Charlie Kirk was a polarising figure in life, but in death he has polarised the entire United States of America. The conservative, pro-gun, anti-immigration activist was shot in the neck on 10 September during one of his trademark ‘Prove Me Wrong’ debates at Utah Valley University, collapsing on stage as the crowd looked on in shock. His body was later flown back to his home state of Arizona on Air Force Two, Vice President JD Vance’s plane.
After Kirk’s death, Donald Trump called him “great, and even legendary”, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed him as a defender of Judeo-Christian values, and to his supporters he has already taken on the aura of a martyr. Detractors, meanwhile, have been pointing out the irony — a champion of guns felled by one in a debate where he had just been answering a question about America’s mass shootings.
But it’s already costing some of them. The American Right has been “vowing vengeance”. MSNBC’s Matthew Dowd, for instance, was fired after saying “hateful words… lead to hateful actions”. Trump has promised a crackdown on “radical Left political violence”, and Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau warned that foreigners and visa-seekers who “praise, rationalise, or make light” of Kirk’s death online would face “appropriate action”. And this is why the killing of Charlie Kirk is ThePrint’s Newsmaker of the Week.
Amid a manhunt and as intense rhetoric about the shooter’s possible politics and motives dominated social media, a 22-year-old Utah man, Tyler Robinson, was arrested on Friday for the shooting. Authorities said messages such as ‘Hey, fascist! Catch!’ were found etched the ammunition used. The Utah governor, meanwhile, has described the killing as a “political assassination”.
Kirk, 31, was no ordinary influencer or activist. He helped bring the Trump administration to power. The New York Times reported how closely he was woven into the President’s personal life, quoting Trump as saying, “He wasn’t just some young guy who knew how to be brash online. Charlie got things done, from organizing on campuses to building relationships with donors.” Similarly, JD Vance, who counted himself as a close friend, noted: “He didn’t just help us win in 2024, he helped us staff the entire government.”
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Politics of provocation
President Trump wore his heart on his sleeve on Truth Social.
No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie… He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us,” he wrote.
It was a tribute to a meteoric rise. When he was just 18, Charles James Kirk co-founded the conservative organisation ‘Turning Point USA’ in 2012 and was its executive director. Its mission was to spread conservative ideals at liberal-leaning US colleges. He was also the founder and CEO of its sister advocacy group Turning Point Action and a member of the powerful Council for National Policy.
Within a few years, Kirk built an empire of influence. He became a fixture on Fox News, churned out books railing against the left— such as Time for a Turning Point (2018)— and hosted The Charlie Kirk Show, a daily podcast and radio programme that mixed interviews with calls to action for conservative activism. His social media following, especially among younger conservatives, was immense.
And he rarely shied away from provocation. Whether he called the Civil Rights Act of the 1960s “a huge mistake”, claimed that “empathy… does a lot of damage”, he resonated with huge swathes of Americans.
Hostile to Indians, loyal to Israel
In his final weeks, Kirk was stirring outrage with racist remarks. Just last week, he declared that America was “full” and should put its “own people” first.
“America does not need more visas for people from India. Perhaps no form of legal immigration has so displaced American workers as those from India. Enough already. We’re full. Let’s finally put our own people first,” he wrote on X on 2 September.
Three days after that, he also claimed that social media accounts were being paid to attack Trump’s tariffs on India.
“You have to wonder if this coordinated activity promoting the interests of India should trigger FARA registrations. Many accounts are obviously being paid to peddle this trash from the Indian government — who is paying them and how much? We need answers,” Kirk wrote.
That same day he praised Trump for reportedly blocking outsourcing to India: “Good. Invest in this country first. Hire American companies and American workers.” He also reposted another right-wing commentator who accused Indians of being among the biggest violators of H-1B rules, adding: “This is exactly the sort of scam I was talking about this morning. Tariff!”
If Kirk was hostile to India, he was a staunch defender of Israel and its war on Gaza. Netanyahu mourned him as a “lion-hearted friend” who “stood tall for Judeo-Christian civilization”, recalling that he had invited Kirk to Israel only two weeks earlier. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called him an “incredible friend” of Israel.
“Charlie represented the Judeo-Christian values that unite Israel and America,” he said in an X post. “Above all, he was a fearless warrior for truth and freedom. He was murdered for that.”
Kirk had rejected accusations that Israel was starving Palestinians in Gaza, insisting in July 2025 that the images of emaciated children being shared were just “propaganda” and “emotional, visual, optical warfare.”
He was also openly critical of Muslims. In 2023, he said, “Muslims that run Hamas are not going to stop until they believe they can kill every single Jew on the face of the earth. That is their goal.” More recently, on 9 September, he posted on X that “Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America.”
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Gun deaths ‘worth it’
Charlie Kirk’s remarks on guns gain haunting significance in light of his death. A staunch Second Amendment advocate, he said in April 2023 that some gun deaths every year were “worth it”.
“I think it’s worth it 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,” Kirk said at the Turning Point USA Faith event on the Salt Lake City campus of Awaken Church.
He argued that “having an armed citizenry comes with a price”, emphasising that eliminating gun deaths completely while allowing widespread gun ownership was unrealistic.
Ironically, his last remarks were also about gun violence. Asked how many mass shooters there had been in America over the last decade, Kirk replied with a question of his own: “Counting or not counting gang violence?” Seconds later, he was shot.
Kasturi Walimbe is an alum of ThePrint School of Journalism, currently interning with ThePrint. Views are personal.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)