Candace Owens covers Tucker Carlson's criticism of Blake Neff, Erika Kirk's school assembly controversy, and a revealing 2019 text thread with Andrew Kolvet
Candace Owens hosts a solo episode of her podcast covering several interconnected stories about Turning Point USA's current leadership and direction.
Summary
A belated but significant addendum to earlier coverage of the UVU shooting incident opens the episode, revealing that a November 2024 ABC News report confirmed it was Turning Point USA's own UVU chapter that declined an ambulance on the event planning form — a fact she says directly contradicts the Kirk family's subsequent wrongful death lawsuit against the university. She then presents a 2019 text thread with Andrew Kolvet in which Erika Kirk allegedly forwarded content from a 4chan-style forum describing a coordinated plan to manufacture a public feud between Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens — the exact narrative Andrew Kolvet is now promoting publicly in 2025. A live Twitter exchange with Kolvet is documented over Erika Kirk's appearance at Nampa Christian School in Idaho, where students were required to attend a mandatory assembly featuring her, with parents given little notice and told neither the school nor TPUSA would publicize the event. She plays audio of Charlie Kirk's own words describing his vision for Club America as a grassroots, opt-in student movement — arguing that mandatory school assemblies are a direct inversion of that vision. Finally, the episode covers Tucker Carlson's public rebuke of Blake Neff, his former employee whom Carlson helped place at TPUSA, after Neff told Politico he has considered whether conservatives may need to "make their peace with censorship."
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Opening remarks and episode overview
Candace Owens: Happy Thursday, everyone. I'm sorry we are running a little bit late today — just a lot going on. First and foremost, I'm very pregnant, so I'm just feeling chubby. Shout out to all the chubby people who are tired today as well.
I also got into a Twitter spat with Andrew Kolvet back and forth. I finally got him to concede my point that he was, as usual, lying by severe omission about a quote-unquote secret event that Erika had at a middle and high school today in Idaho. I'm going to walk you through that. We're going to address them doing all of these events across high schools in America and why I believe it is clearly not what Charlie's vision was for Club America. I'm actually going to let you guys hear Charlie in his own words — what an idea. They don't seem to do that very often.
Beyond that, I found a crazy text thread between me and Andrew Kolvet from 2019, and it genuinely feels like another piece of the puzzle regarding him and Erika Kirk and their intentions. I'm going to let you guys be the judge. Tell me what you think. And at long last, Tucker Carlson calls out his perfidious former employee Blake Neff and his beyond slimy attempt to hijack Charlie's true voice. Welcome back to Candace.
Addendum: The UVU ambulance decision and the ABC News report
Candace Owens: Okay, there really is a lot going on today. There's a lot to unpack. I hope we get to everything — it might just have to be a long episode.
First, I do want to address something as an addendum to yesterday's episode. Truly, I don't know how I missed this article from last year. It must have been a very big deal online. I probably missed it because it was during the exact week that I received information regarding a threat on my life from the Frantzve family. But there was a story that I genuinely didn't see, and it goes a very long way in terms of answering why there was no ambulance on standby at the UVU event — something that I was completely miffed by in September and October when I began covering the story.
The answer, as you very well may know, is because Turning Point USA's UVU chapter declined it. That's the answer. On the actual form request with the school, they checked "No" to needing an ambulance. Now, I'm sure there are a lot of you who knew that, but in case there are people like me who slept through these articles in November, I just want to make sure I also assert it on my show. It's unacceptable that I missed this, to be honest with you, but better late than never.
ABC News released a very detailed report on November 18th regarding how the event came together. The headline is: "Planned: estimated 600 people would come to the event where Charlie Kirk was shot. Over 3,000 showed up." We learned in this article why there wasn't any ambulance on standby — that's the big thing.
The TPUSA club chapter at UVU filled out a form in mid-July — to be precise, on July 18th — to host this event. They had first selected that there would be a maximum of 200 people in attendance. And by the way, that was a pretty reasonable estimate despite what they are now claiming in that recent filing. It actually turns out that the last time Charlie Kirk had been to Utah was in April of 2024, at the University of Utah, and they had 200 people show up — that's according to ABC News. They then adjusted that amount from 200 up to 600 people max a few weeks later.
I find it interesting that ABC doesn't want to get specific about what "a few weeks later" means. Because to be clear, the event form was filled out in mid-July. A few weeks later would mean you were just coming up upon the event altogether. And yet, remarkably, 3,000 people showed up for this event, which was barely advertised. I noted right away it was a crowd of adults. This did not look to me like a typical Turning Point USA event. I have actually done Utah Valley University with Charlie, so I'm speaking from my own experience. We had a majority student crowd. Everything was completely different.
The article then quotes Chief Jeff Long, who in my view is being completely victimized by Turning Point USA's PR machine. They're looking for somebody to pin this on. He's being wrongfully called out, sinfully misrepresented by Turning Point's vicious PR team. In fact, it'd be interesting to see whether or not he has a lawsuit on his hands.
The article reads: "When officials at Utah Valley University approved the plans for Charlie Kirk's appearance at the school on September 10th as part of his American Comeback Tour, they expected roughly 600 people would be there, according to newly released plans."
Jeff Long says: "We had probably over 3,000 people who were in attendance," noting that they had six officers working at the event and Kirk had his own security team.
