Charlie Kirk was a prominent conservative activist and television personality in the United States, as well as President Donald Trump’s valued ally.
He was shot dead on Wednesday at the age of 31 while hosting a college event for Turning Point USA, the organization he co-founded, in what authorities describe as a targeted shooting.
President Donald Trump shared Kirk’s unexpected news, paying tribute on Truth Social, “The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the heart of the youth in the United States of America better than Charlie.”
He founded Turning Point at the age of 18 with the goal of spreading conservative principles among liberal-leaning US institutions.
The shooting on Wednesday at Utah Valley University marked the start of a multi-campus Turning Point tour in which participants were asked to debate Kirk on comparable concerns.
His social media and eponymous daily podcast frequently featured clips of him disputing with students on topics such as transgender identity, climate change, faith, and family values.
At the start of Kirk’s podcast, a tape of Trump himself appears: “I want to thank Charlie; he’s an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country—he’s done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.”
After former President Barack Obama was re-elected in 2012, he founded the non-profit, which has become an important component of his legacy.
Its objective is to unite students to “promote the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government” for young people. It presently has chapters in over 850 colleges.
It was critical to Trump’s and other Republican candidates’ voter turnout efforts in last year’s election. The youth was generally credited with registering tens of thousands of new voters and winning Arizona for Trump.
Kirk and Trump’s connection strengthened after Trump’s election, with Kirk attending Trump’s inauguration in January in Washington, DC, and becoming a regular visitor to the White House during both of Trump’s tenures.
Earlier this year, he traveled to Greenland with Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., as the then-incoming president argued for US ownership of the Arctic country.
Kirk, the son of an architect who grew up in the affluent Chicago suburb of Prospect Heights, attended a community college before leaving to pursue political action.
He also unsuccessfully applied to West Point, the renowned US military institution, and frequently joked about his lack of a college degree when participating in disputes with students and academics on esoteric themes such as postmodernism.
In fact, he was an ardent public speaker, traversing the country speaking at Republican events, many of which were popular with members of the ultra-conservative Tea Party movement. His daily conservative talk radio show had millions of followers on social media.
