Assassinated right-wing activist Charlie Kirk was an icon for young conservatives in the USA and Australia — a pro-Trump, pro-gun, anti-Islam, anti-abortion and anti-transgender Christian nationalist who also endorsed a range of conspiracy theories from the "Great Replacement", to America's '"stolen" 2020 election.
Born in 1993 in an affluent suburb of liberal-leaning Chicago, Illinois — a deep blue state — Kirk got involved in Republican politics at high school, writing early on for right-wing news and opinion website Breitbart and appearing on Fox Business, and was mentored by Tea Party activist Bill Montgomery.
In 2011, at the age of 18, Kirk tweeted "Run, Trump Run! Your country needs you!" and the following year — working out of his parents' garage — he founded Turning Point USA, which he described in his 2023 book The MAGA Doctrine as "an educational organisation dedicated to protecting the values of free markets, the Constitution and American exceptionalism".
Kirk never enrolled in college himself, but founded Professor Watchlist and School Board Watchlist — grassroots, youth-oriented organisations on campus which aimed to "out" and shame left-wing teachers and lecturers.
Turning Point USA exploded in popularity during the 2016 Trump campaign for the presidency — when Kirk was secretary to Donald Trump Jr — and grew to an organisation with 1,800 chapters, 600,000 members and annual revenues of $US80 million ($123 million).
Although a non-profit, TPUSA was extremely lucrative for Kirk, who, as chief executive, drew a good salary of $US407,000, according to The Independent newspaper.
Kirk lived in a $US5 million estate in a gated community in Arizona.
In 2020, he launched a 3-hour daily radio program, the Charlie Kirk Show, which rose to number 21 on the Apple podcast chart.
He had millions of followers on Instagram and YouTube and last year launched on TikTok, becoming a leading conservative influencer.
Kirk did poorly on US fact-checker PolitiFact's scorecard, with 90 per cent of checks rating his claims "mostly false", "false", or "pants on fire".
Those in Kirk's sights often complained of being targeted by his followers.
Kirk maintained his focus on grassroots organising at educational institutions and drew audiences of thousands of students by touring campuses all over the US — conservative and liberal alike.
Deliberately provocative, a part of his schtick was to confront and challenge left-wing students head-on in Prove Me Wrong sessions lampooned in a recent episode of South Park.
It was at one of these sessions where Kirk was shot dead at Utah Valley University on September 10.
On the latest episode of the Charlie Kirk show, prominent right-wing activists including Steve Bannon paid tribute to the man they described as "America's greatest Christian martyr".
The meaning of MAGA, according to Kirk
Kirk wrote in 2020, the "role of government should be so small that it is barely noticeable".
"Yet, over the past several decades it has ballooned into an enormous enterprise thanks to both political parties. Too many institutions created to counter the power of government, from the media to Wall Street, have practically joined forces with it.
"Fake news is out of control and defense contractors have taken unprecedented advantage of the American taxpayer.
"Protecting individual liberty from the tyrannical forces of government is the idea our nation was built upon. It is the only way to protect the individual's rights, the family, local churches and schools, and other groups who can't fight back themselves.
"Be skeptical of everything, especially your government. Ask questions, fight for your rights, and never surrender."
On Trump
Kirk said Donald Trump was a "giant middle finger to all the screeching hall monitors that attacked young men for just existing".
"There's a lot you can call Donald Trump. No one has ever called him feminine," he posted on X in August.
"He's a giant F YOU to the feminist establishment that was never challenged before he came down the golden escalator.
"Most of the media missed this. Young men did not."
On the 2021 storming of the Capitol
In a later deleted tweet two days before the taking over of the Capitol building in Washington by Trump supporters, Kirk said "this historic event will likely be one of the largest and most consequential in American history".
"The team at @TrumpStudents and Turning Point Action are honored to help make this happen, sending 80+ buses full of patriots to DC to fight for this president."
On the 2024 election
In a 2024 interview on Fox News, Kirk said if the Republicans had lost, "I don't know if civilisation would have continued as we grew up".
"I know it sounds like a major statement, but you look at what Kamala Harris and the Democrats have been doing to this country, this was an existential election, and so I dedicated my entire life, over the last year-and-a-half, to getting Donald Trump back in the White House."
Kirk told Fox News viewers, "the old joke is that young people get conservative as they get older".
"Imagine how conservative this generation will be now that they are starting conservative, that they have rejected the lies of liberalism at ages 18, 19, and 20."
He said Turning Point would be the "24/7, 365 standing army of the conservative movement doing the difficult, but necessary community organising work to be able to keep these majorities, to expand them, and also make sure that a pro-American, pro-liberty world view is dominant amongst all generations, especially the next generation."
On abortion
Kirk was of the belief that there is "no such thing as an unwanted child".
"It is never right to justify the mass elimination or termination of people under the guise of saying they're 'unwanted'. That's how we get Auschwitz," he said.
When challenged over whether he was comparing abortion to the Holocaust, Kirk replied: "It's worse. It's worse. It's 45 million babies. It's nearly eight times worse than the Holocaust.
"What's the moral difference between a small baby in the womb and a grown Jew who is killed at Auschwitz?"
On gender politics
Kirk told his audience he rejected the "entire premise of transgenderism".
"I refuse to lie. I will not call a man [a woman] or a woman a man, like, I refuse to do that."
"I think it's a mental disease, and we've allowed it to all of a sudden become an identity.
"I think that there are two sexes, zero genders and unlimited personalities, and what we used to call a personality disorder we now call a gender disorder that we treat with body treatment when it should be brain treatment."
He also said he believed there should be a "Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor".
"We need it immediately."
On Black Lives Matter
Kirk was scathing of Black Lives Matter, the anti-racism movement in the United States.
In one video, he said BLM stood for "burn, loot and murder" and wrote it should be "legal to burn a BLM flag".
On Islam
In June 2025, Kirk told his audience he had been "warning about the rise of Islam on the show, to great amount of backlash".
"We don't care, that's what we do here. And we said that Islam is not compatible with Western civilisation."
In September, he posted on social media that "Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America".
On the 'great replacement' of whites
Kirk argued, "the left literally needs endless, constantly increasing migration from the Third World".
"Because among people born in America, the share who are alienated by how much the left obviously hates them, is constantly growing.
"The great replacement strategy, which is well underway every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different," he said.
"They hate that they don't live in big cities. They hate those of you that live in rural and small America. They hate those of you that own land and have guns and believe in a better country, and they have a plan to try and get rid of you.
"You believe in God, country, family, faith and freedom, and they won't stop until you and your children and your children's children are eliminated."
On the Epstein files
In July 2025, Kirk told interviewer Megyn Kelly the US Department of Justice "should immediately move to unseal all the Epstein documents".
"I think every file should be released to the public the same way as the JFK files."
On the COVID-19 pandemic
Kirk wrote that the "China virus" meant "now, more than ever, we need the wall".
"With China Virus spreading across the globe, the US stands a chance if we can control of our borders," he posted to X in March 2020.
"President Trump is making it happen."
He was also of the view that the "COVID shot should be removed from the childhood vaccination schedule".
On guns
At an event in 2023, Kirk told the audience, "you will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won't have a single gun death".
"I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.
"That is a prudent deal. It is rational."
