For almost a decade, the Higher Education Inquirer investigated right wing influencer Charlie Kirk and his Turning Point Empire. Kirk was groomed by Bill Montgomery (a surrogate for Richard Nixon in Florida for Nixon’s Reelection Campaign) and Steve Bannon when Bannon was at Breitbart. Kirk quickly learned the dirty tricks of the Nixon-Reagan era and the dog whistles of white supremacy and misogyny. He also quickly gained funding from right wing billionaire Foster Freiss.
In mid-2016, we communicated our concerns with Michael Vasquez at Politico, who later moved on to the Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE). CHE later reported that Kirk created a plan to win student elections using outside (illegal) money. We also contacted the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League who both listed TPUSA as a hate group.
Right-wing X accounts are pushing for universities to dismiss any employees that have disparaged Kirk in the days following his death.
Photo illustration by Inside Higher Ed | LeoPatrizi/E+/Getty Images
At least five faculty and staff members have been fired so far for comments they made in response to the death of Turning Point USA founder and conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk, who was shot and killed Wednesday during an event at Utah Valley University.
Investigators announced Friday they arrested a suspect, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, who is now being held in a Utah jail without bail. Utah governor Spencer Cox said during a press conference Friday that a family friend turned Robinson in to authorities after the suspect suggested to a relative that he’d killed Kirk. Robinson was not a student at Utah Valley.
The Utah Board of Higher Education said in a statement that Robinson is a third-year student in the electrical apprenticeship program at Dixie Technical College and that he attended Utah State University for one semester in 2021.
Among the latest college employees terminated for their responses to Kirk’s killing, Lisa Greenlee was removed as a part-time instructor from Guilford Technical Community College in Jamestown, N.C., on Thursday after she made comments criticizing Kirk to students during an online class, saying, “I’ll praise the shooter; he had good aim.” A video of her remarks made the rounds on X, where right-wing accounts encouraged the college to fire her.
“We deeply regret that students, employees, and the community were impacted by her comments. Greenlee’s behavior is not consistent with the college’s values and mission to serve Guilford County. Her statement regarding the assassination of Charlie Kirk does not support the open and respectful learning and working environment that GTCC provides every day,” GTCC president Anthony Clarke said in a statement. “We want to reiterate that supporting violence is reprehensible and will not be tolerated at the college.” Greenlee did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment.
Two employees at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tenn., were dismissed Thursday for making “inappropriate comments on the internet related to the tragic shooting of Charlie Kirk,” university president Paul Stumb wrote in a statement posted on X. He identified the employees as Michael Rex, an English and creative writing professor, and Max Woods, an assistant esports coach, but he did not share what they said. Like Greenlee, both had been the subject of online campaigns advocating for their firing.
“This decision was not made lightly,” Stumb wrote. “We understand the importance and the impact of this action, and we want to emphasize that we conducted a comprehensive investigation prior to making our decision.”
Before Stumb’s statement was publicized, Rex posted an apology on his Facebook page. “No one deserves to be murdered,” he wrote. “I did not think about the pain and anger that my words would create. My comments were not meant to celebrate nor to foster political violence and for any traums [sic] my words caused, I am truly sorry.” Rex and Wood did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment.
The recent firings follow the dismissals of Laura Sosh-Lightsy, a student affairs administrator at Middle Tennessee State University, and an unnamed staff member at the University of Mississippi.
A Clemson university professor is also subject to an ongoing push by X users to have him fired for statements on Kirk’s death. On Friday afternoon, the university posted a statement that alluded to the situation. “We stand firmly on the principles of the U.S. Constitution, including the protection of free speech. However, that right does not extend to speech that incites harm or undermines the dignity of others. We will take appropriate action for speech that constitutes a genuine threat which is not protected by the Constitution.”
Wednesday saw a moment without precedent in recent history: A college speaker shot to death on a campus during an event. That fact alone would’ve escalated growing concerns about the future of free speech and civil discourse at colleges and universities.
But this speaker was Charlie Kirk, a prominent ally of a U.S. president who was already crusading against higher ed. Kirk, a national political figure in his own right, was one of the foremost conservative critics of intolerance for right-wing views in higher ed and the founder and leader of Turning Point USA, a nationwide organization of conservative campus groups that aided the president’s re-election. Kirk even spoke at Trump’s January inauguration.
