It was a striking line in an extraordinary address, delivered two days after her husband was assassinated.
“If he ever ran for office,” Erika Kirk said of her husband, Charlie, he always said “his top priority would be to revive the American family.”
President Trump and Vice President JD Vance have echoed Mrs. Kirk’s characterization of her husband’s values — highlighting how their close ally encouraged young people, above all else, to “go get married” and have children.
“We talked all the time about the most important thing you could do is not vote for a particular candidate,” Mr. Vance said on Monday of conversations he had with Mr. Kirk. “It was to become — if you were a young man — a husband and a father.”
Soon after Mrs. Kirk delivered her speech on Friday night, conservative activists began discussing what her comments might mean for the movement to drive more women toward marriage and children. Some looked for ways to refashion their agenda in his image — wondering if his legacy might lend new urgency to conversations with the White House.
One invoked Mr. Kirk’s name on Thursday at an event at the Department of Housing and Urban Development about whether housing policy could be used as a tool to get more people to get married.
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The post What Charlie Kirk Could Mean for the Future of Marriage and Family appeared first on New York Times.