How Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s Widow and Turning Point USA’s CEO, Rose to Power

This April Erika Kirk was taping an episode of her Christian podcast, Midweek Rise Up. Her special guest that day was her husband of four years, Charlie—the conservative wunderkind who had helped Donald Trump secure the youth vote in the 2024 election. An Arizona beauty pageant winner with flaxen waist-length hair, blue eyes, and a Bible-based streetwear brand (Proclaim) who bore Charlie two blond children—the 36-year-old was alluring in her embodiment of the conservative ideals he promoted on college tours.

“I love how much he loves this country,” she captioned her Fourth of July Instagram this year. She posted a video montage of her handsome husband on the beach, in a suit, playing with their blond children in matching American-flag-themed clothing. Another frame depicted Erika gazing up at her husband adoringly, a modern-day Nancy Reagan. (Kirk did not immediately respond to a request for an interview.)

As far as MAGA WAGs go, she was as devoted to her husband’s political career as Melania Trump has appeared to be disinterested in her’s. Kirk seems comfortable speaking at rallies and into a mic, à la Lara Trump—who segued her marriage with Donald Trump’s son Eric into a Fox program that premiered earlier this year. Whereas Lara seemed independent-minded—her series is titled My View With Lara Trump—Erika has made it clear that, in alignment with her Christian values, wives serve their husbands. The title of Erika’s podcast that day summed it up: “Submission Is Not a Dirty Word.”

Speaking from opposite desks, with framed photos of Donald Trump peering over their shoulders on either side, they spoke about homeschooling, dating apps, and Erika’s greatest value—being in the home. She and her husband repeated the refrain often: Women shouldn’t pursue their own careers while raising children. (Erika previously worked as a real estate agent with Corcoran in New York, and her LinkedIn page has identified her as “an agency-represented model and casting director for various TV networks.”) For the purposes of their outward messaging, Erika seemed to be broadcasting from the podcast studio because of a technicality: She was promoting his career.

And yet, she has also acted as Kirk’s foil, a devil’s advocate in sheep’s clothing. After Charlie proclaimed, “It’s easy to not be poor if you are a man,” Erika asked him to consider “student debt.” He did briefly: If someone couldn’t afford an education, Charlie said, he “shouldn’t have gone to college.” When Charlie posited that a man who wanted to become a stay-at-home dad was “probably gay,” Erika stepped in to recall her time with her own stay-at-home dad as “really sweet and really special.” When Charlie declared that motherhood comes so naturally to women that they “make very good mothers with almost no, like, training,” Erika countered that women need to want to become mothers first. Or else “they’re going to stick their kid in front of Cocomelon.”

A former Miss Arizona USA who established her own nonprofit as a teenager, Erika was a natural public speaker—one of the reasons, Charlie joked, he married her. During last year’s annual Turning Point event AmericaFest, Charlie looked to Erika to answer the question of how the conservative movement could “win back young women” and sell them on “this idea of traditional practices and roles.” He acknowledged his wife, who was wearing a teal turtleneck dress and silver heels: “Erika is the young-woman-outreach part of this.”

Erika’s public role shifted dramatically and tragically on September 10 when her husband was assassinated while speaking to college students in Utah. Just two days later, Erika assumed a new mantle at Turning Point USA, the nonprofit Charlie founded in 2012. From a lectern set up beside the chair where her husband had hosted his podcast—and appeared on hers—she vowed, “The movement my husband built will not die. It won’t. I refuse to let that happen.” Then on Wednesday, Erika was officially named the new CEO and chair of the board of Turning Point USA. “This is what he wanted in the event of his death,” the organization said in the announcement on X. The woman who preached about subservience to her husband has become his organization’s new leader.

Emerging from her husband’s shadow, Erika is poised to become a more visible face of the anti-feminism movement alongside the likes of Phyllis Schlafly, Alex Clark, Candace Owens, and Riley Gaines—the last three of whom have been or currently are affiliated with Turning Point USA. During a recent YouTube tribute to her over 5 million subscribers, Owens recalled her days working alongside Charlie, Charlie’s work rule (“Never say no to Fox News”), and her hand in plotting Charlie’s marriage proposal to Erika. The key, she joked, was convincing Erika that Kirk was a “much better” surname than the one she had been born with: Frantzve. In a screenshot Owens shared of their text exchange, Charlie joked that Erika’s surname sounded like he was “sneezing,” and forecasted that they were going to be “the power couple of the century.” Owens joked, “We broke Erika down.”