He was known for goading students on campuses to “prove me wrong,” posting the resulting clips online, appearing in conservative media to denounce higher ed, spreading his views further on his own podcast and using his organization’s online presence and on-the-ground staff to target left-leaning faculty.
“College is a scam,” Kirk, who dropped out of Harper College in Illinois, wrote in a 2022 Fox News op-ed, in which he urged most students not to go.
“Universities are indoctrination zones where free speech is crushed,” he wrote. “Radical students and faculty coerce and persecute their nonconforming peers through ‘cancel culture’ and threats … I firmly believe that most—if not all—the destructive ideas that are now eating away at the foundation of American society originated on college campuses.”
His death at Utah Valley University could put more pressure on higher ed at a time when colleges and universities have already been excoriated and targeted by the right. Faculty and those who criticize higher ed as being insufficiently open to civil debate between different viewpoints are worried that free expression will further erode.
“This is an epic moment for the future of higher ed,” said John Tomasi, president of Heterodox Academy. “For the issue of free speech, there’s been nothing quite like this ever before.”
Tomasi, whose organization promotes “viewpoint diversity” and “constructive disagreement” on campuses, noted both Kirk’s national stature and his association with campus free expression. He was the kind of person that conservatives had long argued wasn’t welcome on campuses.
“This is an attack on a magnitude that we have not previously seen,” he said. He said national attention on campus cultures intensified when Congress in late 2023 started calling university presidents into televised hearings regarding alleged campus antisemitism. Now, that “white-hot spotlight” is even hotter.
“This is a killing of a person who exemplifies the struggles of viewpoint diversity on college campuses … in the act of speaking on a college campus,” Tomasi said.
Multiple college presidents have issued statements condemning the shooting. Michael Roth of Wesleyan University, a vocal critic of Trump’s targeting of higher ed, wrote that “those who choose violence destroy the possibility of learning and meaning. Mr. Kirk’s murder on a college campus is an assault on all of us in education.” University of California system president James B. Milliken wrote, “This wasn’t just an attack on an individual; it was an attack on the very freedoms we as a nation hold dear.”
Some universities have also acted swiftly to punish employees who appeared to celebrate or make light of Kirk’s death in online comments.
I think it marks a breakdown of the culture of free speech.”
—Lindsie Rank, director of campus rights advocacy at FIRE
The killer has yet to be apprehended, their motive is unknown and the FBI is offering up to $100,000 for information. But in a video from the Oval Office Wednesday evening, President Trump called Kirk’s killing a “heinous assassination” of a “martyr for truth and freedom” and a “dark moment for America.” He said, “There’s never been anyone who was so respected by youth,” whom Kirk brought into the political process “better than anybody ever.”
“Charlie was a patriot, who devoted his life to the cause of open debate and the country that he loved so much,” Trump said, adding that Kirk “traveled the nation, joyfully engaging with everyone interested in good-faith debate.”
Kirk in the Oval Office
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
But the president—who has demanded an undefined viewpoint diversity from universities while threatening them with sweeping federal funding cuts—didn’t go on to defend all free speech, which includes even hate speech. He denounced the “radical left,” saying that “violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year.”
“Those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals,” Trump said. “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.” (His speech didn’t mention the 2022 attack on former House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, or the killings earlier this year of Democratic former Minnesota House speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark.)
Trump isn’t the only person calling it an assassination. Free speech advocates have called past shoutdowns of campus speakers the “heckler’s veto.” Lindsie Rank, director of campus rights advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, called this an “assassin’s veto.”
“Regardless of how one feels about Charlie Kirk’s viewpoints, his tactics, his background, assassination cannot be a response to disagreement in a civilized society,” Rank said. “That’s the whole purpose of free speech: that we have a better way to engage in discourse across differences to settle disagreements.”
“I think there’s a lot of faculty thinking, ‘Is it going to be me, and maybe instead of a video, it’s a rifle?’”
—Isaac Kamola, director of the AAUP Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom
Rank said free speech allows people “to exchange words instead of bullets.” She said what happens on campus is never isolated to campus and raised concern about a feedback loop.
“Our society has started to accept violence as an appropriate response to viewpoints that folks disagree with,” Rank said. “I think it marks a breakdown of the culture of free speech.”
Isaac Kamola, director of the American Association of University Professors’ Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom and an associate political science professor at Trinity College in Connecticut, is among the fierce critics of Kirk’s tactics. While Trump called the “radical left’s” rhetoric dangerous, Kamola said Kirk’s was.
