How Charlie Kirk came to earn Trump’s admiration

Charlie Kirk was a proud college dropout with a direct line to U.S. President Donald Trump like few others.

A frequent visitor to the White House, Kirk was far more than a loyal fan and admirer of the president; he had a finger on the pulse of the MAGA base and made certain his views were known – even on rare instances when he disagreed, like with Trump’s June decision to strike nuclear sites in Iran.

At the time, Kirk said he warned of potential fallout with younger supporters, many of whom were drawn to Trump because of his campaign pledge to end foreign wars.

The mere notion that Kirk delivered criticism – and Trump accepted it without attacking back – underscores how much the president admired the conservative activist and respected the strength of his Turning Point USA organization. Kirk saw himself as a true believer in conservative values and in Trump, people close to him said, who was intent on strengthening his movement in the president’s second term.

“No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie,” Trump wrote on social media Wednesday in a post announcing Kirk’s death, underscoring their close ties. “He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me.”

Kirk’s killing stunned the White House and sent ripples across the Republican Party – and it marks a personal loss for America’s first family.

Trump had credited Kirk, 31, with galvanizing and mobilizing the youth vote that propelled him to victory in 2024. But before that, he had become a valued and trusted friend and adviser to the president and his family.

Trump considered Kirk to be a part of his extended family, a source familiar with the relationship told CNN, and his death has been met with horror, shock and grief in Trump’s inner circle. The president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was particularly close with Kirk, with whom he had traveled and appeared publicly alongside many times as the MAGA movement spread, most recently at the Turning Point USA summit in Florida in July.

“I love you brother. You gave so many people the courage to speak up and we will not ever be silenced,” Trump Jr., wrote on X.

Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and a senior adviser during his first term, highlighted Kirk’s role in the 2016 campaign and the development of the MAGA movement.

“When I was in the White House, established organizations often complained that we kept doing events with Charlie, to which I would reply ‘he comes with big ideas, is easy to work with and always overdelivers,’” Kushner posted on X, calling Kirk “the best of MAGA.”

Donald Trump was only the fourth president of Kirk’s life. Born in 1993, he grew up in the northwestern suburbs of Chicago. He often talked about his first signs of political awareness and activism at the age of 15, when his home state senator, Barack Obama, won the presidency.

Kirk did not celebrate Obama’s historic victory in 2008. His own political rise followed the growth of the Tea Party movement. He briefly attended Harper College in Palatine, Illinois, but dropped out to follow his conservative activism — a decision that later became a point of pride.

“If you want to stand out, don’t go to college,” Kirk said at rallies. “It worked for me.”

A little more than a decade later, Kirk was already a conservative star — first a close confidant of Trump Jr. who ultimately gained trust of his father. Kirk was exceptionally close to JD Vance, playing a key role in his Ohio Senate race in 2022 and pushing Trump to select him as vice president in 2024.

“Say a prayer for Charlie Kirk,” Vance wrote Wednesday, “a genuinely good guy and a young father.”

Kirk and his affiliated political organization, Turning Point Action, were instrumental in securing Trump’s return to the White House.

For instance, the group plowed millions of dollars into a get-out-the-vote program in Arizona, a key battleground state that Trump flipped back from President Joe Biden.

As part of its “Chase the Vote” initiative, the group’s staffers cultivated relationships with specific voters over the course of the campaign to help ensure they would vote in the election. Those efforts included encouraging early voting, driving voters to the polls and assisting them with mailing in ballots – all with the goal of ensuring that infrequent voters who were inclined to support Trump actually followed through with casting a ballot.

CNN reported last year that Turning Point’s effort helped it bank votes from more than 125,000 irregular voters it had targeted in Arizona, according to a person with knowledge of the group’s operation. Trump won the state by roughly 187,000 votes.

Trump has boasted about his showing with young voters in 2024 — he narrowed his loss among 18-29-year-olds to 11 points from 24 points in 2020 — and credited Kirk, in part, with his appeal to those voters.

“And Charlie Kirk will tell you, TikTok helped, but Charlie Kirk helped also,” Trump said during an Oval Office swearing-in ceremony for Judge Jeanine Pirro that Kirk attended in May.

After the election, there was discussion about a role for Kirk inside the administration, multiple sources told CNN at the time. The decision was ultimately made that he could be more influential and have more power outside of the federal government. However, he was enormously influential with those who did end up in Trump’s Cabinet, helping vet and interview the candidates.

Kirk temporarily relocated to Palm Beach during the presidential transition and later spent significant time in Washington after the president returned to office, attending swearings-in of numerous officials with whom he was close. Sources described Kirk as having a unique ability to build and maintain friendships, including with officials that were at odds with one another.

Kirk’s relationship with Trump had grown throughout the second term, but the president’s gratitude had long been clear.

“Charlie is fantastic. I mean, this guy, don’t believe the stuff when you hear the kids are liberal,” Trump said on the eve of his inauguration. “They’re not. Maybe they used to be, but they’re not anymore.”