Candace Owens investigates whether Erika Kirk's viral White House Correspondents' Dinner moment was staged
Candace Owens, Episode 335 of the Candace podcast.
Summary
Thirty-five days after publicly requesting footage of Charlie Kirk allegedly naming his wife Erika Kirk as chairman and CEO of Turning Point USA — footage that has still not been produced — Owens details the results of a $10,000 bounty she placed for information about who recorded and distributed the viral video of Erika Kirk at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. A political operative with specific names has come forward alleging the moment was staged, captured in advance, and deliberately made to go viral by digital media teams. Owens also covers Israel's Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) filings, detailing a propaganda campaign targeting evangelical Christians — including a mobile "October 7th experience" using VR headsets — and connects this to the $10 million campaign by the Israeli lobby to unseat Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie. The episode also covers Jessica Reed Kraus (House Inhabit), an operative working with Andrew Kolvet on PR, whose marriage and personal conduct were exposed in a Daily Mail article following an online attack on Ashley St. Clair. The episode closes with an extended viewer-comments section featuring personal reflections on her friendship with Charlie Kirk, her grief, and her reasons for continuing to question the official narrative around his death.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Opening: 35 Days Without Footage, and Blake Neff's Viewing Habits
Candace Owens: Happy Thursday, everyone. I just want to say at the top here that it has been 35 days — 35 long days — since we publicly and politely, I might add, requested to see the footage of Charlie Kirk naming his wife Erika Kirk as chairman and CEO in the event that anything happens to him. Quote: "I appoint my wife Erika Kirk." No such luck. And that's odd. That's very odd to me.
Considering Blake Neff — who thinks I am, check notes, a maniac brandishing a knife screaming at people on the subway, whatever that means — he's apparently a huge fan of the show. He accidentally revealed how many hours of the show he consumes when he shared a screengrab of his computer. He was trying to diss me. Then people noticed that the screengrab shows you the load bar. He's making fun of me, but then people zoomed in and said, "Hey, that little red bar at the end tells you how much progress he's made through every episode of Candace." So I can say truly that Blake is a friend of the show. What can I say? I make a lot of friends. I am friendly.
The $10,000 Bounty and What We've Learned
About a week ago — a little over a week ago — we put up a bounty for footage or information that would help us better understand how that remarkably timely footage of Erika saying she wanted to go home after the White House Correspondents' Dinner came to be. I just wanted to know. And it looks like we may have the beginning of an answer.
Israel's Propaganda Campaign Targeting Evangelical Christians
Candace Owens: At the top of the show, I just want to tell you guys: Israel is going max on propaganda. Super max on propaganda. We've been talking about it a lot this week. All of these organizations that they're putting together — they're filing FARA for the first time ever. And it's sort of exceptional.
You remember we told you about Show Faith by Works LLC — that's the FARA-registered propaganda arm of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. I was interested, as we were going through their filings, in their stated goal to provide the "October 7th experience." The October 7th experience, coming to a church parking lot near you. And I was like, that doesn't sound very pleasant. Are we going to have people paragliding into parking lots? What exactly is that going to look like?
Gratefully, my producer stumbled upon the details. I hadn't realized that in this FARA filing — which we had just sort of glimpsed through for the relevant details to the episode — they also included an entire detailed accounting of the propaganda that they intend to execute upon Christian minds. It is thorough. And I'm not going to go through it all today, but I really want to encourage Christians to take time to read through that filing. Take your time to process it, especially if you are evangelical, because this is effectively evangelical ultra — they are targeting evangelicals. With the recent news that they will be upping the spend to what is like $750 million, almost a billion dollars, the how is actually really relevant. If that's a lot of money to spend to shape minds, how are you going to do that? And the October 7th experience is one part of the puzzle.
So what is it? Check out this slide that they inserted in the filing. I have to laugh. I am sorry. I am not laughing at October 7th. I am laughing at the October 7th experience as an idea. We have got to get real, people. This is weird. This is beyond weird. We're looking at VR headsets, and they're going to come by — it's mobile, so they can just kind of drive the bus. I want to know who's driving the bus, who's bringing all the stuff. They're going to just set up and give people the October 7th experience. They're going to build this trailer. They're going to use Hollywood set designers. You're going to be able to reserve it. If you'd like, you can have a tent. It tells us there's going to be a TV mounted, wrapped with images of Israel or the Western Wall — so that's part of the experience. There's going to be a call to action using biblical messaging. But the real important part is this VR experience of October 7th.
