Less than a week after her husband was killed in the most publicized political assassination in a generation, Erika Kirk summoned a zoom for the 1,500 USA turning point employees, the Charlie Kirk organization led to his death.
She assured those who called her that they would not lose their jobs, that “everything is stable and safe,” said Alex Clark, the host of one of the most popular Podcasts in TPUSA, told CNN in an interview. The message was clear, said Clark, with Erika Kirk saying that they “pursue Charlie’s mission exactly as he had planned”.
The appeal was considered an indication that Erika intends to be at the forefront of advancing Tpusa, according to Clark.
On Thursday, the organization announced that it would serve as next CEO and president of the board of directors, in accordance with the wishes of her late husband.
“I think she will do everything in her power to protect Charlie’s inheritance,” Clark told CNN. “And I think all employees would like nothing more than being able to have it at the helm towards the ship.”
Almost a week earlier, in her first public speech two days after her assassination, Erika Kirk had issued a warning and a wish.
“You have no idea of the fire you have ignited in this woman,” she said last Friday. “The cries of this widow resonate in the world as a battle cry.”
“I will make the turn the greatest thing that this nation has ever seen,” she said. “The movement will not die. I refuse to let it happen. ”
Even before her death, she had been considered a galvanization force for young conservative women, to whom she married the prioritization of marriage and maternity during the career – even if she had her own commercial activities.
“I would not want someone else to take the turn in addition to her,” said Faith Merrill, nineteen, who has been involved in Tpusa for three years. “She is just this maternal silhouette for us. Charlie was this paternal figure and she is the mother figure for us. ”
For Merrill, Erika Kirk “has just woken something in the conservatives of General Z, and I can say with confidence that she will have a prosperous turning point and will grow more than ever.”
On Sunday, Erika Kirk will once again emerge in public – this time, at her husband’s memorial – where she should be one of the speakers in a range that includes President Donald Trump and vice -president JD Vance.
Her tone and message will be closely monitored – by a nation divided on the heritage of Charlie Kirk and by followers in a movement in which she has already played an important, but often contradictory role.
Erika Frantzve was raised in Scottsdale, Arizona by her mother after her parents divorced when she was young.
She studied political science at the university and was briefly player of NCAA basketball. “I have been playing basketball since the age of five, Super Tomboy, did not like dresses,” she said one day.
Later, she was then crowned Miss Arizona USA in 2012, recognizing in introductory videos for the competition that she was late in some respects.
“I think I have always had this girly girl hidden in me,” she said in her introductory video in the competition.
Six years later, she met Charlie Kirk – five years her junior – in New York, well after starting to shoot USA. The two often told their original story: originally, he contacted via a direct message on Instagram, asking him to meet her after attending a TPUSA event with a family member.
Their meeting in “Bob’s Burgers” in Manhattan in 2018 was initially intended for a job interview, they both said, with him swivel it with questions.
Then he quickly changed course. “I’m not going to hire you, I’m going to go out with you,” recalls Erika, saying, during a speech during a Tpusa event.
The two were hired by 2020 and were married the following year. They have two children, a 1 year old boy and a 3 year old girl.
Although she did not have public stories of conservative activism before meeting Kirk, her late husband described her as coming from a “fiercely right family”.
Erika said her grandfather, a Swedish immigrant who served in two wars, was “always super right” and that she became “100% more conservative” after she became a mother, “what I did not think,” she added.
As Kirk’s wife, she has shared a lot on these personal ideals, which are closely with conservative Christian values, on her social networks and through public appearances with him: Faith, marriage, maternity – and in this order of importance.
By discussing her role in the relationship with her husband, she has Often used a provocative word – submission.
“I love to submit to Charlie because he is a phenomenal leader,” she said. “I want him to come home and he is so incredibly loved. To refuel. ”
In their public appearances, they openly talked about what they describe as fulfilling the biblical role and the alliance of marriage: Charlie takes care of finances, earning money for the family, while she focuses on the education of their children, the kitchen and the management of the house to support him – an arrangement they encourage other young people to pursue.
“As a woman, you are supposed to be the guardian of your home-to be the help comrade of your husband,” she told an audience of the Bloom conference, a Christian event. “Be this biblical wife that you are supposed to be for him and honored the order in which God had created marriage.”
“When I met Charlie-that was all, I care about the career,” she said last year at the top of the young women in Turb Point.
Merrill, who says she was sometimes lacking in self -confidence,, was first brought into the TP USA community by his mother.
Listening to Erika Kirk “ignited something” in her and her friends, said Merrill, and engaged them in the conservative movement.
“These are people like Erica Kirk who transform these shy girls, these girls who have no idea what they want to do in people like her.”
“I think that if it continues, Gen. Z, General Z, will become extremely conservative and we will stop apologizing for things for which we do not need to apologize,” said Merrill.
For all her accent on the role of a woman at home, Erika Kirk has many efforts outside this.
In addition to being a figure towards the public alongside her husband – half a partnership praising traditional marriage – she has a podcast of devotion and a Christian clothing company, proclaims Streetwear, for which Charlie Kirk had shaped. She says that she continued a doctorate in biblical studies and once founded a non -profit organization.
She spoke with pride of female entrepreneurship – but at the same time, decried “Babe Babe culture” as “toxic” and “antithetics in the Gospel”.
She said on several occasions that the construction of a family is much more important as a woman.
However, there was a lot of momentum inside Tpusa for Erika Kirk to play a role of CEO, according to Clark, who told CNN that she saw an avenue for Erika operating behind the scenes of the organization.
“I think it is really important that the person who knew Charlie better than anyone in this world has his say in the decisions to come and the management that the company goes and what different objectives are set and what projects we decide to continue afterwards.”
What comes then could be defined by Erika Kirk, who could not be joined to speak to CNN. In the past, she has played a softer image to counterbalance her frank and sometimes ardent husband.
A few days before the death of Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA announced a modification of their maternity leave policy, to extend the paid leave for mothers to six months. Clark said that even if the policy came from Charlie, she perceived that the change was most likely inspired by her family.
As for the debates of the university campus that Charlie Kirk was known, Clark thinks that they will be left to people other than Erika Kirk.
Her leadership prowess seemed obvious only 48 hours after the death of her husband.
In her speech last week, she directed “the young people who felt inspired by the faith of my husband”, to join and get involved in Tpusa.
“If there is no chapter, you cannot find one, then start one. There is no excuse,” she said.
During the first 48 hours after his call, Turning Point received more than 32,000 requests for information to start new chapters on the campus, according to his spokesperson, Andrew Kolvet, adding: “To put this in perspective, Tpusa currently has 900 official college chapters and around 1,200 high school chapters, with a total presence.”
In the middle of the week, these were 54,000 requests for information.
