Charlie Kirk, the far-right, anti-LGBTQ+ commentator who founded Turning Point USA and became a defining figure of the American right’s youth movement, died Wednesday after being shot during a campus event at Utah Valley University in Orem, President Donald Trump announced. He was 31.
“The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday at 4:40 p.m. Eastern. “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. Melania and my Sympathies go out to his beautiful wife Erika, and family. Charlie, we love you!”
The flag on the White House North Lawn was lowered to half-staff, according to the White House press pool.
The shooting happened during Kirk’s “American Comeback Tour.” He had been speaking in front of a large crowd assembled for a debate-style event. A graphic video from the scene showed him speaking before a shot can be heard, and he suddenly flinched as he was struck. He appeared to be shot in the neck. Police confirmed a single shot was fired, and the campus was locked down. Initially, the university had said that a subject was taken into custody. However, law enforcement authorities said later that person was not the suspected shooter.
Early Wednesday evening, FBI director Kash Patel wrote on social media that the suspect had been arrested. “The subject for the horrific shooting today that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody,” Patel wrote.
One video being shared online showed the questions Kirk was responding to before being shot, The Guardian reports. A person asked, “Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?” Kirk responds, “Too many.” The crowd clapped.
The questioner then asks, “Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?”
Kirk says, “Counting or not counting gang violence?”
The video shows Kirk stuck in the neck and falling backward in his chair.
Utah Republican Gov. Spencer Cox posted on X, formerly Twitter, “Working with the FBI and Utah law enforcement, we will bring to justice the individual responsible for this tragedy.”
Kirk rose to national prominence in his early 20s, cultivating close ties to President Donald Trump and building Turning Point into a powerhouse of conservative media, activism, and student organizing. Kirk’s rise was matched by years of incendiary commentary targeting LGBTQ+ people.
He frequently spread disinformation about transgender people and gender-affirming care, painting LGBTQ+ equality as a threat to American culture. In 2022, he even claimed that transgender people were to blame for inflation, a remark widely ridiculed by economists and LGBTQ+ advocates. The following year, Kirk courted outrage when he said that if the January 6 rioters had “stripped naked and filmed themselves having gay sex,” they would have been treated more leniently, which critics blasted as both homophobic and trivializing of the insurrection.
Kirk also used his platform to target transgender athletes, railing against their inclusion in women’s sports, and his views shaped broader conservative messaging. Earlier this year, California Gov. Gavin Newsom drew criticism after echoing Kirk’s arguments on his podcast.
In 2023, after a mass shooting at a school in Nashville, Kirk told a Turning Point audience that gun deaths were needed for the preservation of constitutional freedoms. “I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights,” Kirk said at the time, according to Newsweek.
Kirk was married and had two small children.
This story is developing…
This article originally appeared on Advocate: BREAKING: Right-wing firebrand Charlie Kirk dead after shooting at university in Utah