This is weird. This level of propaganda is weird. I just want you to please, if you are an evangelical, take your time to go through those FARA filings, because they are playing no games with what they want to do. They are targeting churches, and we noticed it early on this show — all year we've been talking about how these pastors are given notes and being paid to say things on stage, attacking people in politics for saying sensible things about Israel.
They're leveling up bot campaigns. You're going to think the comment section on Facebook is real. It's just not. They have completely fake bots that actually mirror real people, and they're trying to make you think that you're alone in your own ideas while they're dropping hundreds of thousands of bots to tell you, "Oh, this person's great. What are you talking about?" Anyway, it's a war for your mind.
The Erika Kirk Viral Video: Was It Staged?
Candace Owens: Switching gears to the main topic of today. Last week we put out a bounty. I was not playing around. I said $10,000 — $10,000 for more information regarding that video of Erika Kirk departing the White House Correspondents' Dinner.
A dinner in which we, the general public, for some odd reason got into trouble. I don't know why we got grounded, but we got grounded immediately. The messaging was that it was our fault that this happened to Erika. Suddenly we got to watch Erika. We didn't do anything. We were at home. Most of us were eating dinner with our family. Suddenly we learn via the internet that Erika is in Washington DC at a press dinner. Before she gets there, she's taking what look like bridal shots or something. That part was weird. Nobody's talking about that enough. That was weird. Here's Erika before the White House Correspondents' Dinner — rational people were wondering, "Hey Erika, why are you inside of sheer curtains? That's a pretty classic bridal shot. What are you doing there? What's happening?" We knew we were probably off to a bad start.
Next thing we know, we're being told there were shots fired. And then there's another video of Erika that comes out, going viral, and she says she wants to go home. We said instantly: yay. Okay, good idea. Not to boast, but that's actually kind of been our idea. "Erika, go home" was the general public's idea for a very long time, and we were being told that was not acceptable. But we were happy to let her take credit for the idea and just get home.
Next thing we know, not only does she steal our idea and say she's going to go home — if that was our idea, sweetie — then we start getting screamed at on the internet. We don't even know what we did wrong. So much was happening. I couldn't keep up. It was just like a blackout rage on X of people screaming at us about Erika.
Graham Allen, of course — resident psycho — wrote: "You can hear Erika Kirk saying 'I just want to GO HOME.' PRAY FOR HER. PRAY FOR HER CHILDREN. HOW MUCH HORROR SHOULD ONE WOMAN have to be exposed to?" Absolutely horrific. Like, who exposed her to this dinner?
Then we had Michaela Peterson, who wrote: "I don't want to share the video of Erika Kirk last night, but that is what PTSD looks like. Heartbreaking. The mockery it triggered just strengthens my faith in God. There are times when seeing the good in the world is more difficult. But you can always see the evil."
Then we had Ian Miles Cheong. We still don't know what he is doing involved at all in American politics. He writes: "All the endless conspiracy theorizing and attacks on Erika Kirk by Candace Owens led to this. It didn't have to be like this. Erika does not deserve this." Like, what? What did I do? I told her to do the opposite of that. I never once said anything about her being inside of sheer curtains. It's crazy.
Then this person, Bible in Context, wrote: "Shots fired at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. President Trump and the First Lady were rushed off stage. This is what happens when propaganda and lies are spread online by people like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson. Why do they want Trump dead?" Again, very confusing, because I specifically remember us telling Erika almost repeatedly to not be the CEO and to go home. And the people who were doing the yelling at us were saying the opposite — they were saying, "Let her stay in the public eye. Let her be the CEO. Let her fulfill Charlie's role." So it was just upside-down world for a second.
Making matters more confusing was the lecture we then eventually had to endure from Erika herself. Her choice of outfit. There were even some portions of the speech that didn't exactly land, like this portion about the wine bottles.