But here's where it gets really interesting. In a statement to ABC News, a Turning Point USA official said: "On an online form submitted in early July, a TPUSA UVU chapter member selected '200 plus' as the max attendance option available on the school's online form. An estimate of 600 was later provided a few weeks later via an event request form, which was based on a similar event the year prior at the University of Utah. Subsequent conversations between the school and TPUSA's safety team updated that estimate to 1,500 based on more recent Prove Me Wrong campus events."
So that's where they're sort of saying, "Oh, well, there was a conversation that is not documented and there's no paperwork, but there definitely was this 1,500 conversation." They go on to say the events are unticketed and open to the public — talking about the Prove Me Wrong events, including those just walking by — but PD and event coordinators estimated the attendance at approximately 3,000.
While the tour stop was slated to take place in the Sorensen Student Center courtyard and ultimately ended up occurring there, someone with a UVU email address whose name was redacted by the school suggested that the event be held elsewhere on campus. They wrote: "Also, we think that the Fulton Library Quad would be a better space-wise for the group if they get a large crowd in the area," apparently referring to the Fulton Library Quad across campus. The recipient's name was also redacted by UVU.
So this shows that Turning Point USA was essentially totally fine with people walking up. They said it's like the Prove Me Wrong events where people walk up. That is correct — I have done these events with Charlie. You can find videos of Candace and Charlie sitting down with no crowd control, no ticketing. So if that's the style of event they were okay with and communicated to UVU, how can they suddenly pretend like they were woefully unprepared? That's what he does. That's what he's been doing. This is how it's always run. And you guys conceded those points to ABC News in November.
We then learn in this article that the records released by UVU to ABC News indicate that when the event was being planned, in response to the section of the questionnaire that said "Will EMS need to be scheduled for your event?" — the unidentified person who filled out the form wrote: "No."
A Turning Point USA official told ABC News that there were two UVU emergency medical personnel on site but not an ambulance, and here's the reason they offered: "Because TPUSA's safety team staffed up for the event to 12 security on site, up from the usual 8 to 9 — a team comprised of ex-military and law enforcement personnel trained and equipped with a full emergency medical kit and field dressing expertise."
Okay, so to recap: a Turning Point official back in November of last year acknowledged that it was them who declined the ambulance, and they explained that away. The local UVU club chapter did this via a form, and their excuse was that their safety team had 12 security on site, up from the usual eight, and they were remarkably equipped. Now, all of a sudden, in this new filing, they're no longer equipped. The larger TPUSA organization was defending the TPUSA chapter's decision not to have an ambulance on standby. It presents as though it was a collaborative decision.
Fast forward ten months and now the Kirk family lawyer is filing a document claiming that the decision not to have an ambulance on standby was negligent and amounted to a wrongful death. So on the one hand we have "it was our decision," and on the other hand we have "even though we made the decision, you should have stopped us." It feels like textbook narcissistic abuse. I keep saying that with the way Turning Point USA is operating — there's something about it that just feels like textbook narcissistic abuse.
The 2019 text thread: Andrew Kolvet, Erika Kirk, and the manufactured feud narrative
Candace Owens: Which brings me to this crazy text thread that I uncovered between myself and Andrew Kolvet dating back to 2019. The only reason I uncovered this was because I was pulling all of these fun videos of me and Charlie on the road throughout the years, and photos, and I came across this chain and my jaw just hit the floor. It's crazy, especially in retrospect, because it really shows you that Andrew Kolvet is a shameless liar. There's no way you're going to walk away from this chain — no matter what you think, you will recognize that this man is a shameless liar.
Just to give you some presets: this is going to be a communication between me and Andrew from November of 2019. Also recall that recently Andrew has been trying to spin to the public that Charlie and I were not friends since 2018. It was so wild and so crazy. I barely felt the need to defend myself because it's just so out of control, so out of this world. What is real can't be threatened. Anyway, it's crazy that he even says this because Charlie and Erika came to my wedding in August of 2019 — which was a year beyond 2018. Then we hosted the Black Leadership Summit together, me and Charlie, in October of 2019 at the White House. Charlie and I spoke every day. It is so hard for me to go back in text messages because it was just constant communication all the time.
But 2019 is a big year because, interestingly enough, as we know, this is when he begins dating Erika Kirk fully in public. So I find this chain from the end of that year particularly astonishing. For whatever reason in November of 2019, it became very obvious to me and Charlie — who were speaking daily — that people were trying to force either me or him to make a statement about one another. We're like brothers and sisters, right? Almost as though out of nowhere some invisible hand was trying to present to the public like we were in some sort of a fight. And we were totally confused by this. Charlie is texting me — he's the one that's actually being attacked the most day in and day out — and we're texting about it and he's like, "This is coordinated. This feels like it's coming down. I don't know who's behind this."
All of a sudden, in the midst of this, I receive a text message from Andrew Kolvet, who's relatively new to Turning Point USA as the PR person. And I want you to see this because you can immediately feel in this communication that my Spidey senses went up. I'm like, "This is very weird. Why are you communicating with me as opposed to Charlie?" I actually say that explicitly to him, because Charlie and I are brother and sister — we talk every day. Why are you giving me this information from Erika Kirk?
Okay, check this out. So it starts — this is November 12th, 2019 — and Andrew says, "Just making sure you see this," and he forwards a message from "E." What's really weird about that date and time is that we are pretty confident this means he copied it from Telegram. I don't know why the time is written European style — like if this was his preset or his phone's setting — but the date and time are written European style. 12/11/19, it's actually November 12th, 2019. And 13:35 is 1:35 p.m. So that's something I'm just pointing out because it's weird.
