Erika Kirk, the CEO of Turning Point USA and widow of assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk, erupted on Wednesday over the conspiracy theories — many of them championed by former TPUSA activist Candace Owens — proliferating about her husband’s death.
During a one-on-one with Fox News host Harris Faulkner in the closing minutes of Wednesday’s episode of Outnumbered, Faulkner ripped into those profiting off conspiracy theories.
After Kirk implored the public to keep the site of her husband’s grave private for the sake of her family, Faulkner asked: “What are they—these conspiracy theorists—taking from you right now?”
Kirk replied:
Nothing. But I will tell you what they are doing. It reminds me so much of Chapter Six in the book of Nehemiah. He is building a wall, and the townspeople are at the base of that hill saying, “Nehemiah!” calling him all these names, saying all these things: “Come on down!” Every single time, he had the same message—four times in a row: “I cannot come down. I am busy building.” That is how I feel.
I do not have time to address the noise. My silence does not mean that I am complacent. My silence does not mean that somehow Turning Point USA—and the handpicked staff who loved my husband and whom my husband loved—are somehow in on it. We are busy building.
And you know what I thought? I thought these people are human. We are all grieving in our own way. They are trying to find the answer to something that happened that was so evil. They are trying so hard. And I get that. We’re doing the same. Anytime we hear a lead or anything at all, we send it to the authorities: Please dig into this. No rock will be left unturned. I want justice for my husband, for myself, for my family—more than anyone else out there.
So for me, you want to keep telling me to come down while we’re building—I don’t have time for that. But here’s my breaking point: Come after me, call me names—I don’t care. Call me what you want, go down that rabbit hole—whatever. But when you go after my family, my Turning Point USA family, my Charlie Kirk Show family—when you go after the people that I love—and you’re making hundreds and thousands of dollars every single episode attacking the people that I love because you claim they’re somehow in on this? No.
“You know, I have to say it: I’ve never seen you like this,” Faulkner observed.
“No,” Kirk responded. “This is righteous anger because this is not okay. It’s not healthy. This is a mind virus. Yes, I believe in our judicial system. I do. We have a hell of a team working on this—excuse my French. But this is not okay.”
“So you want to put these people back in the box where they’ve been creeping from?” Faulkner followed up.
“I don’t care what box you’re in,” Kirk said. “But just know that your words are very powerful—and we are human. My team are not machines and they’re not robots. They are human. We have more death threats on our team and our side than I have ever seen. I have kidnapping threats. You name it—we have it.
“And my poor team is exhausted. Every time they bring this back up, what are we supposed to do—relive that trauma all over again? They watched my husband get murdered. I have no idea how I would have reacted if I was there that day, and thank the good Lord that I did not have to see that happen. But my team—they’re rocked to the core. So why, every single day, do they have to be dragged through the mud, analyzed, hyperanalyzed?”
She later concluded the segment by saying she has seen the “impact” the conspiracy theories have had on “the people that I love.”
“And if people think that I was just going to wilt away—I’m not going to sit in a corner, cry, and be in the fetal position. This is a duty to my husband, and it’s an absolute honor, and I will never back down. And so my message to them is: stop. Stop!”
Earlier this month, Charlie Kirk Show producer Blake Neff announced that Kirk’s friends will be holding an event to refute Owens’s incendiary claims. Owens has turned down an invitation to attend it in person.
Owens has a reputation for spreading widely debunked conspiracy theories, including once staking her entire professional reputation on the claim that the First Lady of France, Brigitte Macron, is a man. Owens has also suggested that Israel was somehow connected to Charlie Kirk’s death.
Kirk, who founded the pro-Trump student group Turning Point USA, was shot and killed at a Utah university in September, and his alleged assassin is currently awaiting trial on murder charges. Neff called Owens’s claims “either lies or they are innuendos thrown around with a total, reckless disregard for the truth,” and added, “I would say we have suffered more harassment from these people than we have from Antifa supporters who overtly celebrate Charlie’s murder.”
He concluded by saying Turning Point will host a live stream to further debunk Owens’s conspiracies and invited her to participate.
“We wanted to use this segment at the top of this hour to say something important, something very important. For the past two and a half months, there is a topic that has flooded our Freedom inbox. It has been nonstop on social media, but which we have almost totally avoided on this show. You probably already know what I’m talking about, which shows just how ubiquitous it has been,” Neff began.
Read his full statement below:
Ever since Charlie’s murder, Candace Owens has leveled a flood of allegations against people at Turning Point USA, people at Turning Point Action, and people who work for this show. She has made them against some of Charlie’s closest friends and against some of his most dedicated employees. She has suggested that Michael McCoy, Charlie’s chief of staff, knew Charlie would be murdered, was happy that he died, and stayed silent because he was told he would be the next Charlie.