“He literally wrote the book titled Campus Battlefield,” Kamola noted. “He built a career out of treating higher education as a war zone … and treating professors and students that he disagreed with as enemies that posed an existential threat to America … That being said, when actual violence—physical violence and murder—come to college campuses, that ratchets things up to an even more dangerous degree.”
Kamola added that, “without knowing who the gunman is,” Trump is already saying “he’s going to use this as an opportunity to punish the left, and I think that’s really scary.” (Kirk’s final post on X to his over 5.4 million followers said it was “100% necessary to politicize the senseless murder” of a Ukrainian woman in Charlotte, N.C., last month.)
Kamola pointed to Turning Point USA’s own Professor Watchlist and Texas A&M University’s firing of a professor earlier this week after a student filmed herself challenging the legality of teaching about gender identity in a children’s literature class. He said the killing could now leave faculty to think, “Is there going to be retaliation for this assassination?”
“I think there’s a lot of faculty thinking, ‘Is it going to be me, and maybe instead of a video, it’s a rifle?’” he said.
Another Turning Point
Trump redefined conservatism, attracting new adherents. Kirk appeared to do the same for conservative students across the nation, adding them to the MAGA movement.
Amy Binder, SNF Agora Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University, said she’s studied conservative campus activism for decades. She said Kirk “kind of burst on the scene right around the time” Trump won his first term in office.
Vigils to remember Kirk have popped up at college campuses and at the Turning Point USA headquarters in Arizona.
Rebecca Noble/Getty Images
Binder, co-author of Becoming Right: How Campuses Shape Young Conservatives and The Channels of Student Activism, said Kirk’s Turning Point group attracted students who initially weren’t sure they were Republicans and weren’t attracted to the College Republicans chapters that traditionally mobilized students.
“Their complaint about College Republicans was that it was too establishment, it was kind of fusty, stale, too focused on getting people elected,” Binder said of these students. She said Turning Point told them that “you are part of a liberal, left campus and you are mistreated here and you need to come out of the closet and declare that you’re conservative in a big, broad way—and we’ll help you do that with really splashy events and really splashy speakers.”
“All of the incentive structure there was to go big, go confrontational,” she said. Kirk exemplified that in his sparring matches with left-leaning students on campuses.
Binder said, “Kirk was really excellent at cross-branding,” frequently appearing on Fox News, recording videos for the conservative education video website PragerU and more.
“Over time, Kirk was really involved with the Trump family, and with MAGA under Trump,” Binder said. “And he really became an ambassador for that—not only to young people, but to others as well … He was really crossing over into other age brackets and he just kind of became a face—or the face—of energized, youthful conservatism.”
Turning Point sought to elect conservatives to student governments by providing funding. It broadcast online the names of faculty it considered too left-leaning or intolerant of conservative views and marshaled voters for Trump during his re-election campaigns.
“He became the face of young Republicans and probably helped Trump win Arizona, maybe Wisconsin, maybe Michigan, with his get-out-the-vote” in 2024, Binder said. She said he “might have been predicted to have a political career in the future. He’s charismatic, he’s good-looking, he has a perfect family, he’s obviously had success.”
Charlie Kirk was speaking at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10 to kick off his American Comeback Tour when he was shot and killed.
Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images
But now, Kirk is dead. While Binder said there will continue to be a “very robust right ecosystem of organizations that seek mobilized students on campus,” it’s unclear what Turning Point’s future will be.
“Is there a power vacuum, is there a succession plan, what does that look like? I certainly don’t know,” she said. Turning Point didn’t respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for an interview Thursday.
As for how his death could impact campus free expression, Binder said, “It’s really, really horrible on just all of the fronts, and in the wrong hands, something like this could shut down speech.”
Rank, from FIRE, said that while the shooter’s motive is unknown, the effect that violence can have on free expression isn’t. She said it can not only create a chilling effect within people, but it also can cause higher ed institutions to clamp down on speech to prevent violence.
“If an administration comes in and prevents controversial speaking engagements, then you’re creating a situation where the violence wins and that just causes free speech to deteriorate even further,” Rank said. She said that would not only be wrong, but “it would be a strange way to honor his legacy.”
The shooter who killed Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk Wednesday on the Utah Valley University campus appeared to fire from the roof of a university building that houses administrative offices and student advisement services.
