Erika Kirk, the widow of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, announced on Sunday night that she will be “privately” meeting on Monday with far-right provocateur Candace Owens, the former Turning Point USA staffer who has peddled multiple conspiracy theories about Kirk’s death.
Amid the announcement, TPUSA canceled a much-anticipated livestream in which the right-wing youth organization – which Erika Kirk now leads following her husband’s killing – had planned to debunk Owens’ conspiratorial claims about the September assassination.
The private one-on-one summit also comes after Kirk has spent the past few days denouncing Owens for pushing various unfounded theories about the death of her husband, which has seen the one-time close friend of Charlie Kirk wildly speculate that he was assassinated by a pro-Israel henchman with the help of TPUSA associates and the US military.
“Candace Owens and I are meeting for a private, in-person discussion on Monday, December 15. @RealCandaceO and I have agreed that public discussions, livestreams, and tweets are on hold until after this meeting,” Kirk tweeted on Sunday evening. “I look forward to a productive conversation. Thank you.”
Owens quickly replied on X that she was “very much looking forward to this discussion,” adding a raised hands emoji.
Shortly after Kirk was killed in September while holding a Utah campus event, Owens – who is currently being sued for claiming the French first lady is a transgender woman – began insisting that Kirk had come around to her views on Israel shortly before his death.
While Kirk’s allies denied her claims, she started suggesting that powerful pro-Israeli figures made “threats” against Kirk in the days before his assassination, adding that he was “offered a ton of money” that he declined to accept — and was “on the brink of changing some of his perspectives” on Israel and the war in Gaza. Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old man from Utah, has been charged with Kirk’s murder.
Eventually, Owens turned her attention to another culprit in the supposed assassination plot – TPUSA itself. Earlier this month, she claimed that Charlie Kirk was “betrayed by the leadership of Turning Point USA” and began pointing fingers at specific TPUSA employees. After Owens claimed that Charlie Kirk had been concerned about how the organization’s finances were being managed just before he died, the Treasury Department – at the request of Erika Kirk – released a letter confirming that the group was not under IRS investigation.
With Owens’ increasingly fantastical claims sparking a rift within the MAGA universe, which has been dealing with a larger civil war between various factions over the direction of the movement, TPUSA challenged the popular podcaster to defend her claims at an in-person livestream meeting in Phoenix.
The showdown, however, was not to be. Set just ahead of TPUSA’s flagship AmeriFest conference, Owens demurred and said she would not be able to attend due to scheduling conflicts. Still, TPUSA leadership declared that they would still hold the live fact-checking seminar on Monday.
That all changed on Sunday night, however, when Erika Kirk revealed that she would be personally meeting with Owens to discuss her assassination conspiracy theories, prompting TPUSA to cancel the livestream.
Throughout her monthslong diatribe on the Kirk assassination, which has resulted in millions of views to her top-ranked podcast, Owens had largely steered clear of directly attacking Erika Kirk. However, once Erika Kirk began rebuking Owens – even if not directly by name – the former TPUSA communications director began taking direct aim at the MAGA youth group’s current leader.
“When you go after my family, my Turning Point USA family, my Charlie Kirk Show family, when you go after the people that I love, and you're making hundreds and thousands of dollars every single episode going after the people that I love because somehow they're in on this, no,” Kirk said on Fox News last week.
“Stop. That's it. That's all I have to say. Stop,” Kirk, when asked to deliver a message to Owens, stated in a CBS News town hall that aired this weekend.
Owens, meanwhile, reacted to Kirk’s pleas by saying her multiple television appearances “completely missed the mark for me” before lashing out at her deceased friend’s widow.
“None of this is passing the vibe check,” she added. “You are not changing my mind about the fact that something weird happened that day and that TPUSA is acting funny because you give an impassioned plea and speak about Nehemiah on Fox News.”
Owens also accused Erika of displaying “Meghan Markle syndrome,” explaining that as “where you want privacy when you want it, you want publicity when you want it.”
The most impactful deaths in 2025 from the pope to Ozzy Osbourne and Charlie Kirk
A list of deadly shootings on college campuses in the US
Trump issues ineffective federal pardon for jailed election-denier Tina Peters
MTG leads outcry after Trump blamed Rob Reiner’s stabbing on his politics
Russia open to Ukraine joining EU after peace deal, US officials say
Bill and Hillary Clinton fight ‘weaponized’ Republican-led Epstein investigation
