Key Takeaways:
- Friendship with Impact: Vance shared how a simple 2017 message from Kirk grew into a friendship that shaped his Senate run, his vice presidency, and the Trump-Vance administration.
- Champion of Ideas: Kirk was remembered as a leader who loved debate, embraced humility, and lived out American exceptionalism by empowering young conservatives through Turning Point USA.
- Faith and Family First: Vance praised Kirk’s devotion to his wife Erika, their children, and his unwavering Christian faith, saying Kirk now speaks “to the big man directly” on behalf of the country he loved.
In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination at a Turning Point USA event in Utah, Vice President JD Vance delivered a powerful tribute, calling the conservative leader a “true friend” whose influence shaped both his own career and President Donald Trump’s movement.
Vance shared how their friendship began in 2017, when Kirk sent him a message after a television appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show. “That moment of kindness began a friendship that lasted until today,” Vance wrote on X.
The Vice President praised Kirk’s love of ideas, his humility, and his openness to debate—virtues on full display in the moment his life was taken. “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,” Vance said.
Kirk, Vance noted, was essential to his own Senate victory, from strategy to grassroots organizing, and even pushed for Vance’s selection as Trump’s running mate. More than a strategist, Kirk was a man of faith and family. “Charlie genuinely believed in and loved Jesus Christ… He was so proud of Erika and the two kids. He was so happy to be a father.”
Vance closed with words that echoed the faith Kirk lived by: “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… You ran a good race, my friend. We’ve got it from here.”