The Losee Center for Student Success is a 90,000-square-foot building with a mix of campus offices and student services that underwent a $4.5 million renovation in 2009. The building is fewer than 200 yards from the outdoor amphitheater where Kirk was speaking. A video taken by an attendee captures images of what appears to be the shooter standing on the roof of the building after the shooting and running away.
“The rooftop to the Losee building is pretty easy to access,” a CNN reporter said in a video analysis of the shooting. “It’s connected to another building by an elevated walkway, which … is only separated from the roof by a railing.”
Because of the distance and accuracy of the shot, it was likely fired from a large-caliber rifle, Jim Cavanaugh, a former officer of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said on MSNBC show The Beat with Ari Melber. “It does appear to be a large rifle round,” Cavanaugh said. “I would call it a .308 or a .30-06, like a deer rifle. One shot. That’s all.”
Cavanaugh explained that “Snipers use that attack method for two reasons. One, they can’t get close … and secondly, because you want to get away. That gives you the distance to get away. You can fire the round and then egress from the scene.”
“Two hundred yards is not a difficult rifle shot,” Christopher O’Leary, former director of hostage recovery for the federal government, told Melber. “Most people have optics on their weapon. … With a true optic on it, 200 yards is very easy to do.”
The university, in Orem, Utah, prohibits guns on campus to the extent allowed by state law. Utah’s Concealed Weapons Law allows people with a state concealed carry permit to be on campus with a concealed firearm, according to the campus police website.
An estimated 3,000 people were attending the Kirk event, the first of a series of campus talks the conservative activist was scheduled to hold around the country. Kirk was shot while answering a question about mass shootings. “Do you know how many mass shootings in America there have been over the last 10 years?” an attendee asked, the CNN video analysis shows. “Counting or not counting gang violence?” Kirk responded before he was hit.
Local police and half a dozen campus police officers provided security at the event, but there was no screening, the CNN analysis said.
“Let’s be realistic,” O’Leary said on The Beat. “We’re not going to lock down a college campus for every speaker outdoors. Maybe you want to take it indoors. I think that’s all going to be assessed moving forward.”
Phil Lyman, a former Utah state legislator who was at the event, said on The Beat that he saw what he believed were “a lot of undercover police officers running around” after the shooting, which surprised him. “I would not have thought that [those were officers].”
The campus is closed for the week while law enforcement officials conduct their forensic work.
Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University today. The killer was not immediately caught. The Higher Education Inquirer has been covering Kirk and his organization, Turning Point USA, since 2016. Kirk has been a polarizing force in the United States, particularly on US college campuses. HEI hopes this event will not lead to further violence. Since its inception, we have urged for peace and nonviolence.
Charlie Kirk was shot during an event at Utah Valley University today. Details of the incident are still unfolding.
Political violence is never an acceptable response to speech. Free speech allows us to settle our differences peacefully and is essential to a free and democratic society.
Our thoughts are with Charlie Kirk and his family.
Charlie Kirk, the young founder of Turning Point USA, a campus-focused conservative organization that rose to general prominence on the right, died Wednesday after he was shot during one of his group’s events at Utah Valley University in Orem.
Kirk, 31, leaves behind a wife and two children. He first rose to prominence in 2012 after creating Turning Point and speaking out about the need to reform higher education. In recent years, he became a close ally of Donald Trump.
Kirk died doing what he had become known and drawn protests for: visiting college campuses and sharing his right-wing views. He was at Utah Valley kicking off Turning Point’s The American Comeback Tour, which planned at least 10 stops on college campuses across the country. Some had urged the university to cancel his appearance. More than 3,000 people attended the event, Utah officials said.
Kirk, wearing a white shirt that said “freedom,” handed out red Make America Great Again hats and then sat under his signature “Prove Me Wrong” tent in the courtyard in the middle of campus to take questions from the audience. According to The Deseret News, Kirk had said there were “too many” mass shooters who were transgender and then fielded another question on the issue when he was shot.
“I want to be very clear this is a political assassination,” said Utah governor Spencer Cox at a press conference Wednesday evening.
Matthew Boedy, author of a forthcoming book on Kirk and head of the Georgia state conference of the American Association of University Professors, said Kirk’s death “could be compared to the second assassination [attempt] on President Trump. Assassination attempts—you would think they would unite us, but as we’ve seen, they have divided us even more so.”
