Trump wrote on social media, "No one understood... the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie." C...
Trump wrote on social media, "No one understood... the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie."
Charlie Kirk was a conservative organizer and leader who was 31 years old. He co-founded Turning Point USA when he was 18 and was its executive director. Kirk was shot and killed Wednesday at an outdoor event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social, "The Great and even Legendary Charlie Kirk is dead." "Charlie was the only one who really got the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America." Everyone loved and admired him, but I loved and admired him the most. He is no longer with us.
Erika, Kirk's wife, and their two young children will miss him.
In the past few years, Kirk and his group, which supports right causes on college and high school campuses, have become important Trump friends. In February, Kirk told the New York Times Magazine that he had been to the White House "more than a hundred" times during the president's first term. He also said that starting in November of last year, he joined a small group of advisers who were checking the "unwavering loyalty to Trump" of potential second-term appointees.
Most of Kirk's work to support the #MAGA movement, though, was done on college grounds like the one where he was killed Wednesday.
Kirk was shot while sitting under a cover that said "Prove Me Wrong." This was a nod to the fact that he liked to argue with liberals on campus.
Kirk was born on October 14, 1993, and grew up in the neighborhoods of Chicago. He went to Harper College for a short time before leaving out to become more involved in politics. Kirk started listening to Rush Limbaugh, a right talk radio host, when he was a junior in high school. When he was a senior, he went on Fox Business to talk about an essay he wrote for Breitbart News that said school textbooks were biased toward left ideas. Kirk started Turning Point USA with tea party member Bill Montgomery in 2012. After meeting at the 2012 Republican National Convention, Kirk quickly persuaded Wyoming investor Foster Freiss, a well-known GOP donor, to fund the group's activities.
Kirk was the youngest speaker at the 2016 RNC. He was 23 years old at the time.
Kirk made Turning Point USA the best conservative youth group in the country from 2012 to 2020 by starting chapters at more than 850 schools. Students can join the group to vote, and it also brings conservative speakers to campuses, runs a national network of right-wing student government leaders, and holds conferences across the country several times a year.
A political action committee (PAC) called Turning Point Action was started by Kirk in 2019. In 2020, he began hosting a daily three-hour radio talk show called "The Charlie Kirk Show." NBC News just said that every day, between 500,000 and 750,000 people download Kirk's show. An Apple podcast chart shows it in the top 100.
Following Trump's first term, Kirk's power grew even more. People were not very happy with Trump or his political power when he went to Mar-a-Lago in February 2021. Kirk was snapped smiling next to the former president. He became friends with Donald Trump Jr. and pushed for Donald Trump Sr. to pick JD Vance as his running mate in 2024. From $4.3 million in 2016 to $92.4 million in 2023, Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action made a lot of money. Kirk became a millionaire.
Turning Point held a black-tie inauguration gala after Trump was re-elected last November. According to the New York Times Magazine, "about 1,500 attendees paid from $5,000 to $15,000 (with some VIPs paying more) to be in the company of Trump luminaries including Vance; Trump's nominee for director of the FBI, Kash Patel; and Don Jr., who described Kirk onstage as "one of the true rock stars of this movement."
At the time, Trump said, "Charlie Kirk, what he's done with the young people." He meant that Kirk was responsible for the campaign's success among voters under 30 years old, especially guys. "In fact, that was probably our biggest swing besides Hispanic." So, Charlie, thanks for what you did.
Kirk said at his events after the election, "High school boys are the most conservative they have been in the last 50 years." "Trump won the White House with the help of young people."
He also made it sound like Turning Point's work was what got young people to vote for Trump.