The message is from Erika — I didn't know at the time because I didn't have her on Telegram and I didn't know who "E" was. And he writes, or rather he forwards: "We are going to get Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens involved in a public feud. Candace Owens left Turning Point USA because she was the Malcolm X of the organization."
And then I wrote back to Andrew, "Who wrote that?" He writes, "The Grapers on their walls." I said, "What do you mean their walls? Facebook? What are you talking about? Where are the Graper walls?" And then he said, "Like their blogs." I said, "Can you send me a link? I don't know where the Graper blogs are." And I said, "Because oddly today, I felt that they were trying to get me to comment on Charlie." And he said, "Yes, they were." So I say, "Where's that text from? What blog?" And he said, "Not sure. I'll find it." And then I said, "Who sent it to you?" — because I don't know who "E" is, obviously. She's like a new addition to our lives. And he says, "Charlie's girlfriend found it." And then he says, "She found this, too," and he includes another post.
It reads: "We need Grapers to ask Charlie charged questions. We need Grapers to ask Charlie questions about Candace Owens and get him to criticize her. At the same time, we need to fluff Candace Owens's ego while suddenly driving home the fact that she was driven out of Turning Point USA because Kirk feared her. And since she was driven out, Kirk has been working behind the scenes to undermine her. We need to fan these flames until Candace finally" — and then there's a racial slur — "Kirk publicly."
Okay. He's telling me Erika Kirk found this. And I just want to keep this up, guys, because what's amazing is this is the exact narrative that Andrew Kolvet is trying to seed now. What did Andrew say recently? They stopped being friends in 2019 because Charlie feared Candace. Do you guys remember that? This is so crazy to me. This is literally Andrew Kolvet and Erika finding a Graper thread on a Graper blog, and they're telling me it's the Grapers. Fast forward to 2025 and Andrew Kolvet is going to repeat this narrative — basically exactly this narrative — which he was telling me that Erika found on Graper blogs.
So let's keep going. I say, "Where though?" And then he ghosts me. He ghosts me until the next day and says, "I'll try to find it. Not sure." And then he goes quiet until the next day. And I said, "Why not just ask Erika to send you a link? It just seems suspicious. I don't even know where to find a Graper blog. How does Erika know?" Like, who is this woman? And I said, "Also weird that Charlie and Erika wouldn't just send it to me directly. I'm literally talking to Charlie every single day." Now you're telling me "E" is forwarding you European-style text threads and you're telling me she's finding it on Graper blogs? What are you doing on Graper blogs?
And then he says, after not answering me, "Lol, just getting to this. I actually totally get the suspicion. I'll have one of them send you a link." What do you mean "one of them"? Like, who are you, Andrew? So I remain suspicious. And then he sends me this — "Operation Graper X Anonymous" — and then he says, "The blog was linked in this Vox article," and he sends me a Vox article which was just posted on that day that the thread was posted. Remarkable timing.
And I want to be very clear: I am not mentioned in the article at all. And the article does not link to this post. It links to the website where the post is, called something like forpleb.com, but it does not link to a Candace Owens post or a post about Charlie Kirk. It links to a thread that is relevant to the article. So he sends me this, and apparently Erika Kirk found this post. And little did Candace and Charlie know that years later, while Andrew is trying to basically be like, "We don't know who's trying to seed this narrative that you and Charlie are fighting" — and me and Charlie are like, "What the heck is going on, where are all these attacks coming from?" — his girlfriend and Andrew are assuring us that it's the Grapers.
Why does she know how to navigate around this website? How did she find this thread, which actually was not hyperlinked in the article? Beats me. I think we actually have the four-plebs link — this one obscure post saying "attack Candace, attack Charlie." I just want to point out to you guys: when I found this, I was like, this is amazing. It's exactly the narrative that Andrew Kolvet is now going to say was real. And I guess maybe he was the Graper. Maybe Erika was the Graper. I don't know. It's a weird correspondence. Thought I'd share that with you.
Because what they once claimed was made up is now the very narrative that they are attempting to espouse to the public. This, if nothing else, this thread proves that Andrew Kolvet is a routine liar. There was absolutely no falling out between me and Charlie. I couldn't make sense of why someone was suddenly insisting on trying to force that narrative in the media. And look, Charlie, wherever you are — I think it now makes a whole lot of sense to us, actually. And I have to say it: I don't think it was the Grapers.
Erika Kirk's Idaho school assembly and the Twitter exchange with Andrew Kolvet
Candace Owens: Anyway, I had another back-and-forth with Andrew Kolvet today. Over the last 48 hours, I started receiving a little flurry of frustrated emails from parents — parents of students at a school, a Christian school in Idaho. I'm going to riff on this because I want to make sure that these parents are not identified.
Basically, they let me know — which I tweeted before it was made public — that Erika was attending. They described it, which is why I put it in quotation marks, as a "secret event" that they were made aware of in the weekly newsletter. They were told that they were not allowed to attend the event, that essentially this was going to be an assembly for kids. Erika Kirk was going to come in and speak to the students, and the parents did not like this. They felt like this was not cool. They don't like the direction — like many of us — that Turning Point USA is going. And now suddenly you're just going to force the ideas of Turning Point USA onto the students, and they effectively have to attend. You have to attend an assembly. I guess you could technically write a note and have your kid opt out of anything, but still.
Then I got an email this morning from someone — a separate person — whose student was attending the event and actively texting during it as if they were in a hostage situation. The student was texting their mother, and the mother was sharing it with me. The student wrote: "Okay, Big Kirk is here and we can't leave the school and we're getting locked in the gym." And mom writes: "What the f?" Student writes: "Yeah, so if I don't make it out alive, it's been fun." Obviously that's a joke. And then mom writes back: "Can you video it or photo it?"