Kirk’s group galvanized conservative activism on campuses nationwide and fueled criticisms of higher ed that are now shared by the White House and the Republicans who control Congress. As higher ed itself became a national political issue, Kirk transcended from a campus presence to a national conservative figure, speaking at the Republican National Conventions in 2020 and 2024, the Conservative Political Action Conference, and on other big stages. He had more than 5.4 million followers on X, where right-leaning profiles are prominent.
Turning Point’s website claims to have “a presence on over 3,500 high school and college campuses nationwide, over 250,000 student members, and over 450 full- and part-time staff all across the country.” And the group’s own events drew national political figures: Donald Trump Jr., Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Tulsi Gabbard, Kristi Noem and others attended the Student Action Summit in July, Times Higher Education reported. Among other things, Kirk said at the event in Tampa, Fla., that no foreigners should be allowed to own homes or get jobs before U.S. citizens.
“This is the greatest generational realignment since Woodstock,” Kirk said. “We have never seen a generation move so quickly and so fast, and you guys are making all the liberals confused.”
Kirk expanded on his views in several books, which include Campus Battlefield: How Conservatives Can WIN the Battle on Campus and Why It Matters and The College Scam: How America’s Universities Are Bankrupting and Brainwashing Away the Future of America’s Youth.
In a statement on X Wednesday, Turning Point confirmed his death and said, “May he be received into the merciful arms of our loving Savior, who suffered and died for Charlie.” Leading Republicans and Democrats issued statements mourning his passing, which President Trump announced himself on Truth Social.
“The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead,” Trump wrote. “No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us.”
Trump ordered U.S. flags to be lowered to half-staff.
Former president Obama posted on X that “we don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy. Michelle and I will be praying for Charlie’s family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children.”
Education Secretary Linda McMahon called Kirk “a friend and an invaluable adviser” in a social media post.
“He loved America with every part of his being,” she added. “My heart is broken for his family and friends who loved him, and for the millions of young Americans whom he inspired.”
California governor Gavin Newsom, a potential Democratic presidential candidate who had Kirk on his podcast earlier this year, posted, “The attack on Charlie Kirk is disgusting, vile, and reprehensible. In the United States of America, we must reject political violence in EVERY form.”
Local, state and federal law enforcement are investigating the shooting.
Utah Valley closed campus and canceled classes until Sept. 14. Authorities searched the grounds for the shooter, and officials said in the evening that a person of interest was in custody.
Ellen Treanor, a university spokesperson, said Kirk was shot around 12:15 p.m. local time Wednesday, and that police believe the shot came from the Losee Center, about 200 yards away.
Treanor said Kirk’s private security took him immediately to a hospital, where he underwent surgery.
University police quickly arrested a person, who was later released when the officers determined he wasn’t the shooter, said Scott Trotter, another university spokesperson. The Utah governor’s office, the FBI and other agencies are coordinating with the university police department in investigating, Trotter said. (Utah law allows individuals to carry firearms on campuses.)
UVU officials said in a statement that they were “shocked and saddened” by Kirk’s death.
“We firmly believe that UVU is a place to share ideas and to debate openly and respectfully,” the statement said. “Any attempt to infringe on those rights has no place here.”
At the Wednesday press conference, Jeff Long, the UVU police chief, said that what happened was a “police chief’s nightmare.” Six officers were working the event alongside Kirk’s security team.
“You try to get your bases covered, and unfortunately, today, we didn’t,” he said. “Because of that, we have this tragic incident.”
Charlie Kirk was kicking off his “American Comeback Tour” at Utah Valley University.
Photo by Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images
Turning Point, headquartered in Phoenix, has been at the center of several controversies over the years. About a decade ago, it launched its Professor Watchlist, which has resulted in academics being the targets of vitriol and threats for their alleged views. Last year, two Turning Point workers admitted to charges from an October 2023 incident in which they followed and filmed a queer Arizona State University instructor on campus, with one of them eventually pushing the instructor face-first onto the concrete.
Boedy said Wednesday that Kirk was the most influential person who doesn’t work in the White House.
“He has made Turning Point into an indispensable organization for conservative causes,” he said. “He’s become the new face of Christian nationalism, which is a growing trend in America. And of course, he has, I would say, changed college campuses.”
He added that campus events like Wednesday’s were his “bread and butter.”
“He is very smart,” he said. “He was one of the pioneers of the ‘prove me wrong’ mantra.”
