Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow and heir to the Turning Point USA conservative movement, spoke out on their deep faith, her deep grief, and deep determination to carry on TPUSA and the good, God-fearing life of her assassinated husband.
“I’m a strong believer that this was God’s plan,” Erika Kirk, 36, told The New York Times.
“And it’s so clear-cut. It couldn’t be more Charlie.”
She is not going to stand in the way of justice, nor advocate for the death penalty for her husband’s assassin.
“I’ve had so many people ask, ‘Do you feel anger toward this man? Like, do you want to seek the death penalty?’ I’ll be honest. I told our lawyer, I want the government to decide this. I do not want that man’s blood on my ledger. Because when I get to heaven, and Jesus is like: ‘Uh, eye for an eye? Is that how we do it?’
“And that keeps me from being in heaven, from being with Charlie.”
The 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA was assassinated Sept. 10 while speaking at Utah Valley University.
Newsmax and Newsmax2 will provide special live coverage this Sunday of the “Building a Legacy: Remembering Charlie Kirk” memorial service from State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.
Charlie Kirk Memorial Service
The memorial officially starts at 2 p.m. ET.
President Donald Trump will be in attendance and has called Erika Kirk twice since the shooting. Trump and Erika have known each other since 2012, when Trump was running Miss USA pageants and she was Miss Arizona.
“Charlie was like a son to him,” she told the Times. “And when the president said, ‘Just let us know how we can support you,’ I told him, ‘My husband just loved conversing with you and using you as a sounding board for all sorts of things. Could we continue that?’
“And he said, ‘Of course.'”
Trump’s tone “was soft and embracing,” she said. “I could tell he wanted to hug me.”
Erika Kirk received the call from her husband’s assistant at 11:23 a.m. local time, hearing the heart-stopping words, “He’s been shot!”
She was airborne en route to Utah when she received word of his official time of death.
“I’m looking at the clouds and the mountains,” Kirk told the Times of that moment. “It was such a gorgeous day, and I was thinking: This is exactly what he last saw.”
When she arrived at the hospital to see her husband’s body, she refused the sheriff’s warning to not look.
“With all due respect, I want to see what they did to my husband,” she said.
That same focused resolve was heard in her voice days later in the national address that aired live and in its entirety on Newsmax.
“The evildoers responsible for my husband’s assassination have no idea what they have done,” she said in her live address she eschewed pre-recording “because that’s what Charlie would do.” “They killed Charlie because he preached a message of patriotism, faith, and of God’s merciful love.
“They should all know this: If you thought that my husband’s mission was powerful before, you have no idea. You have no idea what you just have unleashed across this entire country and this world.
“You have no idea. You have no idea the fire that you have ignited within this wife. The cries of this widow will echo around the world like a battle cry.
“To everyone listening tonight across America, the movement my husband built will not die. It won’t. I refuse to let that happen. It will not die. All of us will refuse to let that happen.
“No one will ever forget my husband’s name, and I will make sure of it. It will become stronger, bolder, louder, and greater than ever. My husband’s mission will not end.”
Since then, she has felt grief, but in her devout Christian way.
“I’m allowing myself to feel this so deeply — without medication, without alcohol,” she told the Times. “The Lord is giving me discernment.”
The couple met in 2018 at a Turning Point event and married in 2021. They shared two young children, now 3 and 1. Erika says that raising them as a widow feels less daunting because her own mother raised her after a divorce.
“That new life is actually the least traumatizing thing for me,” she said.
This week, Turning Point USA announced Erika will succeed her late husband as CEO. Spokesman Andrew Kolvet described her as the group’s “beating heart” but admitted no one could replace Charlie.
As Erika prepares for Sunday’s memorial — where Trump and other conservative leaders are expected to attend — she says her faith is carrying her through.
“Do I like it? No,” she told the Times. “That was the love of my life, my soul mate, my best friend. But God’s plan is always greater than ours.”
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