Charlie Kirk, who rose from a to a top podcaster, culture warrior and ally of President Donald Trump, was shot and killed Wednesday during a public appearance at a college in Utah. He was 31.
Kirk died doing what made him a potent political force — rallying the political right on a college campus, this time Utah Valley University.Â
He personified the pugnacious, populist conservatism that took over the Republican Party in the age of Trump.
Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk speaks Sept. 4, 2024, at a Turning Point event in Mesa, Ariz.
At the center of the right-of-center universe
He launched his organization, Turning Point USA, in 2012, targeting younger people and venturing onto liberal-leaning college campuses where many GOP activists were nervous to tread. The group is known for its flamboyant events that often feature strobe lighting and pyrotechnics. It claims more than 250,000 student members.
Turning Point's political wing helped run get-out-the-vote efforts for Trump's 2024 campaign, trying to energize disaffected conservatives who rarely vote. Trump won ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥, Turning Point's home state, by five percentage points after narrowly losing it in 2020.Â
Trump on Wednesday praised Kirk, who started as an unofficial adviser during Trump's initial 2016 campaign and more recently became a confidant. "He was a very, very good friend of mine and he was a tremendous person," Trump told the New York Post.
Kirk showed off an apocalyptic style in his popular podcast, radio show and on the campaign trail. During an appearance with Trump in Georgia last fall, he said Democrats "stand for everything God hates." Kirk called the choice between Trump and then-Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris "a spiritual battle."
"This is a Christian state. I'd like to see it stay that way," Kirk told the 10,000 or so Georgians, who at one point joined Kirk in a deafening chant of "Christ is King!"
Charlie Kirk, the CEO and co-founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, has died after being shot Wednesday at a Utah college event.
Influencing a new generation of conservatives
Kirk also remained a regular presence on college campuses. Last year, for the social media program "Surrounded," he faced off against 20 liberal college students to defend his viewpoints, including that abortion is murder and should be illegal.
Admirers stressed that, for all of Kirk's confrontational rhetoric, he relished debate and the free exchange of ideas. "His entire project was built on reaching across the divide and using speech, not violence, to address and resolve the issues!" William Wolfe, executive director of the Center for Baptist Leadership, posted on social media.
His style has been hugely influential for a new generation of conservatives.
Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida spoke on the Capitol steps after the shooting Wednesday, reflecting on Kirk's influence 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 to go be the national Hispanic outreach director for the organization," Luna said. "I was with him at many of them, debating those kids, and that conversation needs to happen. You can't squelch that."
Kirk was married to podcaster Erika Frantzve. They have two young children.
President Donald Trump shakes hands with moderator Charlie Kirk during a Generation Next White House forum March 22, 2018, at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex in Washington.
Zeal for challenging liberals
Turning Point was founded in suburban Chicago in 2012 by then 18-year-old Kirk and William Montgomery, a tea party activist, to proselytize on college campuses for low taxes and limited government.
Kirk's evangelical Christian beliefs were intertwined with his political perspective, and he argued that there was no true separation of church and state. He also referenced the Seven Mountain Mandate, which specifies seven areas where Christians are to lead: politics, religion, media, business, family, education and the arts, and entertainment.
Kirk argued for a new conservatism that advocated for freedom of speech, challenging Big Tech and the media, and centering working-class Americans beyond the nation's capital.
Despite early misgivings, Turning Point enthusiastically backed Trump after he clinched the GOP nomination in 2016.
Kirk announced he was organizing buses to travel to Washington to back Trump on Jan. 6, 2021, and later invoked the Fifth Amendment rather than answering questions from the Jan. 6 subcommittee. Also in 2021, as he stepped up criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement on college campuses, Kirk called George Floyd, the Black man whose 2020 murder at the hands of Minneapolis police sparked protests that roiled Trump's last full year in office, a "scumbag."
As money poured in, Kirk bought a $4.75 million Spanish-style estate on a gated ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ country club. Turning Point steered millions of dollars to contractors owned by Kirk and his associates, and some Republicans were skeptical when it announced it would spearhead an attempt to turn out infrequent voters during Trump's 2024 campaign.