Erika Kirk: "It was time to take our seats and we went into the big ballroom where the dinner was. And one of the first things I noticed when I walked into that room was quite literally the proximity of the opposing outlets to one another. So you have one table here that's Politico and another table here that's Fox and another table here that's WaPo and you're all crammed together elbow to elbow. And to make the night even more of a spectacle, every single ten-person table had ten bottles of wine."
Candace Owens: I was perplexed. Like, what exactly was up with the wine bottle shout-out there? "Even more of a spectacle" — there were ten bottles of wine on every cramped table. What did the wine bottles do wrong? What did we do wrong? Is anybody going to bother to tell us why she was in that curtain taking a bridal shot?
It all felt unfair. I felt like Matilda Wormwood — you know Matilda Wormwood? She was my favorite. Her parents were awful to her and they always yelled at her for no reason. And that is how I felt. I was being yelled at for no reason.
Anyway, I don't like being put into timeout for something that I didn't do. Nobody puts baby in the corner without a valid reason. So I wanted to investigate it. The timing was weird. The shot of her walking out was weird. The instantaneous virality of the video was weird. It didn't feel real. So we put out that $10,000 bounty. We just wanted proof of who recorded it.
And lo and behold, we got a couple of very interesting direct tips. People keen to collect the $10,000. Here's what we learned.
I'm going to say "allegedly" here. I have a sense that this first person is telling the truth for a few reasons. One, this person works in politics. Two, this person reached out almost instantly following our show with a very specific story with very specific names, and they offered to sign a sworn affidavit. Three, this person gave us the name of who recorded the video — and it is a person who appears to have done some work with Turning Point USA in the past. Those are the pros.
Now, on the con side, this person works in politics — not exactly someone I would describe as a fan of mine. So there is a chance he or she is therefore making it up to embarrass me. But at the moment that you are transacting, the moment that you're taking money, it's not a gotcha. It's a crime. You can't say, "I was just kidding and I got $10,000 from you." But you never rule it out. All things are possible, and this is why we vet our tips very seriously.
Anyway, here's what we were told. Allegedly, following the shooting, a political operative — whose name we are going to withhold at this moment until we can confirm it beyond a shadow of a doubt, and we think we will be able to do that imminently — apparently this freelancing operative was positioned in advance with the specific instruction to take that exact video at that exact place at that exact time. The operative was allegedly in communication with digital media teams, and the entire moment was staged, captured, and then intentionally shared amongst those digital media teams and their operatives, whereupon it was made to go viral.
Now, that is of course devastating if it is true.
There's another person who has a video and has sent evidence — it's a still of the video. I believe that is factually a still of the video. We checked that. That is not AI. It is definitively an angle that other people have not seen. But they want me to pay a partial portion before they send the full 30-second video. So that's a gamble. I would say it's a gamble, but it might be one that I'm willing to take. I might be out a couple of thousand dollars, but the reward would be a video of everything to confirm things.
All of this to say: we are going to get our answer. And my every instinct is that the video was staged. I didn't buy that Sara Sidner of CNN, who initially put the video online, recorded it. She stopped short of saying that she recorded it. She said she was there around when Erika walked out, but I felt that she likely had that video sent to her and then she put it online.
So I will ask this question now in advance, before I am turned into public enemy number one — I already am public enemy number one, well, maybe it's Tucker Carlson. If we are able to confirm in the coming days that this entire shot was staged — and I have a suspicion, I have a hunch — what will they say next? How hard are we going to get gaslit?
Well, they could say she didn't know. It was unbeknownst to her. Maybe this was like fast PR. Maybe it was Andrew Kolvet. Maybe Andrew Kolvet was texting someone and said, "Okay, I got to go get a shot. Erika's about to walk out over here." And Erika really had no idea. Someone did it without her knowledge or without her consent. Someone sold her grief. How terrible would that be? Even though we know we had merch sales and hat sales — it felt like that was kind of the whole point of this, selling grief.
I just want to know how far are they realistically going to take it? I look at this situation, I look at everything that's happening, and I don't think any of us doubt — I think we're starting to see what's happening. We are living in a world of make-believe. Everything about that White House Correspondents' shooting made very little sense. Least of all the immediate reaction from the very same people who were lecturing us about Erika for our apparent failure to keep her safe.