She has suggested Michael is not his real name. It is—I have seen his birth certificate myself. She has called it suspicious that Mikey’s wife, who works at Turning Point, helped plan the campus tour event where Charlie was murdered, which she didn’t, by the way. She doesn’t work on campus events.
Candace has suggested the Utah Valley University event was unusual and its details suggested a quote “inside job.” She has claimed that foreign aircraft have followed Erica Kirk around the country and that Turning Point has lied about this happening. She has accused us of lying about Charlie wanting Erica to take over for him if he died. She has suggested Charlie’s security team intentionally denied him first aid after the shooting to ensure that he died. She has raised suspicions about the head of our technical team because he took an SD card out of a camera. She has spread absurd claims that Tyler Boyer, who we just had on the show, sexually abuses male interns. She has suggested that TPUSA Faith-affiliated pastors, like theologian Frank Turek, who we’ll have on in a moment, and Pastor Rob McCoy, are part of a military quote “infiltration” of Turning Point, either because they are veterans or because they have family members who are.
Even if not everyone has been named specifically, though, Candace has effectively tarred everyone here with complicity in Charlie’s death by repeatedly saying he was, quote, “betrayed by,” quote, “everyone.” She has said Charlie’s murder, quote, “had to be approved by Charlie’s friends,” and then suggested those friends might have her murdered too for quote “knowing the truth.” She has made claims of financial impropriety and fraud at Turning Point, adding up into the millions of dollars, which again is not true. Charlie made sure the organization was audited by a third party every year. He personally reviewed and signed off on every expense report and literally every single bill paid by the organization down to a single United States dollar. We have never missed a 990 deadline.
Candace has made other, stranger allegations involving French paratroopers in maroon shirts, Egyptian Air Force planes flying out of Provo, Utah, and potential underground assassins traveling through unseen tunnels. At one point in early November, she started wildly throwing suspicion on members of Utah Valley’s soccer team for wearing hoodies. I could go on. There is always something new coming up, and none of it ever pans out. Because from the start, there has been nothing there.
The attacks and allegations from Candace are either lies or they are innuendos thrown around with a total, reckless disregard for the truth, so that Candace can manipulate and string along an audience of people who don’t realize they are being played. Instead of being able to grieve properly after one of the most heinous murders in American history, a murder many of us had to witness, my friends have had to endure harassment from people who have gotten whipped up by what Candace is saying. I would say we have suffered more harassment from these people than we have from Antifa supporters who overtly celebrate Charlie’s murder. And just like a lot of those Antifa members, many of these people take delight in how gross and unpleasant they can be. What our friends have had to endure is not funny and it’s not insignificant. It is evil. I have seen it.
For months, we have received hundreds, thousands, I suspect, of emails and calls asking us to respond. People have wanted us to invite Candace on the show. But for a long time, our approach was to say nothing. We did that for several reasons. First, we thought that her prevarications were so absurd that nobody would believe them. We shouldn’t have to answer questions about secret tunnels or Egyptian Air Force planes. That sort of thing is just—it’s beneath contempt to respond to. Lastly, we didn’t respond because Charlie always viewed Candace as a friend, and we were holding out hope that she would return that friendship and stop what she was doing.
But a week from now it’s going to be three months since Charlie’s murder. Candace has not changed her behavior. She has continued to spread falsehoods about Charlie’s friends, and she continues to concoct new ones about new people. She’s using these falsehoods to enrich herself while dividing the conservative movement at an absolutely critical time for this country. And far too often, we here have heard from ordinary people, people who loved Charlie and who Charlie loved so much in return. These people have expressed the worry that we are staying silent out of cowardice or as some sort of tacit admission that some of the attacks are true. Neither is the case. Our silence has never been, and it will never be, equal to complacency or approval.
Still, we decided Charlie would not allow this to go on. Charlie was not a coward. Charlie was a fighter. Charlie would not allow someone to spread lies about the people closest to him with impunity. And he would feel ashamed if other people were stepping up to defend his friends while he never did so himself. Candace has mentioned several times that the ball is in our court.
So here’s what is going to happen. In the near future, there will be a livestream here in Phoenix where we address in a clear and comprehensive way the claims and accusations, the false accusations that have been made against Charlie’s family, friends, and the people here at Turning Point. We plan to walk through everything carefully and thoroughly. If Candace is available, we would sincerely welcome her participation in that livestream at our studio here in Phoenix. At this point, we believe the ball is back in her court.
Our motivation for doing this is not out of any obligation to Candace. It is about honoring Charlie. We feel a deep responsibility to protect his legacy, his work, and the truth. I feel that. I owe Charlie everything in my life. I feel it immensely. And that is why we feel compelled to speak clearly and openly now. We’ll have more on this in the near future.
