Charlie Kirk was a prominent conservative activist and media figure in the United States, widely recognized as a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump.
Kirk, 31, whose reported death Wednesday following a shooting at a Utah college, gained notoriety for hosting public debates on university campuses nationwide.
In 2012, at the age of 18, he co-founded Turning Point USA (TPUSA), a student organization dedicated to promoting conservative principles at predominantly liberal U.S. colleges.
His social media presence and eponymous daily podcast frequently featured clips of him engaging in debates with students on topics ranging from transgender identity and climate change to faith and family values.
The son of an architect and raised in the affluent Chicago suburb of Prospect Heights, Kirk attended a community college near Chicago before leaving to pursue political activism. He was unsuccessful in his application to West Point, the prestigious U.S. military academy.
Kirk often made light of his lack of a college degree during debates with students and academics on subjects such as post-modernism.
His influence within TPUSA grew significantly following President Barack Obama’s re-election in 2012.
The non-profit organization’s mission is to organize students to “promote the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government.” TPUSA currently boasts chapters at over 850 colleges.
Kirk toured the country as a speaker at Republican events, many of which were popular among members of the Tea Party movement. His daily conservative talk radio show garnered millions of followers on social media, according to CBS News.
A frequent public speaker, Kirk addressed the Oxford Union earlier this year and authored the 2020 bestseller “The Maga Doctrine,” referencing Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign.
TPUSA played a significant role in the get-out-the-vote efforts for Trump and other Republican candidates in the last election cycle. Kirk was widely credited with helping to register tens of thousands of new voters and contributing to Trump’s victory in Arizona.
Kirk attended Trump’s inauguration in Washington D.C. in January and was a frequent visitor to the White House throughout Trump’s time in office.
On Wednesday, Trump acknowledged the passing, offering this tribute to Kirk:: “The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie.”
President Trump and his aides valued Kirk’s understanding of the grassroots elements within the MAGA movement. Kirk spoke at Republican conventions, and Donald Trump reciprocated by delivering a speech at a Turning Point conference in Arizona last year.
Earlier this year, he traveled to Greenland with Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., during a period when the then-incoming president was suggesting that the U.S. should acquire the Arctic territory.
Kirk’s evangelical Christian faith and his family – he was married to a former Miss Arizona and had two children – were central to his political identity. He was viewed by some as the future of conservative activism, while others considered him a highly polarizing figure.
Perhaps the most significant acknowledgment of his contributions to Republican politics came from Trump himself in a clip used at the beginning of Kirk’s podcast.
The president stated: “I want to thank Charlie, he’s an incredible guy, his spirit, his love of this country, he’s done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.”
Kirk addressed a wide range of political and social issues at his events and on his podcasts, including gun control.
A few months ago, Kirk stated: “It’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.”
Some of his views were considered controversial. He promoted anti-transgender viewpoints and expressed skepticism about the COVID-19 pandemic, according to CBS, the BBC’s news partner. He also publicly supported the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
He also highlighted the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, which is based on a plot to replace White people with minorities, according to CBS.
Video from the campus in Utah shows how the event turned to chaos after a single shot rang out.
Kirk, a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump, was known for his controversial speeches at US college campuses.
The FBI director allegedly said he “had to fire” those individuals because “his ability to keep his own job depended on the removal of the agents who worked on cases involving the President”.
The pair shredded documents to cover up secret arms sales to Iran in a scandal that rocked Ronald Reagan’s White House.
The actor, well known for his roles in the Die Hard franchise, was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, a condition his family publicly disclosed in 2023.