{"id":18543,"date":"2025-09-13T10:09:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T10:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/18543\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T10:09:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T10:09:06","slug":"charlie-kirk-widow-says-her-cries-will-echo-around-the-world-like-a-battle-cry-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/18543\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlie Kirk widow says her \u2018cries will echo around the world like a battle cry\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Erika Kirk, the widow of rightwing activist and provocateur Charlie Kirk<\/a>, said in a statement on Friday evening that her late husband\u2019s message and mission will be \u201cstronger, bolder, louder and greater than ever\u201d and that her \u201ccries will echo around the world like a battle cry\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved knowing one of his mottos was \u2018never surrender\u2019,\u201d she said of her late husband. \u201cWe\u2019ll never surrender.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlie Kirk, the co-founder of the hard-right youth organisation Turning Point USA, died after being fatally shot while speaking at an event hosted at Utah Valley University<\/a> (UVU) on Wednesday afternoon. <\/p>\n

The event was the first in the organisation\u2019s autumn tour of college campuses. Ms Kirk said that the campus tour will continue despite her husband\u2019s untimely death.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a world filled with chaos, doubt and uncertainty, my husband\u2019s voice will remain and it will ring out louder and more clearly than ever and his wisdom will endure,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Ms Kirk, speaking from her husband\u2019s Turning Point USA office on Friday evening, said her husband had been killed because \u201che preached a message of patriotism, faith and of God\u2019s merciful love\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe evildoers responsible for my husband\u2019s assassination have no idea what they have done,\u201d she said. \u201cThey should all know this: if you thought that my husband\u2019s mission was powerful before, you have no idea what you just have unleashed across the country and this world.\u201d<\/p>\n

In what the organisation described as her address to the nation, Ms Kirk thanked law enforcement officers and those involved in finding and arresting the suspect in her husband\u2019s murder. Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old, was arrested on Friday in connection with the fatal shooting and is expected to be charged on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Analysis: Arrest of Charlie Kirk shooting suspect Tyler Robinson bookends latest episode of US political violenceOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

She also thanked JD Vance, whom she called her husband\u2019s close friend, and Donald Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cMister president, my husband loved you and he knew that you loved him, too,\u201d Ms Kirk said. \u201cYour friendship was amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

She talked at length about her husband\u2019s Christian values, saying that if he would have run for office, his focus would have been to \u201crevive the American family\u201d and that he spent much of his time encouraging young people to find spouses and start families. She said the struggle he had been dedicated to was not political but \u201cabove all it is spiritual\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpiritual warfare is palpable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Using divisive language and at times bigoted rhetoric, Mr Kirk played a crucial role in bringing young people, especially men, into the Make America Great Again (Maga) movement. He was known for his inflammatory and discriminatory views, believed in no separation between church and state and said that Democrats \u201cstand for everything God hates\u201d. <\/p>\n

He claimed the West was in a \u201cspiritual battle\u201d with \u201cwokeism\u201d, Marxism and Islam; called for a total ban on transgender healthcare; described immigration from Muslim countries as \u201ccivilisational suicide\u201d and peddled conspiracy theories about Mr Trump\u2019s loss in the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

His wife used her speech to rally young people \u2013 calling out high school and college students \u2013 to continue his cause. She urged them to start or join Turning Point USA chapters at their schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wants you to make a difference and you can,\u201d she said. \u201cThe movement is not going anywhere and it will only go stronger when you join it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The death of Mr Kirk \u2013 a close ally of Mr Trump \u2013 has brought renewed attention to the escalating threat of political violence in the United States. The assassination drew bipartisan condemnation from political leaders.<\/p>\n

However, in an interview on Fox & Friends on Friday morning, the US president said \u201cI couldn\u2019t care less\u201d when asked how he intended to unite the country after the shooting.<\/p>\n

He went on: \u201cThe radicals on the right are radical because they don\u2019t want to see crime \u2026 the radicals on the left are the problem \u2013 and they are vicious and horrible and politically savvy. They want men in women\u2019s sports, they want transgender for everyone, they want open borders. The worst thing that happened to this country.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Erika Kirk, the widow of rightwing activist and provocateur Charlie Kirk, said in a statement on Friday evening…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[13477,969,42,43,40,38,41,39,115],"class_list":{"0":"post-18543","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-charlie-kirk","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories","16":"tag-united-states"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}