The broadcast from Turning Point USA’s headquarters in Arizona began with several minutes of silence as the camera showed Charlie Kirk’s empty chair. When his wife, Erika Kirk, began to speak, she lifted her eyes heavenward and whispered a silent prayer. She then thanked the emergency teams who tried to save him, her husband’s staff, and the White House.
Erika Kirk speaks for the first time after the death of her husband, Charlie Kirk: “You have no idea what you’ve unleashed.”
“Mr. President, my husband loved you. And he knew that you loved him too,” she said through tears, also thanking Vance and his wife, Usha, for accompanying the casket to Arizona. “But above all, Charlie loved his children. And he loved me, with all his heart. He made sure I knew that every single day.”
Addressing those she called “the wicked,” Mrs. Kirk said: “You have no idea about the fire you have ignited in this woman; the cries of this widow will be heard around the world as a battle cry. They must know: if you thought my husband’s mission was powerful before, you have no idea what you have just unleashed across this country and the world.”
She said her husband’s tour of American universities would continue through the fall and in the years ahead, without giving further details, and that his podcast would also go on. Erika Kirk also spoke about their children, a one-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter: “Sweetheart, Daddy loves you so much. Don’t worry. He’s on a work trip with Jesus.”
Charlie Kirk, 31, was a controversial figure in U.S. politics, considered by some to be the future of American conservatism. He supported gun rights, opposed abortion, was critical of transgender rights, and spread false claims about Covid-19, polarizing audiences and drawing equally passionate supporters and critics.