So these were the messages that a student was sending to their parents while they were in the gym. This does not sound like someone who went willfully to the assembly and really wanted to sign up and hear Erika Kirk speak. And yet, remarkably, after I break the story, they then share this — which is, to me, fundamentally dishonest. It's a lie by severe omission when you're sharing an audience attendance like, "Wow, look at all these kids who showed up to hear Erika speak," and leaving out the part that they were kind of forced to be there because it's a school assembly.
This person writes: "500 plus outstanding high school student attendees at the Turning Point USA Club America tour stop at Nampa Christian School this morning. Mrs. Erika Kirk delivered a powerful message to the generation of America First leaders. The future is bright."
Mind you, the parents who told me about this said in the newsletter they called it "secret" because the high school — and it's middle school and high school, by the way — told them that they're not going to promote it and Turning Point USA is not going to promote it, and essentially, "We're telling you this the week it's happening, so tough luck." And they're like, "Why are they popping up doing these secret events? Why don't we have a say in this? Why aren't people being told with much more time in advance?"
So I comment back to this ridiculous PR presentation on X of "500 plus students" and I said: "The students were forced to attend this event as a school assembly. They could not opt out. The parents were informed that they were not allowed to attend alongside them." That is true. The parents were told. It is insane to me that you have administrations forcing events on underage kids and then trying to spin it to the public and your donors as successful club growth. It's a fundamentally dishonest presentation.
Of course, Andrew Kolvet got in the comments and basically called me a liar and said that it was Charlie's vision for Club America to have Club America chapters. We're going to get to that in a second.
I then wrote back: "Hey Andrew, Charlie's vision never included forcing his ideas on students — ever. He wanted to expand TPUSA organically. He wanted people to sign up for his events and clubs willfully. He believed in free markets. He did not believe in forcing young kids to sit through a mandated assembly that they didn't want to attend so that you could lie to donors about attendance numbers. Club America was envisioned by Charlie as a grassroots movement from willful students. Whatever the hell Erika is doing is clearly not that."
And I do want to emphasize that, because this feels like a complete inversion of reality. The entire reason that Charlie wanted to go from college campus to college campus and espouse conservative ideas and get people to sign up for the club was because conservatives felt that liberals were forcing their ideas — that liberals were using administrative efforts like, "Oh, it's Pride Month, so everyone's going to have to go to the assembly and learn about transgenderism." This was the big thrust from the conservative movement back in 2015 and 2016 when we were saying, "Enough is enough. Stop forcing ideologies on kids." And now we have them doing effectively what we were fighting. That's what this feels like to me.
Anyway, Andrew replies and he says: "Wrong again. Students were free to opt out. Three students did. So over 500 chose to attend. Nothing was forced. What else you got?"
Okay. So then I realized he's doing a thing where they're going to win on a technicality — three kids opted out. I concede: you are always able to opt out of a high school assembly. Mom can write you a note. Dad can write you a note. You can sit in a math class by yourself. He's obviously missing the forest for the trees.
So I wrote back: "They did not choose to attend an event that took place in the middle of their regular school day. It was planned for them by the school. Parents were informed of this event in the weekly newsletter and were told that neither Turning Point USA nor the school would be posting about it across their socials — hence why parents emailed me their upset. Are you suggesting that students willfully signed up for this event? If so, where and how? And please be specific."
Now I've got him cornered. "Please be specific" is a cornering. Andrew writes back essentially going to be like, "You're the reason we didn't market it." He writes: "Yeah, we don't market the event publicly for security reasons. Thanks for all your help on that, by the way."
I'm sorry. Why are they able to blame everybody but themselves for lapses in security? Like, was I at UVU that day? Was I supposed to be providing protection to Charlie Kirk? I just feel like it's kind of a stretch to be like I'm somehow the reason that they can't go speak at high schools. I've never said, "Go and yell and scream and disrupt." Never, actually, have I ever done that.
Anyway, he says the reason they don't market is to make sure kids have a safe environment. "But thanks for admitting the event was not secret. Parents were informed. They had the option to opt out and three of them did."
I said: "You didn't answer my question. Did the students sign up to attend this event? Yes or no? I am aware that technically you can quote-unquote opt out of pretty much anything in high school, but did these students opt in, Andrew, or did the administration organize this as part of their regular school day? It's a very easy yes or no question. Did they opt in, Andrew?"
And what does he come back with? Concession. Now he's like: "Now you're gaslighting me about assemblies in high school. Did you actually never attend a school assembly in high school? These are distinct from our regular chapter meetings. I can't believe I have to explain the basics to you."
Okay, so it wasn't a chapter meeting and they didn't opt in. Andrew, thank you. I'm glad we got there. You could just say that I was right and you tried to win this on a technicality. But the point is that they were just a part of their day, which means that you guys are doing deals with the administration to have Erika speak. And that is not Charlie's vision. That has never been his vision. It's never been his vision to force this upon people and to play the power politics that you guys are constantly playing.
I bet if I looked up the school, I could find some thread of a very wealthy donor to the school who they then made a phone call to and got Erika in through the door. Charlie's vision was for it to be grassroots — for somebody to start a club, an after-school club, something that would rival the debate club, and then it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and becomes a staple across college campuses. Willfully. They sign up because they go, "Wow." Just like you did with Turning Point USA across college campuses. People want to be a part of it. They want to get involved. They want to host people to speak. And when they host people to speak, people sign up to go hear those people speak. Even if they don't like them, they're being introduced to different ideas.
