A while ago, probably in 2017, I appeared on Tucker Carlson's Fox show to talk about God knows what. Afterwards a name I barely knew sent me a DM on twitter and told me I did a great job. It was Charlie Kirk, and that moment of kindness began a friendship that lasted until today.
Charlie was fascinated by ideas and always willing to learn and change his mind. Like me, he was skeptical of Donald Trump in 2016. Like me, he came to see President Trump as the only figure capable of moving American politics away from the globalism that had dominated for our entire lives. When others were right, he learned from them. When he was right--as he usually was--he was generous. With Charlie, the attitude was never, "I told you so." But: "welcome."
Charlie was one of the first people I called when I thought about running for senate in early 2021. I was interested but skeptical there was a pathway. We talked through everything, from the strategy to the fundraising to the grassroots of the movement he knew so well. He introduced me to some of the people who would run my campaign and also to Donald Trump Jr. "Like his dad, he's misunderstood. He's extremely smart, and very much on our wavelength." Don took a call from me because Charlie asked him too.
Long before I ever committed (even in my mind) to running, Charlie had me speak to his donors at a TPUSA event. He walked me around the room and introduced me. He gave me honest feedback on my remarks. He had no reason to do this, no expectation that I'd go anywhere. I was polling, at that point, well below 5 percent. He did it because we were friends, and because he was a good man.
When I became the VP nominee--something Charlie advocated for both in public and private--Charlie was there for me. I was so glad to be part of the president's team, but candidly surprised by the effect it had on our family. Our kids, especially our oldest, struggled with the attention and the constant presence of the protective detail. I felt this acute sense of guilt, that I had conscripted my kids into this life without getting their permission. And Charlie was constantly calling and texting, checking on our family and offering guidance and prayers. Some of our most successful events were organized not by the campaign, but by TPUSA. He wasn't just a thinker, he was a doer, turning big ideas into bigger events with thousands of activists. And after every event, he would give me a big hug, tell me he was praying for me, and ask me what he could do. "You focus on Wisconsin," he'd tell me. "Arizona is in the bag." And it was.
Charlie genuinely believed in and loved Jesus Christ. He had a profound faith. We used to argue about Catholicism and Protestantism and who was right about minor doctrinal questions. Because he loved God, he wanted to understand him.
Someone else pointed out that Charlie died doing what he loved: discussing ideas. He would go into these hostile crowds and answer their questions. If it was a friendly crowd, and a progressive asked a question to jeers from the audience, he'd encourage his fans to calm down and let everyone speak. He exemplified a foundational virtue of our Republic: the willingness to speak openly and debate ideas.
Charlie had an uncanny ability to know when to push the envelope and when to be more conventional. I've seen people attack him for years for being wrong on this or that issue publicly, never realizing that privately he was working to broaden the scope of acceptable debate.
He was a great family man. I was talking to President Trump in the Oval Office today, and he said, "I know he was a very good friend of yours." I nodded silently, and President Trump observed that Charlie really loved his family. The president was right. Charlie was so proud of Erika and the two kids. He was so happy to be a father. And he felt such gratitude for having found a woman of God with whom he could build a family.
Charlie Kirk was a true friend. The kind of guy you could say something to and know it would always stay with him. I am on more than a few group chats with Charlie and people he introduced me to over the years. We celebrate weddings and babies, bust each other's chops, and mourn the loss of loved ones. We talk about politics and policy and sports and life. These group chats include people at the very highest level of our government. They trusted him, loved him, and knew he'd always have their backs. And because he was a true friend ,you could instinctively trust the people Charlie introduced you to. So much of the success we've had in this administration traces directly to Charlie's ability to organize and convene. He didn't just help us win in 2024, he helped us staff the entire government.
I was in a meeting in the West Wing when those group chats started lighting up with people telling Charlie they were praying for him. And that's how I learned the news that my friend had been shot. I prayed a lot over the next hour, as first good news and then bad trickled in.
God didn't answer those prayers, and that's OK. He had other plans. And now that Charlie is in heaven, I'll ask him to talk to big man directly on behalf of his family, his friends, and the country he loved so dearly.
You ran a good race, my friend.
We've got it from here.