They all got together and said the same thing: "This is why Trump needs a ballroom." They all instantly said it. Just look at the amount of accounts saying this. Look across the board at the people who are saying this. Randy Fine — whatever he says needs to happen, the opposite thing needs to happen. He says we'd better never again hear a peep from anyone complaining about a White House ballroom. The shooting made you think about a ballroom? Randy Fine, Andrew Kolvet: "This is why the president needs to build the White House ballroom." Megan McCain in the mix: "I don't want to hear one more thing about Trump's new ballroom at the White House." Every single one of them, at the same time, thought the same thing and tweeted out that Trump obviously needs the ballroom.
A ballroom that never existed. For some reason he didn't need a ballroom when the shooting happened in Butler. He didn't need a ballroom under any other occasion. Are we pretending that Trump doesn't have events all the time? Literally all events all the time at Mar-a-Lago. Why does he specifically need a ballroom at the White House in order to have an event? That's oddly specific. Doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Trump has events at the White House, by the way. He had an event shortly thereafter at the White House. Why does he specifically need this ballroom?
And why are we pretending like it doesn't feel weird that people believe what happened was staged, on the basis of how these people responded? What are we supposed to believe? A shooting happens and — quick, what's your first thought? Well, once upon a time, it used to be: get down, someone call 911, is everyone okay, thank goodness nobody is hurt, we need to talk about security. But in this new world of make-believe, which we seem to have stepped fully into since Charlie Kirk's assassination, they want us to believe the normal thing is: "This is why Trump needs a ballroom."
Everything is now feeling illusory, and it also kind of feels like we're running into a moment where something is about to explode. They're becoming increasingly desperate because all of us have sort of had the scales removed from our eyes. And I will say that if — and it seems likely — if we are able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that that moment was staged, it's really not going to be good for the MIGA movement, the Make Israel Great Again movement, Trump, everything his administration has become. I just think it's going to be really, really bad, and I don't see how they're going to be able to wiggle Erika Kirk out of another one of these narratives.
Thomas Massie and the Israeli Lobby's $10 Million Primary Campaign
Candace Owens: As I said earlier at the top of the show, Israel is at war with American minds. They really do believe — and this is what's most fascinating — that it's just a certain amount of money that they need to spend. There's a certain amount of money that they believe they can spend which will outright purchase our perspectives. The psychological games are being played. And to their credit, they have almost outright purchased Washington DC. The money given to congressmen from AIPAC to get them to prioritize Israeli interests over American sons and daughters, never-ending wars.
A great example of that is occurring right now. Thomas Massie, who has for a very long time been my favorite congressman because he consistently votes against sending our money overseas and he cannot be bought by AIPAC — he declines that sort of bribery from Israel. And so what do they want? They want him unseated. Trump has made it very vocal — he is teaming up with AIPAC to unseat an actually America First candidate.
So Thomas Massie joined Tucker Carlson on a show last night, and this is what he had to share about how they're getting involved in his race in Kentucky.
Tucker Carlson: So what is the current polling in your race?
Thomas Massie: It's a single-point lead for me. It's not very fluid. They've spent $10 million against me. And when I say "they," I hope we get into "they."
Tucker Carlson: Yes.
Thomas Massie: And it's going to be close. The result is going to be based on who turns out.
Tucker Carlson: So it was an 81% margin — 76, 75 — like full-on blowouts in the Republican primary in your district in Kentucky, and now it's within a couple of points and you could lose. Correct?
Thomas Massie: And the difference is they have spent $10 million against me.
Tucker Carlson: I don't think anyone would dispute that. That's the difference. The money poured into this race from outside of Kentucky is basically pushing you to the point of almost losing, and you may lose. Where did that money come from?
Thomas Massie: Well, it didn't come from regular people. It's come from billionaires, and 95% of it — at least 95% — has come from the Israeli lobby. I'll give you their proxies: the RJC, which is the Republican Jewish Coalition; AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee; Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer, and John Paulson went together. They funded a PAC called MAGA Kentucky, which is neither MAGA nor Kentucky. Who are those three people?
Tucker Carlson: Miriam Adelson is the gambling magnate who ironically makes money from the Chinese now — gambling, and not in Las Vegas. She's literally an Israeli.