But I've never done an event with Charlie where they were forced to listen to us. In fact, it's the opposite. I actually mock kids who sign up for tickets to show up and then pretend that they were oppressed. Like that one clip — the girl showed up and asked me something like, "What do you think about people who feel threatened by your general presence here?" And I said, "Life's tough. Get a helmet. Back of the line. I can't be your mommy." I said, "Why are you here? This is an after-school event that was put on. You are not required to be here. Why are you wasting your time standing in line extracurricular to say that you feel oppressed? You're not required to be here." And there's freedom in that. You can make fun of these kids for that because you're like, "Why are you wasting your time if no one's asking you and you don't have to do this? If you truly are oppressed, just go home."
Charlie Kirk's own words on Club America's grassroots vision
Candace Owens: So I wanted to show you guys — because nothing has been more silenced than Charlie Kirk's voice, especially at the helm of the new TPUSA 2.0 — I wanted you guys to hear Charlie's vision in his own words for what he wanted the high school clubs to be. This is taken from what really might be his final presentation on what he wanted for Turning Point USA. It's a very long presentation, but this is the portion given in front of Aspen donors. Here's what he said about Club America.
Charlie Kirk: High school program is now called Club America. We just hired 80 new full-time people last week — just full-time people just in the Club America department. What is their job? What do they do every day? They are sourcing new leads of young high school kids that want to start Club America chapters, go there, meet with the parents, meet with the administration, fill out the paperwork. They're guiding the student through the process to get these chapters organized. What we are trying to do is try to have full occupation where it's not a question of, "Hey, do you have a Club America chapter?" The question should be, "Are you going to your Club America chapter meeting?" That's what success looks like. It's no longer like, "Hey, do you have one in your local school?" It's, "Why aren't you showing up to your local Club America chapter meeting?" Think about it — how many of you that have dealt in local high schools know that there's the DECA club or the debate club? You just kind of know it's built in. We want the Club America chapter to just be a built-in perpetual motion machine that is there for students that love the country, love our founding values, love free markets, and want to talk about it.
Candace Owens: That was his vision. Andrew — like a debate club for kids that love the country, kids that want to get involved, other kids that are sourcing and leading these kids, showing them how they could sign up, start their own debate club, until one day you looked back and it was just a staple at every school. Like the way you look at debate clubs — you know that at your high school you can sign up for debate club. That was his vision. There was no forcing people to listen to his underqualified wife because of powerful connections. That was not mentioned in this vision. So take it or leave it. It's Charlie's own words.
That is what I have always believed and what I still believe. Stop forcing ideas on underage kids. That's it. No. If you want to start a chapter, you want to start a club, you want to do this — great. If you want to then sell your ideas and kids are interested and they want to sign up — great. But this whole idea of mandating ideas, which is what this feels like to me — if you're mandating an idea, it's wrong. It was extremely wrong when the left was doing it, and it's wrong if the right is doing it too. And it does always come from power.
Part of the emails that were sent to me is the parents wondering: "Are we paying for this? Did someone accept a donation for this? Was money exchanged for this? This just seems weird." That was coming from the parents, not me, Andrew Kolvet. If you would like to gaslight them into believing that their kids opted into this and sell it to the public and your donors as something else, you're welcome to do that.
Erika Kirk's August 2025 call with Empress Films
Candace Owens: But before you do, another question — this time for you and Erika — regarding August 28th, right? A couple of weeks before Charlie's passing. I want to speak about that date because there's something that happened that registers to me as a bit odd.
To my knowledge, and having spoken to people with direct knowledge, Andrew Kolvet should not have been doing public relations for Erika Kirk in August of 2025 outside of her involvement with Turning Point USA Faith. If she was coming to speak at an event, I am told that in that capacity they would handle her media. Outside of that, it was not something that they regularly did or did ever. I will say "allegedly," but that is coming from people who worked with Andrew.
Now, I want you to remember who Erika was on August 28th, 2025. She was virtually unknown to the world — as anyone other than Charlie Kirk's devout Christian wife, who attended some of his events to encourage women to get married young and to have tons of children and not to climb the corporate ladder. This was a newer iteration of Erika. It was definitely not Erika Frantzve, but this was Mrs. Kirk, and it was all about Christianity and faith. And she had this Christian-based clothing brand which she started right when she met Charlie, called Proclaim 365 — which, by the way, that deserves an episode in and of itself, because for the life of me I cannot figure out how it functions or if it functions as a profitable business. But I digress.
Curiously, on August 28th, 2025, I learned that Erika had a call with Andrew Kolvet and executives at a company called Empress Films. Now, what is Empress Films? I'm going to take you through it really quickly.
What was the call about? That's what I'd like to know. Why was she on the phone with the company's top brass? I'd like to know that too. Namely, this conference call was with Eben Davidson, who is the company's executive producer. He came out of a long tenure with Paramount Pictures and was running the LA office for Empress Films. Also on the call were two producers — I'm not going to name them — plus the founder of Empress Films, a woman named Emma Cooper.
