Erika Kirk calls on conservatives to be ‘happy warriors’ against trans people and Muslims

Since taking over as CEO of Turning Point USA, Erika Kirk has often presented a softer image of conservatives than her late husband, Charlie Kirk, did. But her rhetoric took a dark turn at the end of her speech last weekend at the organization’s Chapter Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C.

There, she presented her organization’s Christian nationalist agenda as a fight against evil and included transgender people among those she said must be confronted. She invoked the memory of Charlie Kirk, who was shot and killed during a speaking event at a Utah college last year, while identifying the movement’s “enemies” in stark terms.

“Every day when you make the choice to fight again, not just for my husband, but for yourself and for your family, you are standing up against evil and declaring to the heavens on high that again, this world will never break you and that you are allowing the Holy Spirit to work through you in a way that will just make the enemy cower,” Erika Kirk said.

“So, I don’t care if it's a trans, if it's a gender-confused person, if it's a Muslim, if it's whoever else that's standing in front of you, that's spitting on you, that's cussing at you, that's throwing your buttons everywhere, I don't care. You are what? You are what Charlie always said. You are what? You are a happy warrior.”

Charlie and Erika Kirk were married for four years before he was shot and killed at Utah Valley University at age 31. Before his death, Charlie Kirk amassed a long record of hateful rhetoric targeting LGBTQ+ people and racial and ethnic minorities. He once said society should deal with transgender people “the way we used to take care of things in the 1950s and 60s.”

She repeatedly invoked Charlie Kirk’s memory, saying he was used by God to deliver a message to the world.

The latter part of Erika Kirk’s speech went viral online after the Threads account @brittainforsenate shared it with the commentary “It's not the real TPUSA until the bigotry comes out.” Her full remarks were posted online on July 12.

The full speech showed that Kirk had leaned into catastrophic rhetoric from the beginning while addressing leaders of Turning Point USA chapters on school campuses across the country.

“We are on enemy-occupied territory. And the devil would love nothing more than to be in the middle of your head, to dictate your fear, to dictate whether or not you continue forward having a chapter, to dictate if you're scared.”