Thomas Massie: Yeah, she was born there. She's given over $200 million to the president. He puts her on the stage. He says that she's influenced his own policy and attitudes toward Israel. And so she's trying to buy a congressional seat in Kentucky, along with the rest of these groups that are probably, by the way, getting her money as well. There's also another interesting faction called Christians United for Israel — they're really just another wing of AIPAC and the RJC that's been used to co-opt Christians into supporting their position. And their position is more war, more strife, more bombs, send more foreign aid. And those are the things that I've been voting against. So the real reason that this race is a serious race and I may lose is because a foreign lobby has fully funded — to the extent they've never done in any Republican race ever before — my opponent.
Candace Owens: Well, in Miriam's defense, she outright purchased the White House. Why wouldn't she be able to afford a congressional seat from Kentucky? That's what she's thinking. She's like, "Yeah, we've got money."
We just have to be aware. This is what's happening. They want into the schools. They want to change the definition of what antisemitism is to basically mean noticing what's happening, what this foreign country is doing. This is a takeover. America is occupied. There's no question at all that our government is occupied, that Trump's administration is completely occupied, and they are not serving the American people. This is despicable. It shouldn't happen. And if you are in Kentucky, vote, vote, vote for Thomas Massie. I am going to hope and pray that he wins.
Andrew Kolvet, Jessica Reed Kraus, and the Daily Mail Exposé
Candace Owens: Switching gears — I guess it's kind of a part of this as well. This is the same kind of money that goes into PR, public relations. We have seen it. That's a big piece of this Charlie Kirk story — the nastiness of the PR, the war on our minds trying to convince us that this Tyler Robinson story makes sense. It simply doesn't. I'm sorry. It doesn't make any sense. We all know it doesn't make any sense. We're going to pretend it's all because of kids trying to free Tyler Robinson up? We're trying to get you to tell us a narrative that makes sense outside of fed-sloppy text messages — a full-blown confession coming from a kid who is supposed to have like a 4.3 GPA in high school. This is interesting to me.
Obviously we start to see that they're all fumbling all over the place. Andrew Kolvet being at the center of that. The dirty tricks that he's getting caught working with these YouTubers and these really nasty people — one of these people being House Inhabit, Jessica Reed Kraus. She's been working with him. That was revealed a few weeks ago. A totally unstable, manic alcoholic — and that's not coming from me. That's coming from her former employees, people who have worked with her and know her. And also in part coming from her husband.
So this is just hilarious, because I told you guys this backstory of a conversation I had with Andrew Kolvet back when things were good, when he called me and asked me in earnest if I was a witch. Because he saw that when people attack me, the rate at which something boomerangs into their life is pretty fast. He was speaking about the Daily Wire. He was talking about Dennis Prager, I think it was specifically, who had written this whole thing about me publicly and then fell down the stairs — which actually is very sad. David Horowitz, I believe, did this whole big piece, and then very shortly thereafter — which was also very sad, one of my first events I ever did was for his Freedom Center — he passed away.
I saw this recently: Alexis Wilkins did that whole weird thread about Russia and General Flynn and me and the Catholic Church all working together because she didn't understand what a retweet was. The day after she did that, Kash Patel's emails got hacked. It was super funny, and I was like, "Dang, Andrew Kolvet's going to be like, what?"
Well, anyway, House Inhabit has been the one attacking my husband over the last few weeks. She is the one that posted that totally freakish, obviously fake AI photo of George wearing a silk shirt with Milo, because she's just claiming that he's gay. Milo had of course never met my husband when they lived in London at all. They did not run in the same circles. Also it was just terrible to imagine George wearing a silk shirt under a sports coat. That was the worst part of all of it.
But these are the people — people who are just dirty and will do these sorts of things. They're desperate for anybody that will support Israel. And the rebound of this boomerang: the Daily Mail did a massive spread today on her marriage and what's going on behind the scenes. The headline — the Daily Mail is very savage about doing these sorts of things — they wrote: "MAGA influencer House Inhabit's marriage secrets revealed. Insiders blow a lid on explosive escort claims, socialites call her 'effing insane' behavior, and her husband's mortifying texts regarding her" — which they published.
