Vice President JD Vance is now hosting The Charlie Kirk Show from his office in the White House Complex, less than a week after Kirk was assassinated during a college campus event in Utah. Vance announced the move on X, saying he was “filling in for somebody who cannot be filled in for” and that he had the “honor of hosting the Charlie Kirk Show” to “pay tribute to my friend”.
While Kirk’s death is an awful tragedy, it seems the administration is using this opportunity to push their own agenda. As the show gets taken over by a top government official, it’s a wonder what will be pushed that Kirk may not have been saying before. Keep in mind that Kirk disagreed with a few things under Trump, and even Laura Loomer called him out for it (although she backtracked after his murder). However, now his show is open to being completely pro-Trump, even if Kirk wouldn’t have agreed.
The show is supposed to go on, with Andrew Kolvet, the executive producer, saying that Vance’s hosting “came about because he asked if he could do it”. Kirk’s widow, Erika, also said in her first public remarks that “the movement my husband built will not die” and that the show will continue. This is an awful thing to have happen, but I can’t help but feel like the new direction of the show is more for the administration than for the people who tuned in to listen to Kirk.
Charlie Kirk’s show may dive further into MAGA
Vance has supposedly been close to Kirk for a long time, at least that’s what he has said recently. In a post on X after Kirk’s death, Vance described Kirk as a “true friend” and “the smartest political operative I ever met,” saying he owed “so much to Charlie”. Vance also said that Kirk was a key part of his political rise and that Kirk was one of the first people he called when he considered running for Senate.
It’s an interesting friendship, to say the least, especially since Kirk was supposedly the one who advocated for Vance to become the vice-presidential nominee in the first place. To be fair, Vance’s actions after Kirk’s death are also pretty telling. He canceled a trip to New York to mark the anniversary of 9/11 to fly to Utah and retrieve Kirk’s body on Air Force Two. He even spoke with Kirk’s widow, Erika, for an hour and said he was inspired to be a better husband and father.
Tomorrow, I will have the honor of hosting the Charlie Kirk Show. Please join me as I pay tribute to my friend.
— JD Vance (@JDVance) September 15, 2025
12:00PM EThttps://t.co/oemvxJ18Mq pic.twitter.com/eSMpx8xE3X
On the show, Vance was joined by guests, including White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and even Tucker Carlson. While the show was meant to pay tribute to Kirk’s legacy, it quickly became a platform to talk about something else entirely. Vance said they would discuss how to dismantle “an incredibly destructive movement of left-wing extremism” that he believes is part of the reason Kirk was killed by “an assassin’s bullet”.
Miller echoed the sentiment, pledging that the government would “use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people, it will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name”. This is awful for anyone who believes in a free press, as it seems the administration is using this show to push its own political agenda, with what they’re calling “righteous anger”.