But as younger voters shifted right and Trump ran up a five-point margin of victory in ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥, Kirk and his allies claimed vindication of his view of a culture-war-oriented conservatism.
A list of deadly shootings on college campuses in the US
Dozens of patrol vehicles, including a forensics van, are stationed outside of Florida State University’s student union building April 17, 2025, in Tallahassee, Fla., after a shooting. Two people were killed and at least six others were wounded. The gun used in the shooting belonged to the 20-year-old suspect's mother, who has worked for the sheriff’s office for 18 years, authorities said. They described the gun as her former service weapon. Experts say mass shootings on college campuses, though rare, are often on the minds of students today because they grew up participating in active shooter drills in elementary and high school. Here is a look at other deadly shootings on U.S. college campuses in recent decades.
Michigan State University students embrace Feb. 14, 2023, at The Rock on the East Lansing, Mich., campus. A fired inside an academic building and the student union, killing three students and injuring five others. He later killed himself miles away from the campus while being confronted by police. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at .
Amanda Perez, left, is comforted Dec. 6, 2023, by fellow student Alejandro Barron after a shooting on the University of Nevada campus in Las Vegas. A 67-year-old , whose applications to teach at UNLV were rejected, opened fire in the building housing the university's business school, killing three professors and badly wounding a fourth. The gunman was killed in a shootout with police outside the building.
A University of Virginia football player speaks Nov. 19, 2022, during a memorial service for three slain University of Virginia football players Lavel Davis Jr., D'Sean Perry and Devin Chandler at John Paul Jones Arena at the school in Charlottesville, Va. A of the school’s football team shot and killed the players on a charter bus as they returned from a field trip, setting off panic and a 12-hour lockdown of the campus until the suspect was captured. Two other students also were wounded on the campus. The shooter pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and other charges.
Authorities gather Oct. 9, 2015, outside a student dormitory in Flagstaff, Ariz., after an early morning fight between two groups of college students escalated into gunfire, authorities said. Just weeks into his freshman year, a student walked onto the Northern ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ University campus in Flagstaff and opened fire. One student was killed and three others wounded. The to manslaughter and aggravated assault and was sentenced to six years in prison.
Hannah Miles, a student at , speaks with reporters Oct. 1, 2015, in Roseburg, Ore. A 26-year-old man opened fire on his writing class, killing his instructor and eight other people at the school, then killed himself. Miles said she was in the classroom next door to the shooting, which also wounded nine others.
A woman looks at bullet holes May 24, 2014, in a window of IV Deli Mark, where a near the University of California, Santa Barbara campus, in the Isla Vista beach community. A 22-year-old college student frustrated over sexual rejections fatally stabbed or shot six students near the school and injured several others before he killed himself.
Santa Monica College students Gaby Contreras, left, and Andrea Garcia leave flowers at a memorial for those killed in a shooting at the school in Santa Monica, Calif. A deadly act of domestic violence at home turned public June 7, 2013, when a left after killing his father and older brother, carjacked a woman and shot at other vehicles. He then entered the campus, where he previously was enrolled as a student, and opened fire, killing four more people before he was fatally shot by police in the school's library.
Maria Campomanes and her daughter Maelauni leave flowers for victims outside of Oikos University in Oakland, Calif. A fatally shot seven people April 2, 2012, at the small private college in East Oakland, California. He was given seven consecutive life sentences and died in prison in 2019.
Mourners console each other after placing flowers at a memorial at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Ill. A 27-year-old former student shot and and wounded more than 20 others at the school Feb. 14, 2008, before killing himself.
Students gather on the campus of Virginia Tech for a candlelight vigil April 17, 2007, a day after a shooting, in Blacksburg, Va. In the , a 23-year-old student killed 32 people on the campus. More than two dozen others were wounded. The gunman then killed himself.
Smoke rises from a sniper's gun Aug. 1, 1966, as he fires at people from the tower of the University of Texas administration building in Austin, Texas. A Marine-trained sniper opened fire from atop the 27-story clock tower in the heart of the university's flagship campus in . He killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 others before authorities shot and killed him.