Well, how did this come about? I guess they got interested because House Inhabit did the thing that she always does. It's 3:00 a.m. and she just randomly decides to attack someone. And that someone was Ashley St. Clair. Jessica Reed Kraus is House Inhabit's real name, by the way. She randomly attacked Ashley St. Clair, who she used to be friendly with, because it's Tuesday and she's drunk. And Ashley didn't do anything to her. She's like, "What the heck is this about?" So Ashley decided to just come out and tell the story about how she was with Jessica Reed Kraus when she found out that her husband was on some hooker websites.
Now, I didn't know this, but apparently there is a website where hookers can rate their clients — so they can signal to one another. It's about staying clean and safe. They can signal to one another that the person requesting services is safe and not going to beat them up or be some crazed person. So they rate them. And Jessica Reed Kraus discovered that her husband was on this site and confided in Ashley St. Clair. And so Ashley St. Clair just went ahead and spilled all the tea after she randomly caught a midnight 3:00 a.m. bullet from House Inhabit after too many drinks.
So the Daily Mail did their due diligence. They went ahead and confirmed that the review was real, that it was his number. And I have to also just say it was a nice review. This is from the article: his number was there with its own review. Quote: "He's a white man, safe to see, and brought a donation as agreed," read the post from October 5th, 2024. Krauss became distraught and left the table. St. Clair told the Daily Mail: "I'll never forget watching your face as we read those reviews and you did the math, and the review was while you were out of town."
The Daily Mail spoke to House Inhabit. Jessica Reed Kraus did not deny the incident, but she disputed the characterization of it, telling the Daily Mail that her husband's number appeared on the app because as a public political figure, her family is targeted by spammers, and that she was confused at the moment and had no idea what it was. She has photo evidence and guest witnesses that prove her husband was actually at a friend's wedding when the review was posted. I don't know about that, guys. She said the account was inaccurate, designed to inflict harm and embarrassment on herself and her family. Girl, you do a pretty good job of that yourself, actually.
They also spoke to her husband. He said the number was his, but he wasn't really certain how it ended up on the app. Elsewhere in the article, though, it gets to the meat and bones of it — and it's her husband's text messages that he sent to other people about the state of their marriage. And it's really sad. It's actually really sad. It's what we see demonstrated in her behavior online generally speaking. It's about how she treats him, how she yells at him, calls him effing lazy. It's a perfect profile on the destructiveness of who these operators are that are hanging around the White House and going after people — drinking so they can get into Mar-a-Lago completely sloshed and willing to try to inflict harm. Her co-workers described her as a manic drunk, highly abusive, gets high on the abuse.
And you zoom out and you go: these are the people that Turning Point USA is now dealing with. This is who Andrew Kolvet has running his PR, or a piece of his PR. Why would you work with these sorts of dogs if you didn't want to get fleas? When people are in a state of desperation, when no one wants to partner with them or work with them or believes in them anymore, when they can't do things the clean way and the right way, they resort to these sorts of miserable people who take swipes at people because of what's going on in their own home. They're always in glass houses. And it really is just remarkable. It's a real reflection on the state of politics today.
I just thought: man, that couldn't have been more of her perfect karma. After all of the crap that she was putting out about my husband, who has nothing to do with DC, and me, who has nothing to do with DC — I want nothing to do with the White House. I'm completely embarrassed that I supported Trump in the past because of the fact that he completely flipped on his entire base. It used to be cool to wear a MAGA hat. No one would be caught dead wearing a MAGA hat nowadays. I guess maybe you could say the MIGA movement might be caught wearing a MAGA hat nowadays, but certainly not old MAGA, old school MAGA.
Viewer Comments and Closing Thoughts
Candace Owens: Top comment from yesterday's episode. They wrote: "Next, they'll accuse Candace and George of being two weeks away from developing nuclear weapons." I don't even know what they could throw at us anymore. I feel that way about Tucker too. I'm just like, okay. I feel like they've said everything. And there's a freedom in that when people say everything, because it just gets beyond ridiculous.
