Charlie Kirk, a prominent conservative media personality who helped to rally young people around traditional gender roles, was fatally shot during an event at Utah Valley University (UVU) on Wednesday afternoon.
The 31-year-old was at the campus to launch his “The American Comeback Tour,” in which he encouraged audience members to debate him in a public setting. He was reportedly shot and immediately taken away by his security, according to campus police.
“We are confirming that he was shot and we are praying for Charlie,” Aubrey Laitsch, public relations manager for Turning Point USA, told the Associated Press shortly afterward.
Early reports indicated that a suspect was in custody, but UVU police later told reporters that was not the case.
Kirk founded Turning Point USA in 2012 to push for conservative politics on high school, college and university campuses. In the past decade, he has grown into a provocative conservative influencer who encouraged young women to have more babies instead of chasing careers, called for a ban on gender-affirming care and advocated for gun rights in spite of mass shooting fatalities.
In 2023, Kirk was accused of defending and perpetuating antisemitic rhetoric and faced widespread condemnation from conservatives. But within a year, he was welcomed back into the Republican fold and asked to be the primetime speaker on the opening night of the 2024 Republican National Convention, where he highlighted the experiences of Gen Z and blamed Democrats for creating a country where “our young people own nothing and they are miserable.” Kirk said young men are the most conservative they’ve been in decades and praised President Donald Trump, saying he supported a country where young people can afford to buy homes, get married and have children.
In June, Kirk spoke to thousands of women — mostly in their teens and 20s — at Turning Point USA’s 10th annual Young Women’s Leadership Summit. He told them to trade their feminism for femininity, ditch their professional aspirations and focus on finding a husband to fund being a stay-at-home mom. Kirk asked the audience to raise their hand if they’d rather have a good family than a good career — and nearly every hand raised. Kirk then told the women that everything they do on a daily basis should then point towards that goal.
“If you’re not married by the age of 30, you only have a 50 percent chance of getting married,” Kirk said at the summit. “And if you don’t have kids by the age of 30, then you have a 50 percent chance of having kids. You should know that.”
Wednesday’s event was the first of two planned events this month at UVU for Kirk. According to Deseret News, more than 6,000 people had signed a petition asking Utah Valley University to prevent Kirk from coming to its campus later this month.
In response to the shooting, conservative and liberal figures alike spoke out against the violence.
Trump called for prayers on his social media platform, Truth Social: “We must all pray for Charlie Kirk, who has been shot. A great guy from top to bottom.”
Vice President J.D. Vance also called for prayers, calling him a “genuinely good guy and a young father” before posting a photo with Kirk.
Gabrielle Giffords, a former Democratic congresswoman who survived an assassination attempt in 2011 when she was shot in the head, posted on social media that she was horrified to hear what happened to Kirk.
“Democratic societies will always have political disagreements, but we must never allow America to become a country that confronts those disagreements with violence,” wrote Giffords, who started an anti-gun-violence advocacy organization after resigning from Congress following her recovery.
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