Over the next few weeks you’re going to hear Governor Gavin Newsom, Mayor Karen Bass, and the Democratic Party tell you that there’s nothing that could have been done to prevent the fires from destroying Los Angeles.
Those will be lies. They could have prevented them. Governor Newsom cut the funding for preventing forest fires and failed to build sufficient water resources for fighting fires. Mayor Karen Bass cut $17.5 million in funding for the Los Angeles Fire Department and then went to Ghana even though she knew of the risk of catastrophic fires.
It’s true that California, in general, and Los Angeles, in particular, are fiery places. It’s true that the Santa Ana winds made the fires worse.
But Newsom and Bass have known about those hazards for all of their careers and failed to deal with them. Their rank incompetence and lack of leadership are shocking and scandalous.
It’s hard to overstate how badly they screwed up water management. LA firefighters haven’t had the water they needed. Newsom hasn’t built the new water reservoirs that Los Angeles needed. And Newsom even cut the budget for water infrastructure projects last year.
Why is that? Part of the reason is that they were focused on other things. Making the fire department more racially diverse. Climate change. Homelessness.
And the reason they were focused on those things is because those are what the radical Left that controls the Democratic party wanted them to focus on.
Year after year, they do nothing while focusing on things like trans and Trump and climate and ignoring the things that really matter to the people of California.
The Democrats in California aren’t like Democrats in other states. They are radicals. I would know, since when I was a young radical I moved to California for that reason.
As many of us get older, we become more moderate. We become more practical. We understand firefighters and police officers are necessary. We are reminded of the importance of things like safe streets and hard work and good schools.
But more than that, I saw the consequences of radical progressive policies on the environment, homelessness, crime, education, water, and everything else. Violent criminals, in particular, are devouring Los Angeles, Oakland, and the rest of California.
The people who control the Democratic Party in California worship books about Los Angeles, like City of Quartz by the Marxist author Mike Davis. In that book, Davis claims that the problem in Los Angeles is that too much money goes to things like firefighting to protect wealthy neighborhoods.
They did the same thing on crime and homelessness. They failed to provide adequate funding to the police. They weakened the laws that allowed for burglaries and robberies. They subsidized homelessness, attracting homeless people from around the United States to camp illegally and start fires.
Over half of the fires in places like Los Angeles and Oakland are caused by the homeless committing arson, often out of some petty revenge.
We don’t know what started all of the fires, but at least one started within the housing subdivision. Others may have started in the interface between housing and wildlands. Or it could have been started by the homeless.
Whatever the case, California and LA didn’t invest enough in preventing fires because they were distracted by radical Left causes.
When Rick Caruso ran for Mayor against Karen Bass, he called for increasing the fire department’s budget.
A big part of the reason he lost is simply because he was white. I watched focus groups in 2022 and the most racist people were white liberals in Los Angeles. When they discussed the mayoral race, the white people overwhelmingly said they couldn’t vote for a white man and had to vote for a black woman because she was black.
The Latino men and women in separate focus groups were much less racist. They wanted to know about their policies.
It was the radical Left that invented the racist idea that white people alive today should feel guilty about things white people did in the past. Racist white guilt led people in Los Angeles and California to vote against a guy who would have prevented those fires.
And so, over the next few weeks, when you hear Governor Gavin Newsom, Mayor Karen Bass, and the Democratic Party tell you that there’s nothing they could have done to prevent the fires from destroying Los Angeles, don’t believe them.
It’s time for California to grow up and move beyond the juvenile Leftism that has destroyed the state and destroyed Los Angeles. We can’t trust our leaders to run anything. It’s not just incompetence. It’s that they really don’t care.
It’s time for Californians to demand new leaders — ones who aren’t beholden to the radicals who control the Democratic Party. .
How the fuck can you say he’s literally Hitler and Democracy is on the line but we wish him a speedy recovery and political violence is never acceptable?
If you have been saying any of that insane shit, then at least have the integrity to admit that this is the logical conclusion of your lies.
My 7 year old daughter said to me... Let’s take a picture to get on the board…. At Petco Park. Haven’t tweeted in years, but the 7 year old is the actual boss. #hungryformore#padres#gopadres@padres