How Charlie Kirk Went From Martyr to Meme

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1:12Earlier this month, in a courtroom in Provo, Utah, a very strange drama played out. It was not a trial. It was a series of preliminary hearings, a presentation of evidence, with the government trying to prove they had the goods to prosecute the man they say killed the founder of Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk. Critical evidence in court today in the case against Charlie Kirk's accused killer, Tyler Robinson. This hearing had all the trappings of a trial. Interviews with witnesses, DMs from the alleged killer himself. These are the text messages prosecutors say Tyler Robinson sent to his former roommate and romantic partner allegedly admitting to shooting and killing Charlie Kirk last September.

2:00You weren't the one who did it right. And Tyler says, I am. I'm sorry. Will Sommer from over at the Bulwark says for Charlie Kirk's widow, Erica, and her allies, there was this hope that maybe if all this evidence got out there, The conspiracy theories swirling around her husband's death, they would melt away. They thought that this would be a moment, I think, to finally put these conspiracy theories down and to really say, you know, here is the evidence. You can watch this video. You can see this confession. And that will show you that will finally put all of these crazy ideas to rest. I mean, is that what happened?

2:40No, it's not what happened at all. Turns out there's no good way to eliminate a conspiracy theory. Especially when thought leaders on the right have been encouraging their audiences to do their own research for years. The stories about Kirk's murder are varied and confusing. Podcaster Candace Owens alleges Charlie came to her in a dream and said he'd been betrayed. She said Israel must have been involved in his death and has suggested his wife should face scrutiny too. And Owens seems to be making a whole lot of MAGA conspiracy curious. I want to go back to September, right after the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

3:19I'm going to read you a headline from the Wall Street Journal. The headline goes like this. Charlie Kirk's death unites a global right that sees its movement under siege. A year or so later, how's that headline aged? You know, I think as it turned out, that really was not the case. I think if anything, we have sort of seen the opposite. I think it's created a lot more problems. It's so funny because it strikes me that Charlie's Kirk death actually has united the right in grievance. But they're still figuring out who they're aggrieved about. Fair? Yeah, I think that's probably true. I think it heightened the emotions, certainly.

4:03It had this sense of like we're under siege. But as you said, who are we under siege by? Candace Owens would say Israel. Donald Trump and, you know, kind of more mainline Republicans would say the left and, you know, we've got to fight these communists. Yeah. I was thinking about this trial and the fact that. If you looked at what happened in this courthouse, it was clear that what was going on was very important to a lot of people like Don Jr. showed up for the first couple of days. Right. So that's like a sign that this is. this is an event that the right needs to engage with, right? But I think that after Charlie Kirk's murder, I might have expected these legal proceedings to feel like the trial of the century or something like that.

4:57Do they? You know, they don't really feel like the trial of the century. I mean, it is striking to think back to where we were in September. I mean, people were getting fired, not just for celebrating Charlotte Kirk's murder or making fun of it, but for saying, you know, I didn't like this guy. I didn't like what he stood for politically. And, you know, they were losing their jobs. And now a lot of Gen Z, Gen Alpha kids, they'll say things like, instead of low key, they'll say, low Kirk and you know, yeah, I mean, yeah, the low Kirk and Willie, or they'll say, or there are, you know, AI edits of Charlie Kirk being saved by Jeffrey Epstein.

5:34All of these memes that I think have really done a lot to sort of make him, you know, whether you want to say a mockery or sort of to make it seem less serious or to kind of puncture that hallowed way I think that people saw it initially that have really, I think, hurt the political capital that surrounded the assassination.

5:55Yeah, I mean, I feel like the one thing that is definitely true, no matter how you see what's going on in Utah is Charlie Kirk is sort of dying as he lived all over your feed. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Today on the show, Charlie Kirk's alleged killer is facing trial. The evidence is pretty damning. The world is reacting strangely. I'm Mary Harris. You're listening to What Next. Stick around.

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9:33Hi, Brooke DeVard, host of Naked Beauty. Picture this, you walk in from the cold and every room already feels like fall. That's what whole home scenting means at Pira. One system working quietly in the background so your home always feels like the season and like you. Learn more at Pura.com.

9:55I wonder if you can just spin me through quickly what happened in Utah earlier this month and what kind of evidence was presented regarding Tyler Robinson, the alleged killer of Charlie Kirk. because there really was like sort of just a variety of things that came out. Interestingly, Erica Kirk, Charlie Kirk's widow, wanted more things to come out, she was saying. She wanted to like really open up the floodgates, which the judge did not want to do, I think to basically preserve the status of the trial in some way, to give a fair trial to Tyler Robinson. So tell me a little bit about what we did see.