The company is relatively new, established in 2020. Their backstory is that Emma Cooper was previously the global president of non-scripted television at Pulse Films, where she worked on non-fiction films and series. Following the massive global success of her hit Netflix documentary series entitled The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann — extremely controversial, lots of conspiracy theories that went with that — Emma Cooper created Empress Films, where she was going to chase basically making that the regular beat of the company. Murder mystery. She's done a lot of work with murder mystery stuff in general. And Empress Films was going to be: that's our thing. Murder mystery. I'm going to keep emphasizing that to you. They're a newer company. Murder mystery is their regular beat.
Let me take you through what they had produced leading up to this call with Erika and Andrew. Interestingly enough, in 2021 they launched with the docu-series Ghislaine Maxwell: Epstein's Shadow. I kid you not — you can go and find this on their Instagram. Just scrolling up from "Hi, we're here, we're new." First thing they promote is Ghislaine Maxwell: Epstein's Shadow. It's a documentary that is of course sympathetic to Ghislaine Maxwell — because all she did was sort of inherit Jeffrey Epstein's secrets, or something. Admittedly I did not watch the series, but I did take a look at the reviews, and it received a mixed reaction. Most notably, people were criticizing it for being too soft on Ghislaine. That became this narrative — like she was just the friend of Jeffrey Epstein, kind of painting her as a victim herself, using her upbringing to excuse her behavior. One person even described the documentary as feeling like a media puff piece about Ghislaine Maxwell.
Empress Films then also released The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes. Very controversial death in America. And yes, they of course take the state's position, which is nothing to see here about this death. She was involved with the Kennedy brothers. This is Hollywood. There was a lot going on. But Variety did a review and wrote: "We think we're hearing the beginning of a conspiracy theory, and in a way we are. But Anthony Summers, whose 1985 book Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe is the basis of the documentary, explicitly states that Monroe was not murdered. The result of her tangle of destiny was simply that the Kennedys, who had been tempting fate by carrying on simultaneous affairs with the world's most coveted movie star, were told that they needed to cut ties with her — it had become too risky. And so they did, and it devastated her. Coming after a year of erratic behavior where she'd barely gotten through the shoot of The Misfits, being dumped by the Kennedys sent her into a tailspin. JFK didn't even say anything to her. She was ghosted. She died not long after."
So again, the state's narrative. There's a lot there if you've ever looked into the death of Marilyn Monroe. I certainly would not rule out a murder at all. That's why it stays relevant. And it feels like another state secret that is kind of being justified in a way.
Empress also directed Who Killed Jill Dando? Now, this name is not very familiar to people in America but is very familiar to people in the UK. It was a massive unsolved murder from the '90s of a UK journalist. She was basically shot point blank in broad daylight, and the murder has been at the center of a lot of conspiracy theories since — people alleging that at the time of her murder she was working on a story about former Yugoslavia and what was going on with that war, as well as many people who claim that she was actually investigating a pedophile network at the BBC, which included Jimmy Savile.
They also created a miniseries on Princess Diana entitled Diana: On Her Life, and they are following up with that docu-series with Who Killed Diana?, which was announced in 2024, exploring the conspiracies around her death. And they did Depp vs. Heard — Johnny Depp versus Amber Heard — showing both testimonies side by side, exploring the trial and the online fallout that ensued. Then they did Killing Ground: Gilgo Beach Murders — a bunch of women found on Long Island, a ten-year serial killer, the guy does a deal with the feds, first says he's not guilty and then says he's guilty after doing a deal to submit himself for behavioral analysis. Totally bonkers.
I'm not going to get into it because I'm making a broader point: the focus of this company is murder mystery. And I just would like to know — I'd like to understand — what is the context of this call that Erika and Andrew had? What would they have been working on on August 28th with this company?
I would also like to say that Empress Films is remarkably left-leaning. They are proud feminists. They are pro-LGBTQ. They wear that proudly around the office. Which is fine — you're allowed to start your own company and espouse your own ideas. It just makes it even more of an odd match for Erika Kirk and Andrew Kolvet. In my opinion, it's a very odd match. Why are they on the phone? What is this call about? What documentary were they working on? And how would that have fit into the general picture of Empress Films at this time? That just seems weird to me. I find that little bit to be interesting.
Were they going to do a documentary on Erika's clothing company? A Christian clothing company partnering with this feminist production house? I don't know. It doesn't register to me as correct. Anyway, moving on from that.
Tucker Carlson calls out Blake Neff and the rot at TPUSA
Candace Owens: I'm pretty excited to hear Tucker Carlson finally call out his former employee Blake Neff, because it was so disgusting. Tucker Carlson is the only reason Blake Neff got the job with Charlie Kirk. It is so funny — Blake Neff was not friends with Charlie Kirk. He's a random guy who got fired from his job. Tucker Carlson had a heart and made a phone call to help Blake Neff get this job after he was kind of floating around for years. He was actually working for Stu Peters, and Tucker calls in effectively a favor to get him this job with Charlie Kirk. So this was not Charlie Kirk seeing Candace on the spot and saying, "I met her and I hired her." This is Charlie Kirk actually being loyal to Tucker Carlson, who apparently has a bleeding heart for former employees and wanted to help Blake Neff take the next step in his life after he was involved in this racism scandal for being a total creep online — and now we see he's just a creep in general.
Politico — obviously a DC insider-type publication — tried to do this puff piece on Blake Neff calling him "Charlie Kirk's lieutenant," which is crazy. The headline: "Charlie Kirk's Lieutenant Has Second Thoughts: Blake Neff Helped Make Stars of Charlie Kirk and Tucker Carlson." We are really doing the absolute most with that subtitle. Blake Neff turned Charlie Kirk and Tucker Carlson into stars. He helped make them into stars. Now he's trying to rein in what he unleashed. You can see Blake Neff has the magic touch.
