Ben Shapiro began by recalling his very first meeting with Kirk more than a decade ago. “Charlie didn’t change from the time that I knew him at 18 years old. He was just a bundle of energy, which never stopped. Legitimately, endless levels of energy,” Shapiro said.
That first encounter took place at the Breakers in Palm Beach, when Kirk was still launching Turning Point USA. He approached and called him "Mr. Shapiro," he said. "He was 18. And I turned to Jeremy Boring and said, that guy’s going to be the head of the RNC. There’s no doubt,” Shapiro recounted.
While Kirk became known as a formidable debater and broadcaster, Shapiro said his true gift lay in something deeper. “Charlie was always an unbelievably great coalition builder. He was able to bring together people who can disagree on an enormous number of things and still point their ships in the same direction,” he explained.
“Every synagogue that I know of did a tribute to Charlie Kirk over the weekend, like on Shabbat, they stopped the services to do tributes to Charlie, which is an amazing testimony to who Charlie was,” Shapiro said.
Shapiro said that Kirk’s skills were not simply innate, but cultivated over years of determination. “Charlie was not a naturally charismatic speaker. That is an unbelievable skill, to be able to actually better yourself in all of these ways and get better every day at doing them. By the time this horrifying act of evil happened, he was just the best there was at it,” he said.
The enormity of Kirk’s accomplishments struck Shapiro even more in light of his age. “The fact that Charlie was 31 years old and had accomplished all of these things… When Matt says irreplaceable—utterly irreplaceable—I mean, just completely irreplaceable,” Shapiro said. “Everybody is going to have to do their part because when a giant drops the load, it’s got to be a bunch of normies who pick it up.”
What connected Kirk so strongly to ordinary people, Shapiro insisted, was his authenticity. “Charlie wasn’t larger than life. He just was life. He was just so alive and so normal. That’s why people connected to Charlie… He wasn’t a caricature. He wasn’t performative. He was a guy who had to be taught not to wear a baggy suit. He was a guy who, when someone told him he had riz, said, ‘what the hell is riz?’ That’s who Charlie was.”
“He was saying normal, good, innocent things, the kinds of things that you want your children to grow up with. I’m going to show my kids videos of Charlie.”
Matt Walsh echoed those sentiments and described Kirk as “a great man” who embodied faith, patriotism, and family. “Charlie was a great man. He was a patriot. He loved God. He loved his family. All that came through,” Walsh said. “But the word that keeps coming to my mind when I think about Charlie… is impressive. He was an impressive guy.”
Walsh said he knew Kirk was impressive from his work, but meeting him in person brought that impression home. “He did something that I don’t think anyone else can do, certainly in this business, in that he was this compelling, incredible, charismatic speaker, but also this force behind the scenes in organizing. I don’t know anyone who was an A plus talent in both areas. And yet Charlie was.”
The question of who might replace Kirk, Walsh said, is one without an answer. “You kind of hear this conversation now… about who’s going to replace Charlie? Who’s going to be the new Charlie Kirk? And I am truly sorry to say that the answer is nobody. There is no new Charlie Kirk. It’s just like when Rush Limbaugh died… You only get one Rush in your lifetime. You only get one Charlie Kirk. We’re blessed to have Charlie once, and we’re not going to have him again.”
“All the rest of us can try to pick up the legacy and live out his legacy and carry it forward, which we will,” Walsh said. “But we can’t be Charlie, Charlie Kirk.”
