On Friday evening, Erika Kirk stood behind a podium set up beside the chair her late husband Charlie Kirk sat on every day. It’s where he hosted his podcast “The Charlie Kirk Show.”
Her remarks to the public come roughly two-and-a-half days after Charlie Kirk was assassinated during a college campus event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. Authorities have apprehended the suspect, Tyler James Robinson, a 22-year-old from Washington, Utah.
Erika Kirk took a deep breath and introduced herself before thanking a long list of people. The authorities in Utah, her Turning Point USA family and the White House.
Thanking Vice President JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance, who traveled to Utah on Air Force Two to bring Charlie Kirk and his family back to Arizona, Kirk said, “You guys honored my husband so well bringing him home.”
Vice President JD Vance, right, Second Lady Usha Vance, center, and Erika Kirk, holding a cross on a chain, deplane Air Force Two, carrying the body of Charlie Kirk, the CEO and co-founder of Turning Point USA who was shot and killed, Thursday, Sept. 11, 2025, in Phoenix. | Ross D. Franklin, Associated Press
She expressed her gratitude to the Trump family, including a heartfelt message to President Donald Trump, who shared a close relationship with Kirk.
“Mr. President, my husband loved you,” she said as tears rolled down her cheeks.
She broke down at times but never stopped giving her remarks. Kirk spoke about the love she and her husband shared and vowed to keep fighting for the values he championed.
“Now for all eternity, he will stand at his Savior’s side, wearing the glorious crown of a martyr,” Kirk said.
“Charlie loved his children and he loved me with all of his heart and I knew that every day.” she said. “He made sure I knew that every day. Every day, he would ask me, ‘How can I serve you better?’ ‘How can I be a better husband?’ ‘How can I be a better father?’”
Kirk added, “He still is a good man. He was a perfect father. He was the perfect husband.”
She quoted one of Charlie Kirk’s favorite bible verses.
“Ephesians 5:25: Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. My husband, laid down his life for me, for our nation, for our children,” she said.
Erika Kirk also cautioned people against underestimating Charlie Kirk’s influence.
“If you thought that my husband’s mission was powerful before,” she said, “you have no idea what you just have unleashed across this entire country.”
“The cries of this widow will echo around the world, like a battle cry,” Kirk said.
The casket containing the body of Charlie Kirk, the CEO and co-founder of Turning Point USA who was shot and killed is removed from Air Force Two at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Thursday, Sept. 11, 2025, in Phoenix. | Ross D. Franklin
She urged young people, people of faith, parents and anyone in between to join the conservative movement and promised to help Turning Point USA become bigger.
That means the college tours, the annual AmericaFest in December and the podcast and radio show are here to stay, she said.
“Our battle is not simply a political one. Above all, it is spiritual, it is spiritual,” she said.
As she spoke about her new mission — preserving her husband’s life’s work — she revealed she didn’t know the last time she slept.
When she finally went home on Thursday, her young daughter asked where her dad was.
“What do you tell a 3-year-old?” she said, breaking down.
“And my goodness, am I so humbled to witness Charlie alongside Jesus right now doing what you always want to do, baby, making heaven crowded, right? That’s what it’s all about,” she said with a sad smile.
Charlie Kirk’s wife, Erika Frantzve Kirk, is an Arizona State University graduate and a former Miss Arizona. They met 10 years ago and had been married for four years.
Air Force Two flies past the Capitol as it leaves Salt Lake City on Thursday, Sept. 11, 2025. Vice President JD Vance came to Salt Lake City to pay his respects to Charlie Kirk’s family after Kirk was shot and killed at an event at UVU Wednesday. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News
TPUSA to carry Kirk’s work forward
At ASU on Friday, the young students Charlie Kirk inspired said they will take his legacy forward. ASU’s Turning Point chapter and the campus College Republicans will host a vigil and a flag-staking ceremony at the university on Monday.
Kirk made a name for himself organizing and debating college students across the country. His goal, as he told the Deseret News, wasn’t to provoke but to challenge students to consider traditional values and to hear a conservative point of view, which they don’t always get on college campuses.
Charlie Kirk, center, conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA, speaks to supporters of President Donald Trump at a rally outside the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, Friday, Nov. 6, 2020, in Phoenix. | Ross D. Franklin, Associated Press
He was a regular at the Phoenix-based ASU, which became an early hub for his conservative activism.
Kirk visited the ASU campus last year as part of the “You’re Being Brainwashed” tour in October, ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
“He is the cornerstone of the Generation Z conservative movement,” Troy Holderby, president of College Republicans at ASU and a sophomore studying mathematics, told the State Press, a student-run newspaper. “He really is the foundation for everything that I think we’re going to see coming in the future.”
Kirk “loved it here,” said Carson Carpenter, the former president of College Republicans at ASU, about the political commentator’s love for the state.