Design Rhythm writes: "The fact that Erika didn't fire every single security officer and sue their company is the biggest red flag in world history." Well, actually, I'm just reminding you that she did tell me they were preparing lawsuits against Brian Harpole. And that doesn't seem like that happened. And as I showed you yesterday, there seems to be evidence that actually Andrew Kolvet might have been in some sort of communication — maybe by the YouTubers, those military bros — with Brian Harpole. I don't know what's real. I don't know what's not real. Maybe he went on Shawn Ryan — I do believe the story, by the way, that he went on Shawn Ryan without their permission. She told me that. And there definitely seems to be some evidence that that entire PR disaster blunder happened without them knowing. We'll see. I'm assuming it's true. Anyway, I just don't know what to believe anymore when it comes to Turning Point USA. Certainly not when it comes to Andrew Kolvet and Erika Kirk.
Actually, I had a journalist ask me, "What are the questions you have for her?" I'm like, look, I can boil it down to like three that I think are the most significant. The biggest lie being that the surgeon said Charlie had a steel neck — that feels like every reporter should just be demanding every day for some sort of clarity on why she would lie and why Andrew Kolvet would lie, and why they would put words in the surgeon's mouth, and why she would say that Andrew went rogue when she actually initiated the phone call and it was a three-way phone call. Why are we being gaslit about that? That's weird. That would definitively be number one.
Number two: AI Charlie. I'm sorry. No reporters are interested in that. That'd be pretty relevant if they cooked up a whole story about how Charlie, just before he died, pulled a complete 180 on his viewpoints — on how he wanted his wife to stay home and raise the children and have a fulfilled life — and suddenly was like, "You know what? No, actually, if I die, I want you to take my place and also risk your life so that you might die and our kids will be left alone as orphans." That doesn't feel good. It sounds like AI. They said they had a video. They're not presenting the video. Donors are saying that the video is completely AI and they were present and Charlie never said that. How is that not the most viral, number one story in the world — at least in America — that his wife could have faked something like that? Maybe she didn't. A video would certainly clarify it. Anyway, I'm definitively going to stay on about that.
Kelly Martini writes: "I pray Charlie keeps visiting your dreams and reveals everything that you need — peace to process, facts to find — for being his David. God bless your friendship. It is everlasting. He knew it would be you. We love you and we all miss Charlie dearly. He was a magnificent light to this world." He certainly was. And I miss him too. I miss just being able to banter with him about certain things, about certain people. I miss his sense of humor above anything else. And I will always resent that that has not come across to the public from his friends. They just sort of turned him into this bot almost — like all he cared about was this and that — and it just had no flavor. It just wasn't the real Charlie. Charlie was very layered, very funny, very good at doing voices. That's another thing — very good at mimicking voices. He could just do anyone's voice. It was kind of an incredible talent. I think it's something to do with when he was young, that he was always practicing voices. But anyway.
A day de day Jean writes: "Candace, let's gamble. Thank you for all you do." I'm not a person who gambles. I don't bet. I don't love that industry altogether. But I think this time I might just have to go to Vegas figuratively and gamble, give a little bit of money. If I lose it and get suckered, oh well. I think the video is a precious piece of this story if we can confirm that this was an entire op.
Monica writes: "I love that TPUSA doesn't let facts influence their opinions. That takes serious dedication. Insert sarcasm. You, Baron, Tucker, Ian, and more have to keep telling the truth. Christ is our truth, and y'all are our warriors. Love you from Houston." Thank you so much, Monica.
Sarah Lorett writes: "Candace, may God continue to bless you on this journey. My daughter Meline and I love listening to you together, and we pray for you often. Today is her 12th birthday, and her one wish is to have a shout out from her favorite podcaster. Christ is King indeed." Happy birthday, Meline — or Mattaline. That was actually in the running for my daughter's names. I was very keen on Mattaline. I was like, I love Mattaline. It's such a beautiful name. And my husband overruled me. We went with Louise. But Meline, it would have been a good name. You have a great name. Happy birthday to you.
Looney Tunes writes: "In case you need a bit so you can afford to sue the pants off of Jeremy Boring, here you go." Thank you very much. I will be running from them for the rest of my life. I am telling you this. Just something ain't right with those two.
The last one: "I've had this idea for a while and now feels like the perfect time to share it. You get a million views per episode. So if we all donate a single dollar per episode, you will make millions a week, but we would only be spending $4. Let's call it the co-boycott." I absolutely love you. I loved that the other day, especially when they were calling for the boycott of our merch, that it became our number one day of sales ever in the history of this show for merch. The comments saying "I think I'm boycotting wrong" — it's just amazing. And it really shows that these sorts of nasty campaigns don't work anymore.