10:33There was video, there were recordings, right? Yes. So there's surveillance video purportedly of Tyler Robinson at the campus ahead of the shooting, during the shooting, running away. There was a lot of law enforcement interviews, police officers who said, yes, I'm the one who got Tyler Robinson or I examined the forensics. There were messages between Tyler Robinson and his lover, Lance Twiggs, saying, I'm the guy who shot Charlie Kirk, things of that nature. Yeah, there's an interview with Lance Twiggs, right? Where it's like you could – he was engaging with like what the officers were asking him.

11:12Yes, and so there's an interview with Lance Twiggs saying, you know, relating to how he realized that Tyler Robinson was allegedly the killer. Did he talk about what he had done? Didn't go into detail. He just – I just asked him in person if what he said was true the night before and he said it was. started crying a little bit and said he wishes he hadn't done it. It's a wide array of evidence from various sources. And I think for those of us who aren't really conspiracy theory minded, I think it should put questions to rest. But at the same time, again, I think people, you know, remain unconvinced.

11:54You know, I think a large segment of the right. I mean, like the one thing that I think you could see the defense was honing in on was some DNA evidence where that was regarding the murder weapon and like whether that was clearly indicating Robinson's DNA. And so they were saying there was some opening there, but everything else was really like, there was a note that Tyler Robinson left for Twigs, Lance Twigs, basically saying I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I took it. So very clearly admitting guilt. It appears to be based on the evidence, sort of a very well-documented assassination, There are all these things, as you said, there's this towel that was found that has Tyler Robinson's DNA on it suggesting that this was taken from his bathroom, that this isn't some random guy they plucked.

12:42I mean I think even before this, the conspiracy theories didn't make a ton of sense. For example, people would say these text messages with Lance Twiggs and Tyler Robinson, they seem a little fake. They seem a little too much of a confession or they seem can't. But on the other hand, are we to understand that Tyler Robinson is now going to go to trial and this – like if this was all concocted, that this wouldn't come out at some point, that they have this patsy they can imprison, maybe give the death penalty to? So even before this, I don't think the conspiracy theories held much water. You can see this because Candace Owens is constantly changing what she believes.

13:18I mean she'll say Egypt was involved or Israel was involved or maybe a bee cult was involved. All of these things. Literally a bee cult? Yeah. So Mormons use a lot of bee symbology. And so in Utah, there's just a lot of bee symbols around. And so she was like, oh, my gosh, look, this guy went to a school and they have a bee in their logo and a lot of bees. And I started talking about people that were discussing bees in a way that didn't make sense. I'm like, I don't know if this is drugs. I don't know what it is, but it's weird. And so in a sentence, I just said there's imminent danger coming.

13:51OK, it is relating to a school. I think it's a communist underground, and I don't know why, but it has something to do with bees. And so there was this idea that maybe a sort of bee murder cult was involved. Wow. Yeah, I mean, I guess you should spin me through, too, how the more conspiratorial-minded folks took in this information that was presented, which, as you say, seemed pretty clearly to indicate Tyler Robinson was Charlie Kirk's murderer. I think they, just as Erica Kirk, Turning Point USA people, they wanted as much information to be public as possible. They pushed for the trial to be televised.

14:31Every step of the way, they fought to keep evidence from being sealed. On the other hand, people like Candace Owens, she has another associate named Baron Coleman, who's kind of another big pillar of this. These people are very – they are pouring over the information too. And they are kind of plucking out, huh, well, that seems a little odd. Doesn't that seem a little too convenient? They are seeing this as an opportunity to make their own content. Okay. Can I ask you a question that's been dogging me? Do we know if Tyler Robinson had some overarching philosophy that led him to kill Charlie Kirk?

15:08And I ask that because the one thing that I think connects all of the right wing strands, whether you are Don Jr., Erica Kirk, MAGA, or whether you're Candace Owens. I think you're connected by the fact that you see Charlie Kirk's death as evidence of your own victimization, right, and vulnerability. So does the evidence in this case support that feeling that the right is under attack in a coordinated fashion? Well, I wouldn't say coordinated, but I would say that based on the evidence, the markings on the bullet casings that Tyler Robinson allegedly did, the conversation he had with Lance Twiggs.

