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I first met Charlie Kirk in a hotel lobby in Los Angeles in 2017. I had emailed him a few times suggesting we should work together, and he mostly brushed me off or ignored the inquiries. I was doing communications work and had heard rumors of this young “up-and-comer” with “boundless energy” who was trying to take back college campuses for conservatives.
After a bout of bad press, he finally replied and asked to meet, and as we shook hands that very first time, the first thing I noticed was just how tall he was! At 6’5″, Charlie naturally towered over nearly everyone, but somehow his presence made him seem even larger.
The next thing I remember were his eyes that seemed to dart all around the room. He managed to talk directly to you while also perceiving everything and everyone else around him simultaneously. He seemed to multitask by nature, a unique skill I would come to marvel at in years to come.
He was also very deliberate. You could tell that Charlie hated wasting time. Without being rude, he wanted to get right into the meat of the discussion, and as we talked, it was impossible not to notice his oversized suit, the dress shoes that seemed more appropriate for a 70-year-old man, or his overall Midwestern disdain for trends.
But something about this 23-year-old kid was just, well, different.
When he spoke, I believed him. In a political world full of talkers who put style above substance, Charlie was the opposite. I could tell he was willing to work his tail off.
By the end of that meeting, we decided to work together, and thus a partnership and a friendship that would grow and expand over the next eight years began right then and there. That’s how Charlie worked. When he made up his mind, he moved.
In 2019, Charlie and I launched The Charlie Kirk Show. It was supposed to be a once-a-week podcast—how could a man as busy as Charlie do more? But Charlie was always exceptional. Once a week morphed during COVID-19 into three, then five, then sometimes 10 episodes a week. Soon, it became a nationally syndicated radio program as well, and in 2022, it became a wildly successful television program.
I have heard Charlie described in many ways over the last year, but one of my favorites comes from Blake Neff, one of our producers and a regular co-host. He describes Charlie as being the highest-agency person he’s ever known, and he’s right. Most people have great intentions, but Charlie possessed one of the rarest of all virtues—follow-through.
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It was almost as if he could manifest things by sheer will.
He wanted to win back young people as an 18-year-old with zero money, zero connections and zero idea what he was doing, so he founded TPUSA. He wanted to be like his hero Rush Limbaugh and do a radio show, so he started The Charlie Kirk Show. He wanted the church to get off the sidelines and fight for America, so he launched TPUSA Faith. He wanted to build a grassroots army of ballot chasers to win elections, so he built Turning Point Action.
But what’s been lost over the last year of well-deserved tributes and memorials to Charlie is just how unlikely his success truly was. The cauldron of suffering Charlie often endured was superhuman.
Charlie built TPUSA without taking a paycheck for the first five years. He lived off paltry speaking stipends and the generosity of friends who let him sleep on their couches. He served as the CEO, CMO, CFO and spokesman of TPUSA for years, spending over 300 days a year on the road, racking up enough frequent-flyer miles to reach top status on all the major airlines.
When Charlie finally raised enough money to hire staff, he nearly missed payroll multiple times, working the phones or traveling through the night to break through with a donor who would support the “pipe dream” of turning young Americans into conservatives. The financial provision, which Charlie attributed to God’s faithfulness, always seemed to come through just in the nick of time.
I was with Charlie when the years of cramped coach flights on his oversized frame finally took their toll on his back. One day, his body suddenly refused to move. I rushed him to the hospital, fearing something life-threatening, but the doctors determined he just needed to rest and stop the incessant travel. He, of course, refused. Although he sought out multiple fixes over the years, his back became a chronic thorn in his side. Many days on campus, he could barely walk up to the debate chair. Many of his most famous speeches were delivered through nearly unbearable pain.
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And, of course, there were the constant attacks. When I started working with Charlie, conservative media was awash in cheap hit pieces and op-eds attacking him and the organization. He was too abrasive, they said, too confrontational, too aggressive. They called him a charlatan, a grifter, and said TPUSA was all smoke and mirrors.
Others would blame Charlie for Trump’s loss in 2020. Young voters went for Biden, and so that must be Charlie Kirk’s fault. Charlie was then thrown in front of the January 6 Committee to testify about an event he didn’t even attend. His COO, Tyler Bowyer, was prosecuted in the ridiculous alternative-electors witch hunt. And when Republican Kari Lake lost the governor’s race in Arizona in 2022 by a little more than 17,000 votes, Charlie was blamed again.
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But each sling and each arrow only served to strengthen Charlie’s resolve to prove them all wrong.
After Lake’s gubernatorial loss, Turning Point Action built out a tech and data platform custom-tailored to reach low-propensity voters. Chase the Vote, as it came to be called, blossomed into one of the most effective conservative voter-outreach machines ever built and transformed Arizona into the best-performing swing state in 2024.
Charlie also started barnstorming college campuses in 2023, 2024 and 2025 to help correct the many misconceptions he knew Gen Z had about politics. He felt he could win hearts and minds on campus if he was simply willing to do the work, and boy, did he ever. His “Prove Me Wrong” events went from drawing dozens of supporters—and dozens of protesters—to drawing hundreds and then many thousands of students at every stop. His debate clips were seen billions of times ahead of 2024 and helped transform an entire generation’s views not only about conservatives, but about America itself. When Donald Trump reclaimed the White House in 2024, he did so thanks in part to record gains with young people.
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What Charlie’s critics never understood about Charlie was how hard he was willing to work to accomplish what many believed was an impossible goal. They never saw the machine he was building brick by brick to turn back a generational tide that was decades in the making. Charlie knew the next crisis, the next challenge and the next hit piece was just around the corner. But he never gave in to despair or “black-pilled” thinking. He was a happy warrior until the end, always willing to work harder than everyone else, to do his part and to honor his word. He did it all with boundless energy, decency, unflinching faith and a belief in the greatness of America.
In short, he was the most remarkable man I’ve ever met.
So, as we mark this most devastating of anniversaries—one year without Charlie Kirk—I hope you take heart in the fact that Charlie’s ultimate success was never guaranteed. Nobody’s is. He fought, scraped and battled for every inch, pouring contempt on every setback.
So let’s do the same. Whatever struggle you’re facing, let’s remember one of Charlie’s favorite declarations: Never surrender.
We miss you, Charlie.
Onward.
