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OAN Staff Sophia Flores
4:50 PM – Sunday, September 21, 2025
Erika Kirk, wife of the late Turning Point co-founder Charlie Kirk, addressed the audience at his memorial with a deeply personal message. Kirk spoke from the heart, sharing that Charlie’s “greatest cause” throughout his life was dedicated to “reviving the American family.”
While walking out in front of an audience of thousands at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, Kirk choked back tears as the massive crowd cheered for her.
Erika detailed to the audience what her September 10th was like, the day her husband was murdered on the Utah Valley University campus. After receiving the devastating news that her husband was shot, she rushed to the hospital. When she arrived to identify Kirk’s body, she said that she felt “shock,” “horror,” and “a level of heartache that I didn’t even know existed.”
But then she noticed “a faint smile” on his lips, which gave her comfort, letting her know he was at peace. “One moment Charlie was doing the thing he loved … and then he blinked, and saw his savior in paradise.”
The day after her husband was assassinated, Erika was joined by her friends, Vice President JD Vance and the Second Lady Usha Vance. The couple made a trip to Utah aboard Air Force Two to help transport Kirk’s body back home to Arizona. While holding hands with Usha, she told the second lady, “Honestly, I do not know how I am going to get through this.”
Kirk said Vance told her that the moment is like the last 15 minutes of a plane ride with your kids.
“Things are crazy. Kids are not cooperating. Toys are flying everywhere, and everyone’s screaming. And you think to yourself, ‘I cannot wait for this flight to land.’ And it’s 15 minutes before you land,” Kirk said. “And she told me, ‘You will get through these 15 minutes and the next 15 minutes after that.’ Usha, I don’t think you realized it then, but those words were exactly what I needed to hear,” Kirk said.
She noted that in the days following her husband’s assassination, there was no rioting—something he would have been deeply proud to witness.
“After Charlie’s assassination, we didn’t see violence. We didn’t see rioting. We didn’t see revolution. Instead, we saw what my husband always prayed he would see in this country. We saw revival,” Kirk stated.
Although her husband died with his work unfinished, Erika said he did not leave the world with “unfinished business.”
She urged men all around the world to “accept Charlie’s challenge and embrace true manhood,” by loving and protecting their families.
“When he spoke to young people, he was always eager to tell them about God’s vision for marriage and how if they could just dare to live it out, it would enrich every part of their life in the same way that it enriched ours,” she said.
Kirk then went on to share stories from their relationship, saying she was his “closest and most trusted adviser, his best friend.”
Erika said her husband “wanted to save young men just like the one who took his life.”
With that, she went on to say that she forgives Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old suspect accused of taking Kirk’s life.
“I forgive him because it is what Christ did,” she said, without naming Robinson. “The answer to hate is not hate.”
Erika has been appointed as the new CEO of Turning Point USA (TPUSA), succeeding her husband earlier this week. Committed to honoring his legacy, she announced plans to establish thousands of new TPUSA chapters.
“The world needs Turning Point USA,” Erika Kirk said. “It needs a group that will point young people away from the path of misery and sin. It needs something that will lead people away from hell in this world and in the next. It needs young people pointed in the direction of truth and beauty, and so I promise you today every part of our work will become greater.”
“Charlie and I were united in purpose. His passion was my passion, and now his mission is my mission,” Kirk added. “Everything that Turning Point USA built through Charlie’s vision and hard work, we will make 10 times greater through the power of his memory.”
She said the campus events that her husband was known for will continue. The first event since Kirk’s death will take place later this month.
“No assassin will ever stop us from standing up to defend those rights ever because when you stop the conversation, when you stop the dialogue, this is what happens. When we lose the ability and the willingness to communicate, we get violence,” she said.
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