Anyway, we have Tucker Carlson finally hitting at Blake Neff, who was taking swipes at him, lying, saying that Tucker Carlson and Charlie were not friends — when he would not have had his job were Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk not friends. Take a listen to what Tucker had to say regarding this Politico interview.
Tucker Carlson: This is a profile of Blake Neff from Politico. "Neff confessed to grappling, in a roundabout way, with the possibility that his maximalist position on free speech has helped foster the conditions that have allowed rank conspiracism to flourish. 'I've reflected on this often,' he said, sipping a s'mores-flavored cold brew on a leather couch in the studio's green room." So let's just stop right there.
"A maximalist position on free speech." And this is not a Blake Neff quote, to be completely fair — that's the anti-free speech Politico author Ian Ward's kind of clever framing. But it's very common: "maximalist position." Well, there's no maximalist position on free speech any more than there is on pregnancy. You either are for it or you're not. You're either pregnant or you're not. Free speech means acknowledging the inherent right of your fellow citizens, whether or not you like them, to say what they really think. Period. And if what they really think is repugnant to you, and if they have some version of events that you consider a poisonous conspiracy theory, there's not really anything you can do about it. In fact, there's literally nothing you can do about it under our system. And I would also argue under Christian precepts — other than rebut it and offer a competing vision that is more compelling to listeners. That's it. As Charlie Kirk said at the outset of this segment: more speech.
But that's not the conclusion that many on the right are coming to now. Why? Probably because they spend way too much time on social media and they read every attack on themselves and they get more paranoid. In fact, they become kind of a version of what they claim to hate, which is conspiracy nuts. But they get completely overheated. They feel like they're at war. "I'm at war" — never seen war, of course, but they think they're at war. They think they're under attack. And bit by bit, it completely corrodes their decency, but also their sense of proportion. And they wind up abandoning the principles they're there to uphold.
So as they sit day after day underneath a sign that says "Charlie Kirk" on it, they wind up with views like this. And we're going to read this — and we're quoting, this is Blake Neff, the guy on the Charlie Kirk show: "We got what we wanted on speech, and that means we also have to endure a lot of things that were tamped down on before. There are only two potential paths for this: either we have to make our peace with censorship and explain how we're going to do that, or we have to explain how we're going to combat this without censorship. But we've got to confront it."
And that's the point at which you just feel like, well, we're done. "We may have to make our peace with censorship. How would we do that?" It's like saying, "Well, I'm really mad. We may have to make our peace with genocide. We may have to kill — didn't ever think I'd say it, didn't ever think I'd be here — we're going to have to kill them all. Maybe there's another way to do it. But it's possible we have to make our peace with murdering all their kids, just because it's that important, it's that bad. Didn't ever think we'd come to this place, but here we are. So we're going to think about it."
No. You can never make your peace with turning other people into slaves. You can never be the slave master, because slavery is bad for them, but it's even worse for you. It is totally dehumanizing to everyone involved to turn other human beings into something that is less than a human being. And that is exactly what censorship does, each and every time.
Candace Owens: And it's just remarkable that Blake Neff is carrying on Charlie Kirk's legacy — Andrew Kolvet as well. We see how this is their either/or, right? They are either sending out legal letters — they believe now that speech needs to be fought — as opposed to what Charlie's perspective was: the way that you combat speech is with better speech. That's the answer to that question. You think about it often, and you know what? The only way that we defeat speech that we don't like is with better speech, with better ideas, with us being out there vocalizing what we actually believe. It's not an either/or. It's just not an either/or, Blake.
But that is who they are. I want to be clear: that is what Turning Point USA is. They are now electing into these positions influencers who are calling for lawsuits, censorship. They want to walk people into defamation claims, as you guys saw when I did my debate with Andrew Wilson. And they're trying to keep their hands clean. But they're obviously platforming these individuals on Charlie Kirk's show — individuals Charlie Kirk would have never hosted. He would have been disgusted with these people. They are so gutter and so trash. And that is what they are turning his namesake into.
Just start your own show, Blake. If you really truly believe that you've got the IT factor — I'm sure your parents told you you do — then start your own show, Blake. Because you may have crashed an organization, crashed a business, crashed what was once a successful show in the space of one year. That might be the only demonstration of talent that you have.
And so yeah, Blake is exactly as Tucker describes him. This is ROT at Turning Point USA, and they're trying to soft-launch these ideas. They are quite literally behaving as what we termed to be the left. The strategies they are employing are the strategies that the left employed in 2015 that we asserted need to be defeated. You're too powerful, right? You're just making phone calls. You'll make this go away. You'll make a person publish a hit piece. You've got money you can spend to have somebody attacked. You'll launch lawsuits to shut people up. That is what Turning Point USA 2.0 is. And it is so far removed from Charlie Kirk's vision. If you do not see that yet, you absolutely must wake up.
Top comments and closing reflections
Candace Owens: Top comments from yesterday's episode. "Spilling the Tea" writes: "Turning Point USA suing UVU for failing Charlie, and then they chose to have his one-year anniversary there." It's top-notch insanity. Yeah, it is. If you believe that you were so failed by the state of Utah, why would you allow any anniversary event to be hosted at that same venue? That doesn't make any sense.
This next user wrote: "Turning Point USA probably canceled their Candace-is-on-leave party when they found out that Baron would be taking over the show." Oh boy. Yeah, it's only going to get worse. I'm sorry. Blake got to cancel the party. They were probably so excited — like, "She's gone for eight weeks, it's going to be so great." And of course they're going to attack her every second of the day as they do whenever she's gone, even for a week.
