Conservative political activist Charlie Kirk has died. He was 31.
The Turning Point USA founder was shot during an event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday. President Donald Trump praised him in a post to Truth Social following the news of his death.
“The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie,” he wrote. “He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us. Melania and my Sympathies go out to his beautiful wife Erika, and family.”
According to representatives of the university who spoke with NBC News, Kirk was the lone victim of the shooting. The shooter is still at large.
Kirk was part of a cadre of online commentators who help funnel young people into the MAGA movement. His Turning Point USA points teenagers and college-aged Americans toward GOP ideals, and his rallies pushed Christian nationalist ideas to young, conservative audiences. He was a strong proponent of the conspiracy theory of “cultural Marxism,” a framework that argues young people are turned toward Marxist ideas by college professors and pop culture.
Kirk leveraged his extensive reach and organizational capabilities to become a person of no small influence within the Trump administration, though he held no official office in the executive branch.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a frequent target of Kirk’s illiberal rhetoric, called the shooting “disgusting, vile, and reprehensible.”
“In the United States of America, we must reject political violence in EVERY form,” he wrote on X.
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