Erika Kirk declined to show up to a scheduled Turning Point USA event on Tuesday because of ‘threats’, according to Vice President JD Vance.
The interview with Vance at the University of Georgia was part of the nonprofit organization’s tour to excite young conservative voters ahead of the midterm elections.
Erika would have been on stage with Vance, but Turning Point USA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet took her place.
‘I’m going to address it right at the front, Mr. Vice President, I’m on stage here instead of our friend Erika Kirk because unfortunately she has received some very serious threats in her direction,’ Kolvet said. ‘It’s a terrible reflection on the state of reality and the state of the country.’
Vance said Erika consulted with him ahead of time about these threats. Ultimately, she decided to miss the rally.
‘I love Erika, and I know that she did get some threats,’ Vance said on stage. ‘About two hours ago… I was a little worried that we were going to have to cancel the event because Erika was not going to come, and she was very worried about it.’
After Vance consulted with the Secret Service, he decided to go on with the event without Erika.
No further information about the threats have been released. The Daily Mail approached the White House for comment.
On September 10, Erika’s husband, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated at Utah Valley University while conversing with students. She succeeded her husband as the CEO of Turning Point USA shortly after his death.
For many on the right, Erika has become a figure to rally around because of the tragic and brutally public way her husband died. Critics, however, have nitpicked various appearances of hers, claiming that she grieves in a performative manner.
Candace Owens, a frequent critic of Erika, questioned her motives for skipping the event, suggesting it was ‘PR horses***.’
Vance addressed some of what has been said about Erika’s public persona while being interviewed by Andrew Kolvet, a Turning Point USA spokesperson.
‘I was holding her hand, my wife was hugging her while we loaded Charlie’s body onto Air Force Two and said the Lord’s Prayer,’ he said. ‘The people telling you that Erika wasn’t grieving her husband are full of s***.’
He didn’t talk about more specific criticisms from Owens and others that Erika is hungry for fame and tone deaf, pointing to things like Charlie Kirk’s memorial service, which at times sounded like a political rally and featured pyrotechnics on stage.
Owens has pushed debunked conspiracy theories such as claiming that Erika removed her wedding picture from her set, suggesting she did so out of malice.
A Turning Point USA spokesperson told Newsweek at the time that ‘Erika moved it to a lower shelf when her daughter asked to see it so she could hold and look at the photo. It’s still on the studio shelf, just lower down where her daughter can look at it whenever she’s in there with her mom.’
Owens also said that Turning Point USA’s alternate halftime show for the Super Bowl faked the amount of views it got to make it appear successful in the wake of Bad Bunny’s highly watched performance.
Vance said that everything Erika has done as the new leader of the organization has been with the aim of ‘trying to make sure that Charlie’s legacy doesn’t die’.
The conversation at the event on Tuesday eventually moved on to foreign policy, with Vance defending President Donald Trump’s war in Iran.
Later on, while discussing Trump’s recent feud with Pope Leo, a man in the audience began shouting ‘Jesus doesn’t support genocide’, to which Vance agreed with him.
‘I agree. Jesus Christ certainly does not support genocide, whoever yelled that out from the dark… I think that’s pretty easy,’ he said.
Then the man could be heard saying there is a genocide in Gaza and that Israel is ‘killing children’.
Israel has conducted large-scale strikes on the Gaza Strip since Hamas attacked the country on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 Israeli civilians and taking dozens of hostages.
The audience universally booed the heckler almost as soon as he mentioned Gaza.
In response, Vance pointed to the ceasefire he and Trump negotiated in Gaza that took effect on October 10, 2025.
‘If you want, sir, to complain about what happened in Gaza, why don’t you complain about Joe Biden and the last administration. We’re the administration that solved that problem,’ he said.
Despite the ceasefire, Israel has continued to bomb the Gaza Strip for the last six months.
Most recently, the Israel Defense Forces killed an Al Jazeera reporter they claimed was a member of Hamas. The killing has been condemned by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