15:50I mean it seems as though he saw Charlie Kirk as this kind of right-wing hate figure, particularly anti-trans, anti-gay, and that's why he killed him. And I think that was sort of the theory everyone had right after the assassination. I mean, this is probably a guy who was killed by a liberal, unfortunately, because he was this big kind of Republican figure. It's kind of a classic political assassination situation. And it got a little scrambled by the fact that I think Tyler Robinson's family was not left wing in any way. And he may have been partially reacting to his family with his own political views.

16:24Yeah. I mean, it's complex, obviously, because it's in Utah, conservative state, probably a pretty conservative even college campus. So you have all these things. They're playing into it. But it still looks like a pretty straightforward story. On the other hand, there was also this idea even among people like Donald Trump, Cash Patel. There was this idea that this couldn't be a lone gunman situation. There had to be – this is either at minimum leftists who have criticized Charlie Kirk are somehow kind of indirectly responsible for this and they could be punished in some way. or that there was like some kind of trans Antifa cell that was involved in this.

17:04And so there was a lot that went into saying we're going to investigate – this tweet said something big is going to happen tomorrow at Utah Valley University or something like that. And nothing came of it really. I mean obviously Tyler Robinson is the only person who's been charged here. Even Lance Twiggs doesn't appear to have any culpability. He hasn't been charged. So there was this moment that was like we're going to crush the left and that really dissipated. What's interesting to me about all this is that as I saw this pretrial hearing situation play out, it seemed to me that what was going on was very important to a certain subsection of Americans, but very unimportant to a whole lot of other people.

17:45Like, I wonder if it makes sense to talk about what's happened to Charlie Kirk on TikTok post-assassination. Because it's kind of grim to me when you look at it. Like, there was this AI song, We Are Charlie Kirk. We are Charlie Kirk. We are Charlie Kirk. That has now become like a dance thing on TikTok. We are Charlie Kirk.

18:17His final moments and the gunshot that killed him have become a meme. Like people use it to like do transition videos where they go from like, I have one hairstyle to like now I have a sassy new hairstyle. But they're using the audio of Charlie Kirk's death to do that. It's kind of macabre. Yeah, I mean, I think it's twisted. I mean, I think it is sort of a classic situation of particularly young people seeking out, you know, edgy, offensive things that will kind of shock their elders. You know, you mentioned, I mean, it's been used in – I think there was like a rave in Asia where the moment where the beat drops as to the We Are Charlie Kirk song.

18:59And so, yeah, I mean, it's become a meme. And I think, as you said, I mean, at the point where I think TikTok eventually banned the use of the gunshot audio, you know, for these moments, as you said, where people change outfits or get a new haircut. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting to me because in the weeks after Charlie Kirk's death, people who spoke out about his viewpoints were often pretty harshly silenced or even fired for doing that, like called out in some kind of way. And there would be a big pile on. And these jokey parody videos, it honestly feels like people who probably don't share Charlie Kirk's viewpoints out shitposting him.

19:38Do you know what I mean? Like finding a way to make him into a joke because saying what he had to say was wrong or abhorrent became a little unsayable online in the days after his death. Yeah, I mean I do think there's this sense that after his assassination, there was this almost sort of like oppressive, stifling, however people may have seen it. This sense that as Charlie Kirk was being deified or treated as this sort of secular saint figure, that he – you couldn't – if you were critical of Charlie Kirk or there was this – you couldn't really contest his legacy as it was because of the shocking and his murder.

20:18And as you said, people were fired and there are all these lawsuits. It's, you know, cut to now people are winning hefty settlements for being fired over criticizing him. I mean, back then there was like a list. You know, people may remember it was like the we're going to get everyone who criticized Charlie Kirk fired list, essentially. And so I think that kind of sanctimony. I mean, to be clear, I think there's a lot to that. I mean, this guy was just murdered in a really shocking way. But I think the reaction to that was people saying, you know, let's make this a meme. Let's poke fun at this.

20:48Yeah. I mean, I was just flipping through Charlie Kirk related articles before we got on the line. And it was striking to me. I found more than one with people basically showing how far we've come with Charlie Kirk. Like The Guardian had a story about a sculptor who spent$100 ,000 of his own money to make a Charlie Kirk sculpture that he wanted to like use to make money. But now no one wants it. It just struck me. I was like, oh, does this mean the Kirkification of culture, this kind of deification moment? It really, really is past. It was striking to me when the Charlie Kirk, the gunshot meme thing was going around TikTok.

