Erika Kirk addressed political violence and rising antisemitism during an emotional town hall discussion on CBS with host Bari Weiss on Saturday night.
The tearful widow of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was questioned by Bob Milgrim, whose daughter Sarah, was fatally shot outside the Washington, DC Jewish Museum alongside her boyfriend Yaron Lischinsky.
He asked Kirk if she would speak out against antisemitism on the right, including Holocaust denial.
“Yes, sir, first of all, I’m so sorry,” Kirk said, breaking down into tears. “You and I are a part of a very small club. Painful. It sucks, doesn’t it?”
CBS
She added that her late husband, who was shot dead earlier this year during a college talk, “always would say very clearly, Jew hate is brain rot.”
“The only way to combat evil, just like Charlie did, is with dialogue and not being afraid to do it.”
She was later introduced to Hunter Kozak, a Utah Valley University student who was the last person to speak with the conservative influencer before he was shot and killed at an outdoor public speaking engagement by alleged gunman Tyler Robinson.
Kozak praised Erika Kirk’s calls for unity but pressed her on political rhetoric, asking her whether she would “condemn” statements by Donald Trump calling for Democratic politicians to be hanged.
“I will never agree with political violence,” Kirk responded. “My husband is a victim of it. I’m a victim of it.”
The tearful widow and Turning Point USA CEO urged “parents to step up,” and limit their children’s screen time to shield them from harmful rhetoric and conspiracy theories.
“Do you want your kid to be a thought leader, or an assassin?” she posed to viewers.
Kirk earlier blasted anyone who justified her husband’s murder as “sick” and defended him from claims that he ever incited political violence.
“He’s a human being. You think he deserved that? Tell that to my 3-year-old daughter,” an emotional Kirk said of Charlie’s murder.
“You want to watch in high-res the video of my husband being murdered, and laugh, and say he deserves it? There’s something very sick in your soul, and I’m praying that God saves you,” she added.
Charlie Kirk, a conservative influencer known for hosting events on college campuses where he dared students to open-air debates, should not “be deteriorated” to out-of-context clips, Erika added.
Weiss, who is CBS News’ new Editor-in-Chief, confronted the widow with quotes from her late husband, such as where Kirk said that some gun deaths are “worth it” to protect the Second Amendment.
Erika encouraged people to listen to the whole statement, which she said had a very different context than the one implied by many people who repeat that partial quote.
“My husband is not to be deteriorated to two sentences … He’s not. He is a thought leader, and he was brilliant of a man. So that’s fine if you want to take words out of his mouth or out of context without the whole thing in perspective, but that’s the problem,” she said.
