Charlie Kirk, a prominent conservative activist and Trump ally, dies after shooting at Utah campus event

By Eric Bradner, CNN
Updated: 5:19 PM EDT, Wed September 10, 2025
Source: CNN

See Full Web Article

Charlie Kirk, a conservative political activist and co-founder of Turning Point USA, was killed Wednesday after being shot at an event at Utah Valley University, President Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. He was 31.

As Trump remade the Republican Party, Kirk embodied the party’s newfound populist conservatism in the social media age. Trump has credited Kirk with galvanizing and mobilizing the youth vote for him.

“No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie,” the president wrote. “He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us.”

Kirk, himself a college dropout, was influential with college students and young voters — not only in helping to elect Trump to the presidency but also to inspire a new movement of conservative activists. His involvement began in the wake of the tea party movement and grew with Trump’s ascendance.

Having co-founded Turning Point in 2012 at the age of 18, Kirk was a prominent supporter of Trump who courted young voters and used his network of nonprofits to seek to turn out voters on campuses and churches for Trump in 2024.

Kirk frequently traveled to college campuses, speaking and taking questions from audience members in exchanges that often led to viral videos. Kirk’s appearance at Utah Valley University on Wednesday was the first of a 14-city fall “American Comeback Tour.”

Kirk was answering a question at the event when a single pop was heard. Video taken by attendees shows the crowd screaming as Kirk recoiled in his seat and appeared to reach for his neck.

Among those in attendance was former US Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican. He said on Fox News he was at the event with his wife, daughter and son-in-law. He said Kirk “came out, he was throwing hats, riling up the crowd,” and then started taking questions before the shot rang out.

“I was watching Charlie. I can’t say that I saw blood. I can’t say that I saw him get hit, but I did see him fall immediately backwards into his left,” he said.

The American Comeback Tour had Kirk’s signature “Prove Me Wrong Table,” where he would urge those who disagreed with him to debate an issue.

Kirk traveled with a private security contingent, a Turning Point USA aide traveling on the tour told CNN, whether he was speaking to large rallies like the one in Orem, Utah, or at smaller events.

Kirk most recently appeared in the Oval Office in May, attending the swearing-in ceremony of Judge Jeanine Pirro.

The president and dozens of other Kirk allies – as well as Democrats who had sharp disagreements with him – posted well-wishes and calls for prayer online in the wake of the shooting.

Kirk got his first experience in politics as a student at Wheeling High School in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, when he volunteered for the winning 2010 Senate campaign of Republican former Sen. Mark Kirk.

He earned national attention in 2012 when, as a high school senior, he wrote in Breitbart News that high school students were being indoctrinated by liberal textbooks. He briefly attended Harper College, but dropped out to become a full-time conservative activist, and went on to argue that college is unnecessary for many people.

Kirk and retired businessman and conservative activist Bill Montgomery co-founded Turning Point USA in 2012. The two had met when Kirk was 18, at a speaking engagement at Benedictine University that followed his Breitbart piece. The organization was quickly backed by a roster of major Republican donors, including Foster Friess.

He went on to become a best-selling author and well-known media personality who hosted a daily three-hour show.

In 2021, Kirk married Erika Frantzve, with whom he shared two young children.

Perusing right wing sites at this point is kinda scary. Many want revenge/blood.

He was likely swept off in those last moments to his own Pandemonium

The demons built it in about an hour, but it far surpassed all human palaces or dwellings; it was probably quite small, however, as its spacious hall is described as being very crowded with the thronging swarm of demons, who were taller than any human man, until at a signal they were shrunk from their titanic size to less than "smallest dwarfs". It was also reputed to be made of solid gold.

I love that video with all the panic.  Right wing assholes got a birds eye view of what school shootings are like.  Karma is a bitch.

The fascist fuckers have set up a website to start doxxing people who even remotely look like they've taken pleasure from Kirk's death. According to some of them (via Wired) they've already gotten some poeple fired, and death threats are flying around.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire

Maybe they'll be worth something on ebay?

May be too soon. Ebay is MAGA made in America all the way.






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Johnny_Rotten wrote:

I have been proven wrong.

I disagree, he said that people would have to die to protect gun rights.  He never said, "But, I'm not gonna be the one dying!".

BorderCountess wrote:

CNN wrote:

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said today the White House will be going after leftist “terror” networks who organize doxxing campaigns after the killing of Charlie Kirk.

“The organized doxxing campaigns, the organized riots, the organized street violence, the organized campaigns of dehumanization, vilification, posting people’s addresses, combining that with messaging that’s designed to trigger and incite violence and the actual organized cells that carry out and facilitate the violence. It is a vast domestic terror movement,” Miller told Vice President JD Vance, who was guest hosting an episode of “The Charlie Kirk Show.”

Miller did not specify any specific groups. He vowed to “use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people.”

He added they would do it “in Charlie’s name.”

He apparently missed the people who are trying to dox people viewed as insufficiently sad over Kirk's death.

They do it, and immediately blame it on their enemies.