On Friday, Erika Kirk appeared on her late husband’s podcast to cover a broad range of topics with a panel of Turning Point USA senior team members. Their conversation felt like a behind the scenes glimpse of how those closest to Charlie Kirk are dealing with his death, and if this show is any indication, they are deciding to focus on the positive.
Erika Kirk went back to Charlie’s podcast set and sat next to her Husband’s Empty Chair.
— Graham Allen (@GrahamAllen_1) September 26, 2025
I’ll always be praying for her🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼
pic.twitter.com/wKmTkfk3zJ
The mood was hardly celebratory, but if you watched and listened, you could feel the inherent hope and resolve that Charlie’s wife and team now possess to carry on his legacy.
Erika told stories of Charlie, and just about every time she mentioned his name it brought a smile to her face. Anyone who’s ever lost someone they've truly loved can attest that no matter how hard you’re hurting when you think of the loss of that person, the very thought of them might be the one thing that will give you a moment, however brief, of happiness.
She reflected on the growth of what Charlie built through "The Charlie Kirk Show” and smiled as she described how Charlie “loved every single day." She added that her husband saw his team as "an extended form of family."
The reaction on X to such a human moment from the Left and from Groypers was typical and predictable. They felt that Erika doesn’t deserve the right to smile and look for the good in her time of grief. This from an X user named “Asuka Groyper,” who summed up the essence of what Erika’s critics had to say:
A grieving widow who just watched her husband get shot to death in front of her and their children two weeks ago btw. pic.twitter.com/pGzhbyhsPo
— Asuka Groyper 🚬 (@asukagrypr) September 26, 2025
We can be thankful that many ratioed this post and others like it, taking the opportunity to tell stories of how they themselves handled their own grief in their own ways, and giving grace to Erika Kirk as she continues the grieving process and is only beginning the healing process.
My husband died on February 22, 2022. I had to honeschool my grandkids the next day and host a birthday party for one of them. I did all my crying and grief in private. Your comments are vile and serve no purpose but to be harmful to those who must breathe and live the next day.
— Miradel (@lawlady1119) September 26, 2025
Many pointed out that Erika’s work at home and at Turning Point must go on, and that she’s handling a situation that she never wanted with strength and conviction.
Everyone’s grief journey is different. She has a business to run and kids to feed. You’re a soulless NPC. Let the woman grieve in her own way. None of this is easy, and she’s trying her best. You don’t know what she’s going through behind closed doors.
— Liberty Belle (@PatriotRose36) September 26, 2025
I admire her strength and…
Conservative podcaster and influencer Mary Katharine Ham could relate. She went through the loss of her own husband while she was pregnant and with a two-year-old at home. In sharing her own story on X, she reminded those who might question Erika’s reaction that how Erika has handled all of this is in a word, “exceptional.”
Losing someone suddenly and having to do it the public eye is not a thing a lot of people have to do, but I have done it. I was pregnant with a 2-yr-old at home. I spoke twice in 5 days after my husband died and was back on TV within a month. One, I had to work. Two, the story I… https://t.co/5Ph4zjqt9c
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) September 27, 2025
Erika, who is the new CEO and chair of Turning Point USA, said on the podcast that it will continue.
“‘The Charlie Kirk Show’ is not going anywhere. My husband’s voice will live on. The show will go on. We will have rotating hosts, rotating casts, rotating people coming on," she said. "It is going to be continually the north star of the conservative movement, of the voice of the youth, of the voice of the base, and that will not end."