Sisters Clara Hetland, 4, left, Haddie Hetland, center, 9, and Audra Hetland 6, of Surprise, Ariz., spend time at a makeshift memorial set up at Turning Point USA headquarters after the shooting death at a Utah college on Wednesday of Charlie Kirk, the co-founder and CEO of the organization, Thursday, Sept. 11, 2025, in Phoenix. | Ross D. Franklin, Associated Press
Carpenter told the Deseret News he planned to attend the upcoming vigil as he works through the sense of shock.
“Most people I’ve talked to just still can’t even comprehend it yet,” he said. It doesn’t matter if supporters worked for him, met him only briefly or watched him online; the grief feels universal.
“That’s what’s different about being in Arizona and being in the valley here. His headquarters was 10 minutes away from campus for Turning Point,” Carpenter said, “It’s just very personal.” He first met Kirk as a high schooler in 2021.
Carpenter interned at Turning Point Action during his final semester as a political science major at ASU. After graduating in May, he launched his own business Off The Record USA which helps digital creators monetize their platforms.
He credits Kirk for his success. “Charlie built others up. He built (Turning Point USA) that’s so big now.”
“I don’t think people are going to let his legacy be forgotten,” he added. That’s the very sentiment the leaders of Turning Point USA share.
People pray at a makeshift memorial set up at Turning Point USA headquarters after the shooting death at a Utah college on Wednesday of Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old founder and CEO of the organization, Thursday, Sept. 11, 2025, in Phoenix. | Ross D. Franklin, Associated Press
Charlie Kirk and his wife, Erika
Carpenter said he has been thinking about the last time he spoke to Kirk. He described a 20-minute long conversation at the TPUSA headquarters in 110 degree heat. It was just small talk at first before Kirk opened up about his life outside of work. They talked about faith and family, and he looked forward to going home to his wife Erika and their children.
“You see all these public appearances of him relaying that message and he relays it privately too,” Carpenter added.
Andrew Kolvet, executive producer of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” took on the duties of hosting the podcast alongside Kirk’s friends on Friday.
“Of course, I have left his chair open and empty because nobody will ever fill it, nobody could ever hope to,” Coleman said on the show.
According to a Fox News report, Kolvet called Vance a “class act” for being there for Kirk’s family. He also revealed the vice president is “grieving in private.”
“JD is hurting too,” Kolvet said. “JD loved Charlie as a brother and as a friend. They talked … probably via text almost every day, if not every day. JD was strong.
Tyler Bowyer, a TPUSA executive, joined Coleman on the show Friday. “It’s been really hard,” he confessed, visibly emotional. He encouraged supporters to share their stories about Kirk. Blake Neff, who traveled with Kirk the past two years, was with Kirk the day he died.
Tyler Bowyer, Turning Point Action chief operating officer, answers interview questions in his office at Turning Point headquarters in Phoenix, Ariz., on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News
“It gives me some solace and some comfort to know that you were there with him on campus that day,” Coleman told Neff. “I was just grateful to be able to call you … and it’s not fair to you that you had to be there.”
Neff recalled Kirk trying to fine-tune his arguments prior to taking the stage at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
“What it was about, it was, ‘What are the good arguments in favor of marriage? A Christian version of marriage,” Neff revealed. “It gets back to one of the core things: how much he loved Erika, how much he loved their children and how much he cared for them.”
The group joked about Kirk’s transformation after he met his wife. “Better clothes. They actually fit,” said Bowyer. She helped him look well-dressed and stylish.
“I was just remembering Charlie being when I first met him. It was like, everything was baggy and the suits didn’t fit and like, the collars were always out,” he said.
Friends like Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, tried helping Kirk with his fashion sense, or the lack thereof, Bowyer said on the show. “They gave him a $10,000 gift card at one point to the Trump tailor in Manhattan to get him some proper suits.”
Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA founder and president, answers interview questions on the set of “The Charlie Kirk Show” at Turning Point headquarters in Phoenix, Ariz., on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News
“Charlie’s faith became so much stronger as soon as Erika came around,” Bowyer said.
“She is fierce. She is strong. She’s obviously distraught and hurting as we all are.”
The pair met at a pivotal point in Kirk’s life. Prior to the first Trump rally organized by TPUSA in Arizona, Erika, the freshly crowned Miss Arizona, called the TPUSA offices and asked to get involved. She attended the rally. Bowyer saw her thirst to do something and her commitment to faith and asked her to work for the organization. But this plan fell apart, sort of.
“I had introduced her to Charlie, was like, ‘I think she could be great … and Charlie was immediately in love.”
That was over a decade ago. They got married on May 8, 2021, and shared four years of marriage together.
Charlie Kirk, right, and and his wife Erika Lane Frantzve, left, on stage during the Turning Point USA Inaugural-Eve Ball at the Salamander Hotel on Jan. 19, 2025, in Washington, D.C. | Samuel Corum, Getty Images