The move comes as the network faces growing pressure from Trump-aligned media personalities over its coverage of the Jeffrey Epstein files and its relationship with the Wall Street Journal, another Rupert Murdoch-owned outlet. Kirk, who has hosted The Charlie Kirk Show, a podcast and syndicated radio program, is also a close ally of former President Donald Trump and a vocal critic of legacy media organizations, including the Journal.
A Decade of Coverage: TPUSA’s Rise
Kirk founded Turning Point USA in 2012 at age 18 with financial backing from donors such as the late Foster Friess and Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus. The group is registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and reported over $55 million in revenue in 2022, according to public IRS filings.
TPUSA’s stated mission is to “identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote freedom.” However, its campus organizing efforts have drawn criticism from academics and student groups for compiling watchlists of left-leaning faculty and amplifying misinformation. The Higher Education Inquirer has documented TPUSA’s partnerships with conservative student chapters, appearances by controversial figures, and consistent alignment with Trump administration policies.
In recent years, TPUSA has expanded its media and political operations through spinoffs like TPUSA Faith, TPUSA Live, and the AmericaFest conference series. These initiatives have featured speakers including Donald Trump Jr., Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Epstein Files and the Trump Lawsuit
In early July 2025, The Wall Street Journal published an investigative piece detailing Donald Trump’s past relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. The story cited sources claiming Trump once sent Epstein a birthday card with a hand-drawn image of a naked woman. Trump denied the report and sued the Journal and Rupert Murdoch for $10 billion, calling the article defamatory.
The report was based on internal communications, FBI notes, and interviews with individuals familiar with Epstein’s social network. While the Journal stands by its reporting, coverage of the lawsuit has been limited on Fox News, which has mentioned it only a few times on air, according to media monitoring data from Media Matters.
Kirk responded aggressively to the story, calling it “fake” and “a hit job” on his podcast and social media. He praised Trump’s lawsuit and claimed the article was an attempt to connect the Epstein investigation to the former president without evidence. “Now I quickly, and we quickly, came to the president’s defense,” he said on The Charlie Kirk Show.
Strategic Silence and MAGA Realignment
Fox News, typically quick to echo Trump’s media attacks, has not publicly defended the Journal. The network also reduced its coverage of the Epstein documents released this summer, in contrast to CNN, MSNBC, and other right-leaning outlets like Newsmax and Real America’s Voice, which have continued to highlight the Epstein files.
Trump has reportedly instructed close allies and supporters to downplay the Epstein revelations. According to Rolling Stone and Puck News, Trump personally called Kirk and other surrogates, asking them to redirect attention away from Attorney General Pam Bondi, who had faced MAGA criticism for a DOJ memo stating there was no actionable Epstein “client list.”
Kirk initially supported criticism of Bondi but later reversed course, stating on his podcast that he would “trust [his] friends in the government.” After announcing he would stop discussing Epstein, he backtracked the following day, claiming his comments were taken out of context.
TPUSA’s Institutional Influence
Turning Point USA has expanded into high schools (via Turning Point Academy), churches (TPUSA Faith), and electoral politics (Turning Point Action). According to the group’s 2023 annual report, it has reached over 2,500 schools and trained more than 12,000 student activists. TPUSA Action spent at least $7 million on political activities in the 2022 midterms, per FEC data.
Kirk’s access to Fox News’s audience, especially during a prime weekend slot, signals further normalization of TPUSA within conservative media infrastructure. It also reflects the ongoing merger between youth-oriented political branding and legacy cable television, especially at a time when Fox News is balancing its MAGA base against legal and reputational risks tied to its parent company.
Sources
Axios (July 2025): “Charlie Kirk to co-host Fox & Friends Weekend”
Wall Street Journal (July 2025): “Trump’s Epstein Birthday Card”
IRS Form 990 filings (TPUSA 2021–2023)
Media Matters: “Fox News Epstein Coverage Analysis”
FEC.gov: Turning Point Action Political Expenditures
Rolling Stone, Puck News (July 2025): Trump’s calls to allies over Epstein story
TPUSA 2023 Annual Report
Higher Education Inquirer Archive (2016–2025): Reports on TPUSA campus activity
This article is part of the Higher Education Inquirer’s long-term investigation into political influence in the credential economy, campus organizing, and the intersection of media, youth movements, and power.
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