Sometimes I just get so exasperated. Like, why are you upset that I'm actually mourning my friend who got murdered and I want to have real answers? Everyone can see what this is. No one is buying this "Erika Kirk is grieving" bit. So why do you keep saying it? Just stop saying stuff. The words coming out of your mouth — everyone can sense that you're bought, you're paid for, there's no truth in you. You keep ignoring the fact that she's a public figure, that she chose to be this public figure, that the excuse she gave us of her husband doing some 180 has been called into question credibly from donors.
I always thought it was weird. I get vibes. It's like the White House Correspondents' moment — my vibes were not passing the sniff test. This is donors saying it never happened. You guys are going to keep lecturing us because people who are not grieving at all, who attended his memorial and were talking about merch and sales and dressed like they were going to the Kentucky Derby — that's a dig on Alex Clark — people that were wearing high boots and standing over his memorial sites. We're supposed to believe those are the people that really loved Charlie?
You're upset because you got beat by authenticity. You blame me even though I was the last to arrive to the party that Erika Kirk was off, because I couldn't — I didn't want to even visit that. I couldn't even process that. I actually needed Erika Kirk to be real and authentically grieving more than other people needed her to. I needed that because I didn't have Charlie. I needed to believe that he at least died with the one thing that he wanted most. Our every conversation was about him chasing girls — obviously pre-Erika — and how he just wanted to have that companionship and that love. So for me to have to get to the point where I am questioning whether he was completely manipulated from the very first time that he sat with her — that was hard for me. I had to be prepared and willing to grieve that as well. Grieving knowing that he died and potentially didn't have that one thing that he wanted.
Yes, he cared about family life more. He did believe the words that he said about women staying home and raising kids and adding more value, and that men should be the ones working these ridiculous hours. So color me shocked that he would have changed his mind on something that he said for years, in the two weeks leading up to his death. Color me shocked.
UFO writes: "I only get to admire Charlie. May he rest in peace." Yeah, I wish everyone could have known him before he died. There are so many videos out there of Charlie, but I know they took a lot of them down. I do wish that they would put up the real Charlie. He was a lot more than just a kid that was debating on college campuses. Maybe when his parents and his sister — which I don't think they'll ever be done grieving — but when they're sort of ready, they'll start sharing more pieces of his childhood and things like that with the public. You hope for it. You never know. They've always been exceedingly private. But I think about them often. I know that they are truly grieving. And I'll leave it at that.
Crazy Cat Lady writes: "Can we get a 'George is the real gangster' merch?" We've got to do some London merch. I've got to convince him. He's just so private. He's so English about stuff. He doesn't even have social media. He doesn't even know what goes on. He doesn't even watch this podcast. He's like my priest — he has no idea what happens in this basement. I'll do my best. I'll work on it.
Coco Goes Off writes: "Please make an anti-feminist hat. Thank you for everything you do to fight for freedom and truth." Regarding the people who watch this show who are feminists — I'm challenging you to join the book club and go for this book that we're starting next week. My book. Really excited about this one. As you guys know, Make Him a Sandwich. And people were writing me saying that they started the book and it's hilarious. As I said, it starts with this weird rap battle I had one time with Cardi B on X when we got into a little spat. And then I was very shocked because Cardi B was like, "Why don't you go make him a sandwich?" And that is how the entire idea for the book was born — out of a Cardi B rap battle. Any book that starts with a rap battle is going to be fun.
Last comment from Dan Sully writes: "Between insane lawsuits, propaganda, and flat-out lies, these people are grasping at straws. Keep them with truth and evidence. We all know that you are honest and they are afraid of the truth." Oh, we're going to win. I keep telling you that. As sure as I knew that Charlie was betrayed, I also knew that we were going to win. Don't ask me why. Some things, I guess, are truly metaphysical.
Anyway, you guys, that is all that we have for this week. Again, if you have any tips pertaining to the White House Correspondents' Dinner — $10,000, no questions asked. Even if you hate my guts, it's fine. I will never reveal it and we can continue to hate each other forever. More tips at candaceowens.com.