21:35It was striking to me how sort of powerful Turning Point USA had been in the immediate aftermath of the assassination in terms of sort of getting people, I think, to be afraid to criticize Charlie Kirk, things like that, to then a few months later and they have to be tweeting, at TikTok, please ban this sound effect. You know, and so I think there was – Like they don't have any special pull. Exactly. That sort of this – whatever the Kirk assassination was through the cultural moment really got away from them. We'll be right back after a quick break.

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23:43You say that the cultural moment has gotten away from turning point. Have we seen that reflected in their political power? Like you and I are talking right after the Arizona primaries, right? Where I think a lot of turning point associated people did pretty well in the Republican primaries. So is it worth us disaggregating like their internet power or youth power or whatever from their actual political infrastructure and magnetism? You know, I think it's worth considering. I do think the Kirk assassination has really hurt turning point in a lot of ways. It has – obviously, they're facing a leadership vacuum.

24:28I think there are questions about even within Turning Point, people have been critical of Erica Kirk saying whether she can keep the operation running. I think also it's just because of these conspiracy theories pushed most prominently by Candace Owens. I think it's made Turning Point a lot more controversial within the right. You have – just anecdotally, I see examples of a mom's group will order Charlie Kirk shirts and then they'll say, well, do we really want these? Because now we've discovered that Turning Point murdered Charlie Kirk. Or you have – Whoa. Yeah. And so, I mean, those things are – Mom's down the rabbit hole.

25:03Yeah. I mean, those things are sinking in with people. And even if you think, well, maybe they didn't murder him, I think there's sort of a milder conspiracy theory that's like they covered it up. And so all of these things have, I think, hurt the Turning Point brand with a lot of Republicans. No fault of their own. I mean it's just craziness. But I think they've really struggled to respond to that and it's undermined them in various ways. You've seen some college chapters disaffiliating and saying kind of we're going our own way. This is not what Charlie Kirk would have wanted. The Turning Point has lost its way.

25:36Is anyone here winning in this battle between all these right-wing figures? Like you've got Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Turning Point USA, all of these folks fighting about Charlie Kirk, sure, but really kind of fighting about the future of the movement here. Are any of them in a strong position or are they all being made weaker by this? It's a good question. I do think it's become a real quagmire. I mean now Candace Owens is being sued by Charlie Kirk's head of security. I mean we'll see. I think he has a pretty strong case. You know, we'll see how much she ends up maybe paying out over that.

26:16There's probably more lawsuits to come. Basically sued because, like, because of you, we've had to, like, do a lot more work. No, because she had a guy on her show who said the head of security and Erica Kirk were meeting at a military base the day before the assassination with a military sniper. Oh, so blaming them for the murder. Yes, exactly. Cool. Exactly. Very responsible. So less subtle than that. And so I think there's probably more lawsuits to come. But I do think Candace Owens probably has been a big winner in this case. She has managed to go from someone who had her own platform and had been successful with other things after kind of being kicked out of the mainstream right for anti-Semitism.

26:59She was kind of doing her own thing. She was already pretty big. But with this, she has really elevated her profile. She's claimed a good chunk of the Charlie Kirk legacy for herself, I would say. She sort of portrayed Erica Kirk as this usurper almost. And so in that way, I think she's gathered a lot more influence. She's made a lot of money because she's getting huge amounts of YouTube views. So I would say she's someone who, despite all this, at least for now, until the legal settlements come back, has been a winner. That's interesting because Charlie Kirk's power, of course, didn't come from just accumulating power or accumulating his own followers.

27:38It came from how he deployed those followers and he deployed those followers in service of Donald Trump, especially in the 2024 election. Do we have any idea how Candace Owens wants to spend her power that she's accumulating? Well, you know, I think for her, a lot of it is about divorcing the Republican Party from Israel. I mean, she is like an extremely anti-Semitic figure and she's also very critical of Israel. And so I think for her saying maybe Israel was involved in this, like – I mean when she first started pushing this stuff, I thought, how could she ever make this case? This is so crazy.

28:12But people have become convinced because she just adds in all these – I mean mostly she's like, look, there's a Jewish guy there. I mean she's saying Erica Kirk went to a – What? OK. OK. Like I mean it's crazy. And so with that – or she'll say Erica Kirk went to a daycare or a school when she was in an elementary school and it has a lot of Jewish teachers. What do you make of that? I mean so this is – Dear Christ, that's like just anti-Semitic shit. Yeah, yeah. I mean this is – I'm sorry but really. Yeah. I mean it really is that blatant. And so she has managed I think – Candace Owens also because she covered a lot of kind of like celebrity news.

