Erika Kirk’s Anger Is Justified

National Review Online

Friday, December 12, 2025

 

In the months since the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Candace Owens has dedicated her podcast to promoting conspiracy theories about his murder on almost a daily basis without offering any credible evidence to back up her wild claims. This week, Erika Kirk broke her silence with an emotional plea to Owens to stop smearing the staff of the Turning Point USA organization that her late husband founded. Her anger is justified.

 

It’s hard to think of a more straightforward murder case than the one against accused assassin Tyler Robinson. If he’s been framed, it would have entailed, among many other things, faking forensic evidence that found his DNA on the trigger of the rifle that he owned and disposed of near the site of the shooting; fabricating text messages to his lover in which he confessed to the murder; and manufacturing video surveillance footage. It would also have necessitated the collusion of FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino, as well as Robinson’s own parents, who presumably would have wanted, for some reason, to see their son executed for a crime he didn’t commit.

 

But no amount of evidence has stopped Candace Owens from “just asking questions” about the shooting. Over the past few months, as a small sampling, she mused about the people who “betrayed” Kirk; suggested that TPUSA staff had advance knowledge of the assassination; claimed that Kirk was about to abandon Israel and appear on stage with her and insinuated that TPUSA staffers might have been involved in the murder in an effort to avoid losing Jewish donors; raised suspicions about a TPUSA staffer removing the SD card of a camera that was positioned behind Kirk on the day of the event; and claimed Egyptian planes were tailing Erika Kirk.

 

This bombardment presented Kirk and her TPUSA colleagues with the classic dilemma of whether to respond to sheer lunacy, and risk amplifying it, or to simply ignore it. They tried ignoring it, but because Owens is one of the leading podcasters in America, her claims were gaining constant attention.

 

So last week, Blake Neff, the producer of The Charlie Kirk Show, issued a statement disputing her claims and announcing a livestream in which they would more thoroughly debunk them one by one. They invited Owens to participate, which she had said she would be willing to do at any time or any place; she later declined.

 

This week, Erika Kirk, in several interviews, pushed back against the conspiracy-mongering, arguing that she could take the attacks on her but could not tolerate what has been directed at TPUSA staffers who knew and loved her husband.

 

“This is righteous anger because this is not okay,” she told Fox News Channel. “It’s not healthy. This is a mind virus.” She added, “Just know that your words are very powerful, and we are human. My team are not machines, and they’re not robots. They are human. We have more death threats on our team and our side than I have ever seen. I have kidnapping threats. You name it, we have it.”

 

Asked by Bari Weiss on CBS what she had to say specifically to Candace Owens, Erika Kirk said, “Stop. That’s it. That’s all I have to say. Stop.”

 

Owens has shown no signs of letting up, even though she has said on multiple occasions that she would stop talking about the assassination if Erika Kirk asked her to. While we have no expectations that Owens will cease spouting nonsense anytime soon, there’s no reason that she should get a pass from others on the right. Because Owens responds so viciously to those who go after her, until recently, many influencers have been unwilling to call her out for her appalling performance. It was easier to sidestep the controversy by insisting no one on the right should attack anyone else on the right (never mind that Owens doesn’t honor this rule) or contend that criticizing people for saying outrageous things amounts to canceling them. But the recent statements from TPUSA and Erika Kirk have emboldened many right-wing influencers and podcasters to speak out against Owens and about the damaging consequences of conspiratorial thinking taking over the conservative movement. It’s never too late to stand up for rationality and truth.