J. D. Vance hosts Charlie Kirk podcast as a tribute to his friend

Vice President J.D. Vance on Monday hosted a two-hour episode of “The Charlie Kirk Show” from the White House, as a tribute to the slain MAGA youth leader and close ally of President Donald Trump. The 31-year-old Kirk, who was shot and killed last Wednesday while debating with students on the campus of Utah Valley University, was described by Vance as “a joyful warrior for our country.” His killing has highlighted the fracture dividing American society and resurrected the ghosts of political violence.

“He was a critical part of getting Donald Trump elected as president, getting me elected as vice president, and so much of our success over the last seven months is due to his efforts, his staffing, his support and his friendship,” said the vice president, who was surrounded by several right-wing guests.

Vance addressed the political divide in the U.S., saying that “there is no unity with the people who celebrate Charlie Kirk’s assassination.” The White House has threatened to crack down on “the radical left” that it blames for the assassination, and suggested the existence of a coordinated network that funds violence, without providing evidence.

“We can thank God that most Democrats don’t share these attitudes, and I do, while acknowledging that something has gone very wrong with a lunatic fringe, a minority, but a growing and powerful minority on the far left,” said Vance on Monday.

Turning Point USA

Kirk was born and raised on the outskirts of Chicago. At just 18, he founded Turning Point USA (TPUSA), the organization with which he spread the MAGA creed among Generation Z, especially among the young men who were key to Trump’s victory in November.

TPUSA’s activities, with hundreds of franchises across the country, were divided between Kirk’s tours of U.S. universities to debate students and challenge their progressive ideas, and the podcast platform, which hosts other spaces in addition to his own. It was at one of these university debate events that he was killed, allegedly by a 22-year-old Utah resident named Tyler Robinson, whom his own father turned in to the authorities last Thursday. His motivations are still unclear: he comes from a Mormon, Republican, hunting and gun-loving home and had become “politicized” in recent years with “leftist” ideas, according to investigators.

One of the most frequently asked questions now in the MAGA world is who might succeed Kirk, a figure whose ideas — including his Christian nationalism, his staunch defense of the traditional family, his anti-immigration rhetoric, and his absolutist defense of the Second Amendment, which guarantees the right to bear arms — were enormously influential. The question of his succession is both figurative (who will be the new leader of youthful conservatism in the United States?), and practical: who will now wield the microphone on his successful podcast?

For now, several of his collaborators have been taking turns filling that void. On Friday, his widow addressed the nation in the studio where the program is recorded. She did so from a lectern, with Kirk’s empty chair next to her. “They killed Charlie because he preached a message of patriotism, faith, and of God’s merciful love,” she said. “If you thought that my husband’s mission was powerful before, you have no idea. You have no idea what you just have unleashed across this entire country and this world.”

Kirk and TPUSA’s social media accounts have grown by millions of followers in the past week, and the organization says they’ve also seen a surge in requests to join the movement and open TPUSA branches at universities across the country.

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