Koko Rose wrote — and this is regarding the 2022 footage mystery — she wrote: "So there was footage readily available of Tyler Robinson from several years ago in a minor accident, but the footage of him turning himself in was deleted due to their retention policy." That's correct. Remember, Utah news broke that they tried to do a GRAMA request for the cameras outside of Tyler Robinson showing up to the police precinct, and they were told something about it being outside of the bounds of how long they hold on to footage. So that is a remarkable point to bring up, and totally true.
And by the way, I do want to add that we received an update on that. The same two reporters who released that footage of Tyler Robinson from Scripts News were the same two reporters who released the footage of the person who was blamed — Brian Cole Jr. — for dropping off the pipe bombs in DC for January 6th. Another total fed operation. It was a fed operation, January 6th. I hope you guys have woken up to that. Okay, we all were mad at each other. We've got to get over it. You've got to say sorry on both sides. January 6th was a fed operation. And actually now Brian Cole's parents are speaking out. They're going on Tucker Carlson to say that it was a federal operation and that they put this on their son. And what did they do? They immediately released old footage of Brian Cole being pulled over.
It's like they're finding people and intentionally storing information about them — maybe identifying people who are slightly autistic, are involved in certain groups, are highly intelligent — and keeping them in a file in case the feds need to commit a crime and pin it on them. I find that to be remarkable. Absolutely remarkable that it was the same two journalists who got this footage that should not exist either in Washington DC or Virginia or wherever Brian Cole is from, or in Utah, as we demonstrated.
This is the new Turning Point USA, guys. This is a powerful apparatus. It is not the grassroots organization that Charlie Kirk started, and they will partner with anything and do anything. They have proven that. They have a proven track record of that. They don't care. Erika will have access to high schools while you are chasing young women down alleys in front of ICE facilities, and they'll have you on the show as long as you say something bad about Candace. They are demonstrating who they are, and parents are right to be alarmed that these events are happening under just a cloud of secrecy, so to speak. Parents shouldn't be finding out about that in a weekly newsletter with no time to basically react. Students shouldn't be texting their parents saying, "I'm trapped in a gym because Kirk is here."
Comments on today's episode. "Blake Neff reminds me of Gollum in Lord of the Rings where Charlie's microphone is the ring. They're all just gunning for that power. Someone creative needs to mock up an AI short." You are so correct. You know who's got to do it? The guy — what's his handle? — at Forbidden on X. He makes the best AI videos. And yes, it's like they all just wanted the power. All of them. Erika, Andrew Kolvet, Blake Neff — "Oh, it'll all be mine." And that's why they're crashing out and they're angry at us and they're sending all of these goons to attack people who are investigating the Charlie Kirk assassination, which is just wild.
Mandy writes: "Yet again, Andrew Kolvet and Erika Kirk forget their Bible and Jesus's teaching about not forcing people to accept his message. Jesus tells the disciples to shake the dust off their feet. Matthew 10:14, Mark 6:11, and Luke 9:5." Well, you know how they read their Bibles? They read their Bibles how they want the Bibles to be taken by the public. They find the verses about the widow and then say, "Honor the widow." It's a very selfish read of the Bible. Then they command you guys, and say anything else is a cult. If you see evidence with your own eyes, that is just — sorry, not a cult — narcissism. You're seeking secret knowledge. It's narcissism to want to know who killed Charlie Kirk. You don't want to do that. That's forbidden. Do not seek secret knowledge. Trust the science. Trust Alex Clark.
"I'm on team truth. Kenneth Owens happens to be here with all of us."
Tivoli Wy — hope I'm saying that right — writes: "And this, George. This is why we don't delete text messages." Yes. To my husband. This is why we don't delete text messages. He tells me to clean up my digital life. No, I will not clean up my digital life. I keep messages from everybody forever. My digital life is a hot mess. I have nothing to hide. That's also why — like it's been a bad year for Blakes. Bad two years for Blakes, I've got to say. When Blake Lively is like, "Oh, this must be some plot" — girl, have my phone. There's never a plot. I get involved in things that I'm passionate about. And you better bet yourselves that if I was that passionate about Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively, you can only imagine how I feel like it is my mission to expose what happened on September 10th.
Britney Brics writes: "Been thinking about the various tactics that you've opened our minds to, like boiling the frog, MK Ultra, etc. Would love to know your thoughts on programming in and around Charlie, convincing people to turn on him. I love you." I agree with you. I am revisiting my own life and realizing that none of that stuff was by coincidence. Obviously me and Charlie noticed it was happening and we're like, "What? Why are these random attacks happening?" And we just couldn't figure it out. And then we have this outside person at the time, Erika Frantzve, being like, "Oh, it's the Grapers." And Andrew's like, "It's the Grapers making it up."
Well, Andrew, it can't be both. Did Charlie and I stop being friends in 2019? Or did the Grapers make that up? It can't be both. You can't go back on that, man. Or do you maybe have a 4chan account? Do you and Erika have a 4chan account? I want to know. I don't know many women who can work their way around 4chan. I'll tell you that for free. Any faith-based women that know how to work their way around 4chan — or whatever that forpleb's archive is — and she just happens to log on and happens to find this one post dedicated to exactly what Charlie and I are living through that week. It's the Grapers, just one post dedicated to it, and she sends it to Andrew. Why? I didn't know him like that in 2019.