view to ask sincere questions.
But I think it's important to remember the big picture, which is whatever happened, it was a species of the same phenomenon, which was the fight of evil against good.
And his murder was an attempt to extinguish the light, period.
And it didn't work.
Like that's the main thing to know.
There are lots of things I want to know.
And again, we have a civil system that has to go through a process in order for this government to continue or any government.
It has to be transparent and motivated by good faith and it has to try to affect justice.
Well, and that is honestly the way that a lot of us were convinced of the reality of God was by being forced to acknowledge the reality of evil.
I can say that for myself.
My wife, who's like the person who keeps our family text chain grounded in the truth, sent a verse this morning that basically said that exact thing.
And there are a number of them throughout both Old and New Testaments, as you know better than I, but that say that God will use evil for his purposes and that he will reveal himself through sadness as well as joy.
And that is practically true.
It's not even a theoretical concept.
It's a living concept for those of us who concluded just on the basis of the evidence that these were not political differences, actually.
These were not political phenomenon.
These were a bunch of different things.
I won't get specific, but you know what I'm talking about?
I want everybody to know, and I know, Blake, you've been contemplating this too.
But Charlie was willing to give the very last measure of his effort and his life.
He really was.
And he said it multiple times.
And I think the first time he said it on stage, he, you know, it wasn't something that was planned.
It came out of him naturally.
And Erica heard it.
And Erica was like, be careful when you say that.
Please, you know.
And that's really powerful.
But he said it again and again.
He said it on a Lance Wall now show, I remember one time, saying, like, you know, I mean, and he was very aware of the story of Steven.
He was very well aware of the prophets.
And he was very well aware that people wanted to hurt him.
And it never stopped him.
And I think we need to remember that when we think about evil and we think about because death, where is your victory?
Oh, death, where is your sting?
It's the last thing that, you know, it's like you said, they tried, they meant it for evil, but the Lord is taking it and he's turning it to good and for the saving of many lives.
And I always was caught by that wording in the scriptures.
The saving of many lives.
Obviously, he's talking about the Israelites in that instance, but as we contemplate it for our own moment, the saving of many lives.
And I think about all these baptisms and all these reports of the churches being overflowing and across the country.
And these, we didn't riot, Tucker.
We didn't burn businesses.
We didn't tear down windows and doors.
We prayed.
And that is the biggest, most amazing testament to the character of Charlie Kerr.
And but it's also the nature of, or it has been my experience anyway.
I'm not a theologian, but I just will say that I've had many moments, especially in the last 10 years, where, well, you can feel it around you, like for real.
You can feel the menace.
You can feel the hate.
You can feel the threat.
It comes out of nowhere.
I've had a couple pretty intense experiences with it, very intense.
And they are followed invariably by the peace of God, by the Holy Spirit.
And you know that God is using this moment for your benefit, your edification, and your joy.
That is true, that out of tragedy, and it's such a cliche and it's such a kind of syrupy, hallmark, false assurance on the surface that I hesitate even to say it, but I've just lived it so much.
I've lived it so much.
That is absolutely how God has communicated with me in my life, like directly, is by contrasting his presence with the evil that you feel around you.
And so it is in a weird way in the middle of tragedy, like a true blessing.
And if you see a loved one, you know, we all go through this as we age.
I've been through it a lot recently where someone you really, really love dies.
And then you're just filled with this sense of the presence of God that's absolutely real.
It's not, you're not manufacturing it.
It's not like a immune response or something.
It's like a presence from outside coming into you.
And I think the whole country feels it, or the people who are alive to it feel it now strongly.
And out of love for what Christ has done, then you'll do good works.
By the way, I'm really, I'm really struck by a quote from Peter Kreft who said this about what evil can do in our lives to help us become more like Christ.
It's not like he took them and like ran off with them.
Second of all, I asked him personally, I said, why did you do that?
And he looked at me and this was his answer.
He said, because I know people can be evil.
And he did not want that footage being grabbed by somebody.
There was videos of people after the incident going and stealing hats off the table.
I mean, so I'm so grateful he did that and that that was his instinct.
He's like, I'm depressed to know that that was why I did that, but I knew that I had to protect that footage because I know I wanted, I mean, you know, you're recording in like 4K, you know?