28:51She did the Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni lawsuit. She has an audience that goes beyond just people on the right. And so I think she has managed to take, you know, independence, people who don't particularly care about politics. And I think they've really latched on to this Erica Kirk secret assassin theory as well. You know, I was talking to my husband about the show. And I was like – I put to him this idea that like why isn't Charlie Kirk's trial the trial of the century kind of thing? And he pointed out that to be the trial of the century, there would need to be some tension about what the outcome would be.

29:25Do you know what I mean? Like with OJ's trial, you were wondering if he was going to be found guilty or not guilty, right? The whole time. And it kept you watching. Even with Luigi Mangione, who are all sort of waiting to go to trial, like I think very few people doubt what he did. But I think there's a question of how this trial could reshape a big public conversation about health care and corporate greed and public anger about those things. But there's only a small group of people who don't believe Charlie Kirk was killed by a single person acting alone. Right. Is this basically only the trial of the century for like Candace Owens?

30:04I mean, I think there's a lot of people who think that there was a broader conspiracy theory. I'll tell you what. No one – no smaller a personage than Joe Kent, the former head of U.S. counterterrorism. He claims he was investigating the alternate theories while he was in the government and he was stopped from doing it. Now, I think people were like, this isn't really your job, buddy. But, you know, he has offered to testify for Tyler Robinson's defense team. And if I was a juror in a murder trial and someone said, hey, I'm one of the top U.S. counterterror officials and the government stopped me from looking into this and I think there might be some other ideas, I think that would be pretty compelling.

30:39Wow. You know, it's weird. I have very little sympathy for the noxious viewpoints of Charlie Kirk or the noxious viewpoints of Candace Owens or Tucker Carlson. But I got to say, in all of this drama over his death, Charlie Kirk himself seems to have gotten totally lost, like in the territorial BS, in the memification. Like he's almost not like a human anymore. I agree with you. I mean, I think that, as you said, before his assassination, I had very little sympathy for Charlie Kirk. But I think what he and his family have been through is like mind-bendingly awful. I mean in terms of the assassination being televised and then all of these people around them sort of betraying them for money and saying that maybe you did it, Erica Kirk, the widow.

31:36I think it is – to add on to that, I think also this fight over his legacy has sort of cheapened him and revealed him in some ways that I think are very unflattering. So, for example, Candace Owens will say, well, Charlie Kirk was kind of falling out with his Jewish donors over Israel. And here are these emails and text messages where Charlie Kirk is saying, you know, these Jewish donors are just bugging me so much. Or people will be saying – or she'll say, you know, Laura Loomer, who's another right-wing activist on the other side, you know, Charlie Kirk hated you. And so she'll put up a text message saying, you know, Laura Loomer has got to stop bugging me.

32:09And then on the other side, someone will say, well, actually, Candace, he didn't like you. And so, I mean, we can imagine, you know, if you were the subject of a high profile assassination or something and then suddenly we got to go through your text messages. You know, I mean, it is a way that I think also sort of makes him look very petty, this fighting over and saying, well, actually, he despised you and I'll show you. It's an ugly scene. Yeah. OK, so for now, the hearings in Utah, they're on hold. The judge is going to, I think, have the next hearing in September, which is right around the anniversary of Charlie Kirk's death.

32:42So given what we've just seen, how do you expect all that to go down? I think, I mean, it could potentially be a circus. I mean, I think we'll see how much the defense wants to play into these conspiracy theories. So far, they don't seem interested in it. They seem to be, you know, kind of doing a pretty straightforward defense. On the other hand, you know, we saw Don Jr. there. We saw Jack Posobiec, the conspiracy theorist, roll up in like a red Corvette or like a red convertible. You know, a very bizarre thing to wear to drive into your friend's – the murder trial of your friend's killer. It's not the prom, Guy.

33:18Yes, exactly. Good way to put it. So I think it's going to get a lot of attention. And again, but let's say Tyler Robinson pleads guilty or he's found guilty. I think ultimately this is – because there's so much energy in the right into this case, I think it's going to – these conspiracy theories will still persist and the fight over Charlie Kirk's legacy will continue. Will, I'm really grateful for your time. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. Will Sommer is a senior reporter for The Bulwark and author of The False Flag Newsletter. And that's our show. What Next is produced by Rob Gunther, Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme, and Patrick Fort.

34:00Paige Osborne is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD. Mila Bell is the executive producer of podcasts here at Slate. Ben Richmond is the Senior Director of Podcast Operations. And I'm Mary Harris. Go track me down on Blue Sky. I'm at Mary Harris. Thanks for listening. Catch you back here next time.

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