The killing of Charlie Kirk could have triggered a conservative detente. The first wave of shock at his shooting death on Sept. 10 on the campus of Utah Valley University released an outpouring of praise for his legacy of organizing — and the sanitization of his divisive rhetoric. The grief quickly gave way to an even more unifying pile-on against Kirk critics. But amidst this massive effort to manipulate his image into martyrdom, the biggest voices on the right are exploiting Kirk’s death for their own agenda.
His grieving widow, Erika, was fundraising off of his death before being named his successor at Turning Point USA, the conservative nonprofit he founded with entrepreneur and Tea Party activist Bill Montgomery. His former protege, Candace Owens, is peddling a conspiracy theory that he was killed for growing critical of Israel. The nation’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was one of the first public figures to put out a statement after Kirk was shot, and he ran to Fox News to blame the attack on Muslims. And the Trump administration, almost from the moment Kirk’s death was announced by the president, has explicitly implemented a crackdown on civil liberties in his honor.
In the aftermath of Kirk’s killing, it has quickly become apparent that the American right no longer has a shared framework for authority. The diversity of MAGA media appears to be undermining the conservative cohesion he spent his life organizing.
In the aftermath of Kirk’s killing, it has quickly become apparent that the American right no longer has a shared framework for authority. The diversity of MAGA media appears to be undermining the conservative cohesion he spent his life organizing. Kirk’s memory is currently a casualty of a movement whose base he helped train to believe that every tragedy hides a lie and every death is a potential cover-up.
Citing research from NewsGuard, the Washington Post reported that Iranian actors were quick to push the narrative online that Israel was behind Kirk’s death. That conspiracy theory, according to the Associated Press, caught on with white supremacist groups. Chinese accounts and sites have promoted the notion that Kirk was a follower of white supremacist podcaster Nick Fuentes. According to an analysis from the Anti-Defamation League, the phrase “Israel killed Charlie Kirk” was recorded on over 10,000 posts on X just one day after Kirk’s killing and ballooned to 72,000 by Sept. 16.
“You murdered my friend. You unlocked the Inigo Montoya in me,” Owens, who served as Turning Point’s communications director from 2017 to 2019, posted on X. “We’re not stopping until we get to the bottom of this thing.”
On Monday’s episode of her podcast, which garnered over five million views in less than 24 hours, she claimed that Kirk was under an “increasing amount of pressure” from pro-Israel groups and donors to silence dissenting voices. Owens, who appeared as a speaker at Turning Point USA events as recently as 2024, specifically cited a report from Max Blumenthal that billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman had staged a tense “intervention” in the Hamptons this summer and “hammered” Kirk over his criticism of Israel. “Bill Ackman was very upset and threats were made,” she claimed.
Akman immediately shot back. “I have never blackmailed anyone, let alone Charlie Kirk,” he wrote on X. Andrew Kolvet, the executive producer of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” also denied Owens’ claims.
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“Be very wary and suspicious of the people who are already telling us to stop asking questions about the Charlie Kirk assassination,” she warned her followers. Many voices in conservative media have lashed out.
“From this moment forward, time to dismiss Owens and her ilk,” Fox News host Mark Levin wrote on X. Fuentes, who has a long-running beef with Owens, slammed her and demanded she “show us the receipts.” Trump’s chief conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who deleted tweets criticizing Kirk after his death, joined in on the taunting. “Still no receipts from @RealCandaceO and @TuckerCarlson over their claims that Israel was somehow involved in killing Charlie Kirk,” she wrote on X. “I thought they said they had receipts?”
But Owens’ claims have been backed by the likes of Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, who agreed that Kirk felt “frustrated” and even “pressured” over his Israel criticism. Kirk came under scrutiny when he moderated a July 13 debate between Dave Smith, a libertarian stand-up comic, and The Daily Wire’s Josh Hammer at Turning Point’s Student Action Summit. At the same summit, Carlson claimed, Kirk asked him to highlight Jeffrey Epstein’s connections to Mossad.
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“He was appalled by what was happening in Gaza,” Carlson said of Kirk after his passing. “He was, above all, resentful that he believed Netanyahu was using the United States to prosecute his wars for the benefit of his country and that it was shameful and embarrassing and bad for the United States, and he resented it.” On Thursday, Netanyahu posted a video refuting the allegations that Israel played a role in Kirk’s assassination.
Still, even Republican politicians are similarly split in their support for dueling narratives about Kirk’s death. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene backed Owens and Carlson on X. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, meanwhile, wrote on X, “I’m getting really tired of Tucker [and] his cronies.” Former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz validated Carlson’s claims on X.
For his part, Charlie Kirk made a real effort to unify the conservative movement. Now, in death, he is surrounded by the very chaos he spent his career trying to contain. No amount of martyrdom can save his legacy from succumbing to the rot he festered.
