Erika Kirk, the widow of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, described the last time she saw her husband before he was fatally shot during a college event in Utah on Sept. 10, and she explained why she will never watch the video showing the moment he was killed.
She told Watters that on that night, their daughter had slept in the couple’s bed, while her husband slept in his daughter’s room so he could get a good night’s sleep before the event. She said her husband woke up early the next morning, came into their bedroom and their bathroom to collect his wedding ring and necklace, and then left.
“I didn’t get to give him a kiss goodbye,” she said.
She later told the Fox News host that that was one of the reasons she insisted, against the advice of a police officer, to see her husband’s body in the hospital after he had been fatally shot, so she could give him the kiss she hadn’t given him that morning.
That day, Erika Kirk stayed in Phoenix to take care of her mother, who was having a medical issue, and planned to join her husband at another event later in the week.
She said that while she was at the doctor’s office, she had seen a video on her phone showing her husband throwing hats into the audience, before she put the phone down.
Later, Mikey McCoy, TPUSA’s chief of staff, called her and told her that her husband had been shot.
Describing the conversation, she said: “Mikey called me, and I‘ll never forget, him just being like: ’Charlie’s been shot. He’s been shot. Get the kids. Get security. Get the kids, get the kids. He’s been shot.' I sprinted out of her treatment center, just collapsed in the middle of the parking lot. Called our security.”
“He died on the scene,” she said. “I’m so glad he didn’t suffer.”
She is a devout Christian, as was her husband.
“So he literally blinked and probably thought he was raptured, and looked around and was like, ‘Where’s everybody else?’ He blinked, and he was with the Lord,” she said.
Seeing Footage Would Mark Soul ‘Forever’
Footage of the shooting was shared immediately on social media at the time. Erika Kirk said she has not watched it and doesn’t intend to.“There’s certain things you see in your life that you can never unsee,” she said. “There’s certain things you see in your life that mark your soul forever. I don’t want my husband’s public assassination to be something I ever see. I don’t want my kids to ever see that.”
She wiped away her tears several times throughout the interview.
While discussing the tragedy, she talked about the kind of man her husband was and the joy he brought to people’s lives, and she praised what he was trying to accomplish.
“I can’t help but smile when I hear his name or say it. He was the love of my life, still is. Phenomenal father, incredible man, good friend, very loyal,” she said.
Not Living in Fear
Erika Kirk said her husband was aware of the risk that he was taking by speaking in public and that she had suggested he wear a bulletproof vest.“He would nod to that and be like, ‘You know, I’ve looked into it,’ but he‘d always say, ’If they’re going to get me, they’re going to get me.' He wasn’t afraid,” she said.
Erika Kirk said that she is not afraid.
“It’s a fearlessness that’s rooted in the understanding that I will have my day and my time, whenever that is, when the Lord knows that I’ve completed my mission, and I’m not afraid. Charlie wasn’t afraid either,” she said.
“We never lived in fear. If we did, we wouldn’t get anything done. And I can’t help run alongside this mission of Turning Point USA and raise my babies with fear. ... That’s not a life to live for anybody.”