Before entering the conservative-politics thunderdome by marrying Charlie in 2021, Erika was already a public figure—albeit on a smaller scale. After growing up a “tomboy” in a tight-knit Catholic family, she won the 2012 Miss Arizona USA title—earning her local press coverage and the opportunity to talk about her philanthropy. “She catches your eye with her stunning looks, then captures your heart with her warmth and character,” the pageant’s then executive producer Britt Boyse gushed to Arizona Foothills Magazine. Erika’s pageant career ended soon after, following her unsuccessful run at the 2012 Miss USA—a pageant in the Miss Universe Organization that was at that point co-owned by Donald Trump, according to The New Yorker.

Her next public appearance came in 2019, when she appeared on Bravo—as a religious love interest of the Summer House character, Jordan Verroi. (Bravo’s website describes him as “a Southern gentleman,” a model, and the founder of an app.) During her brief screen time, on a date with him, she ordered a Chardonnay, smiled through an awkward string of his questions, and then shot down his romantic advances by telling him she just wanted “to be friends.” It was a short but savage cameo—a contrast to the crossed-leg, politician’s-wife performances she gave at conservative rallies. In a 2019 Instagram post, Erika said she had been offered a gig on the show as well as “various TV show opportunities,” but that she passed on these entertainment career options in pursuit of her master’s degree at the Christian Liberty University.

By that point, she had already found love behind the scenes with Charlie, who introduced himself to her at the Turning Point office and DM’d her on Instagram in 2018. During their first dinner, at a Bill’s Bar & Burgers in Manhattan, Erika thought she was interviewing for a job. But 15 minutes into the sit-down, Charlie realized he could not hire her because he wanted to date her. In the days after Charlie’s death, Erika shared a video of her late husband describing their meet-cute to their three-year-old daughter at the same restaurant. (They also share a one-year-old son.)

“Then I realized that Mama was beautiful and smart and elegant and Christlike, so I said, ‘Forget this job interview, I want to date you,’” Charlie said. Erika captioned it, “My favorite love story.” Brittany Hugoboom, the conservative cofounder of Evie magazine, shared the meet-cute on her X profile: “They were soul mates.”

By the end of 2018, Erika launched her Proclaim Christian streetwear brand—which now sells baby blankets, adult clothing, luggage tags, leather bookmarks, engraved straws, beanies, and socks. Charlie appeared alongside his wife in the marketing photos for some of the merchandise—as well as the promotional art for her podcast—a blurring of their personal and professional lives that was present from the start. Turning Point USA not only backed Trump during his 2020 and 2024 elections; it also sponsored their 2021 wedding reception, according to the AP.

In the days since Kirk’s assassination, the Trump administration has treated him like a national hero—with Vice President JD Vance, his wife, Usha, and Air Force Two deployed to escort the casket to Arizona. Erika, mourning in all black and sunglasses, was photographed clutching the second lady’s hand as she exited the plane.

The visual called to mind a black-and-white photo of Jackie Kennedy after her husband’s 1963 assassination. In shock, with blood on her pink-and-black skirt suit, she clutched the hand of her brother-in-law Robert Kennedy as she watched her husband’s casket being removed from Air Force One. In the days afterward, Jackie Kennedy meticulously planned her husband’s state funeral, drawing on historic symbolism and imagery to begin shaping her husband’s legacy behind the scenes. This immediate period following Kennedy’s death is when the late president’s widow invented the shimmering fairy tale of Camelot.

But this is the social media age, and Erika, a MAGA-first wife turned widow, has grieved on the public platform. She posted a 12-slide Instagram carousel depicting her sitting over her husband’s casket, kissing Charlie’s lifeless hands, Charlie’s casket being transported, and Usha comforting her. “I have no idea what any of this means,” Erika wrote alongside the haunting images and videos. “But baby I know you do and so does our Lord.”

And Erika’s efforts to shape her husband’s legacy thus far have not been as subtle: Speaking last Friday, she said, “Now and for all eternity, he will stand at his savior’s side, wearing the glorious crown of a martyr.” In that address, she served her husband after death as she had during life. “She doesn’t make it about her,” commended a social media user reposted on X by Hugoboom. “It’s all about HIS name and HIS legacy.” The Turning Point USA statement announcing Erika as her husband’s successor made it clear she would be continuing his mission: “We will not surrender or kneel before evil,” board members said. “We will carry on.”