Can I just say, I think that people can feel the existence of evil and that just to put in a sympathetic word for people who are trying to make sense of this and coming to the wrong conclusions, I think they're motivated for the most part by pure intent.
As Christians, ethical monotheists, we have the problem of evil.
Atheists have evil no problem.
On the atheist side, they can't say that evil actually exists because without God, if God does not exist, then we are nothing more than just a clump of cells and there is no such thing as evil.
You only know something is evil if you have good to compare it to.
If I have a piece of paper and I draw a crooked line, how do you know this line is crooked?
You immediately look at it and say, that's a crooked, squiggly line.
Only because in your mind, you know what a straight line is.
If you don't believe in God, then you say evil's no problem.
But if you are upset with it, you actually are implying that you believe in God.
You might be angry at God.
You might be wrestling with God.
You might think that God is unjust.
That's a completely different thing than not believing in God.
And he was, I just loved how it kept like, oh, well, okay, Fox and Friends wants me to be a guest, so we're going to take the weekend, like the best days of the vacation, you know, where he could actually maybe, and Erica was just totally game for it.
It's just been amazing to hear her talk about, you know, not just their relationship, but like how, as, you know, how they both viewed marriage.
And, you know, what you're saying, the last, the last exchange I had with Charlie by text message just on the way to the event, he was like what are the best arguments for monogamy?
And it gets back to that, you know, the Christian civilization stuff we talked about because he loved all the takes I'd give him where I'm like, yeah, you know, Christian marriage is in the Bible, but it's also this like secret weapon that made the West great and like countries that follow Christian marriage, like they're amazing, they excel, they improve, they get better.
They have harmony between men and women far more than any other civilization.
All of a sudden, Charlie's back on, and it was just like, you know, and um, but but he gave that time so purely and fully to his wife and kids, and Erica absorbed every moment of that.
And I, you know, I told this story yesterday, and I do want to like clarify something because apparently people took it the wrong way.
But the night it happened, she got a call from a very important person, and that very important person, I'm not going to say who, it maybe isn't who you think, but it's a very important person.
But asked, like, I, you know, I just have to ask, like, like, what do you know?
And he wasn't talking about some conspiracy theory.
We didn't even, they hadn't even got that the shooter at this point.
So when that was announced, or I heard that she was taking over, I was just, oh, I was just elated.
It's not an attack on anyone else, by the way, or a reference to any of the internecine battles currently going on, which I'm trying to not think about.
It's just the fact, the provable fact, that she had the same spirit and the same goals, the same mission that he had.
He loved Donald Trump, of course, often said it, but he really loved the stuff he would talk about in private, and some of that would bubble out.
He loves telling the story of the first time he endorsed him for office.
And in case people haven't heard it, it's such a great story where, you know, Vance has announced he's running in Ohio for Senate, and it's a very long shot bit at this point.
I think he pulled at two or three percent.
He comes in, he meets Charlie, he talks to Tyler, too, and they come out and they're like, He said everything we believe.
Like, we've got to endorse him.
Like, if we're not going to endorse this guy, why are we even?
And they're basically like, you know, they make that commit.
And there's a miscommunication because it's a big open Senate, you know, it's a big Senate race, and Charlie's got to call a lot of donors and explain why we're doing this.
We're not going for your guy.
This isn't to slide on you, you know, manage all the other guy was their guy for that.
But instead, there's a miscommunication, and it just goes out like blast.
Turning point is endorsing J.D. Vance.
And it goes out way too early.
And he is somebody who's like, well, we all believe it.
And by the way, you're part of that story because it was, he saw JD on your show and was like, he, at that point, he didn't know all the little deep things that he believed.
And he just, he kept, I remember him saying, JD's got like something.
There's something about JD.
He's got the goods.
And before you explain why, I'm not going to get involved.
Well, I just want to, I don't think I can emphasize it enough.
And again, I'm really going to try because I think the point of Charlie's life was following Jesus.
I just want to say that again as someone who knew him well.
I think the point of his life was following Jesus.
So I really want to be helpful to that mission and not get distracted with the other stuff.
And I have distracted with the other stuff for sure because I feel strongly about it.
But I'm going to try and stop.
But I just want to say, if you want to understand Charlie Kirk, he loved J.D. Vance and Donald Trump, but he was genuinely close to JD, like as a friend, and vice versa.
And that is just factually true.
And I don't want to hurt anybody by going on, but that is true.