Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Charlie Kirk: My Friend

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

The assassination of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University has left an empty place in America, at Turning Point USA, and in the Kirk family. In a tearful tribute, Allie recounts the pivotal role that Charlie played in her life while peeling back the media narrative that he was somehow radical or hateful. Instead, Allie paints the picture of a man who was kind and genuine and who lived by the word of God.

Hey, y'all. Yesterday's episode had already been recorded and scheduled before the news of yesterday. Tomorrow's episode has already been recorded. So I wanted to take a special moment today on this Thursday to pay tribute to Charlie Kirk. A fierce defender of the Christian faith. A patriot in the truest sense of the word. a devoted husband to Erica, a loving father to his two young children, a friend to so many people, including to me. In 2017, when I was brand new to media and Charlie was already a rising star in the conservative world, he invited me to speak at Turning Point second annual young women's leadership summit. And at the end of 2019, after a speech I gave at another turning point conference, he got me and he asked me to meet with him and some of his staff. And they pulled me into a room and he said, so when are you do? Because I was three months pregnant at the time.

And he asked because he wanted to see if I would be willing to help plan and host that year's young women's leadership summit. And I said yes, absolutely even knowing the event was three weeks before my due date, as you can see there in that picture. I knew that if Charlie was leading it, then no matter what, that it was worth doing. I am one of thousands of people who can say that Charlie believed in me. He platformed me. He helped shape me long before I had done anything impressive. In politics, most people are only kind to you when you can give them something in return. And Charlie just never played that game.

He was generous to people because that's just who he was. That's who he was to everyone. In 2022, we spoke to Auburn students together. We fielded questions. We argued for the Christian and conservative. position on different issues. And then toward the end of our talk, a young woman came up to the mic. She was adversarial. She was angry. She believed Charlie was racist because of things that he had said about crime, about fatherlessness. And he responded to her. I remember I got to watch this up

close in true Charlie fashion with precision, with boldness, but most of all with gentleness. And as I was preparing this this morning, I almost wrote that Charlie's, treated everyone the same. But then I remembered that exchange that night and I realized that is not true. He was loving toward his friends, but he went out of his way to show even more grace to the people that considered themselves as enemies. At his campus events, the people who disagreed with him went to the front of the line. He listened to them, nodded in understanding. He would shush the booing crowd. He would silence anyone who laughed. and he always addressed their questions with respect.

And then there were people who would ask him questions who didn't know whether they agreed with him or not. They just had a genuine curiosity they wanted answered. And he treated those people with so much sweetness and patience. And yesterday I came across one of those exchanges. Here it is, Sot one. How are you? What a beautiful kid that is. Thank you.

What a gift from God. She truly is. she is the biggest blessing. Something that kind of has me like on the fence of whether or not I go kind of like full-blown more like conservative or moderate is just seeing. Give it up. That is a gift from the Lord, everybody. That is beautiful. I see that, you know, we're starting to save a lot of money from things such as like Doge, but do you think that some of that money should go back to maybe like reforming the way that welfare is done to help poor families who do want to kind of pursue that American dream? Great question. The number one objective of any social welfare program

should be how do we keep the family together and put dads back in the family. Unfortunately in the black community, dads are the most absent of any community. About two-thirds of all black youth will be raised without a stable father around. And I know it's crazy, right? And that that little precious angel of yours deserves to have a father around. I have been in this sphere of the world for a while. I have met and I've watched all different kinds of people. And the sad reality is there are people who are not what they seem. They project a character on your screen that does not actually match who they are in real life. And that was not Charlie. Charlie was the real deal in every sense of the term. For 13 years, Charlie worked with all

kinds of people from high school students, college volunteers, thousands of employees to the most powerful people in media and government. And I have not met one person who has ever had anything negative to say about Charlie Kirk. No horror stories, no sketchy rumors, nothing. He was never arrogant, though he could have been. He was never bombastic, though he could have been. He was steady. He was above reproach. Charlie was an easy. incredible leader. He was just strategic builder. He knew how to build organizations and teams and projects that were lasting and effective. And it wasn't just because he was brilliant, but because very simply he was a good friend. He was friends with everyone on the right, everyone,

tons of people in the center, even people on the left. I mean, he embodied sharing the arrows. If someone said something true and they were taking flack for it, no matter their political affiliation, Charlie was the first in their inbox cheering them on. Coleman Hughes is a center-left author who went viral when he argued for color blindness on the view. And after Charlie died, he posted this. He said, rest in peace, Charlie Kirk. I don't know. Charlie personally. But he sent me this message after I was on the view. And this is what his message, this is what Charlie's message said. Hey, Coleman, just watched your interview on the view.

Well done. As I'm sure you're aware, I get accused of racism all the time. I have been since I came into politics. It doesn't bother me too much because I love all people. My commentary is simply a reaction to our hyperfixation on race, which are brilliantly articulating from a left of center, P-O-V. And then he goes on to say, I pray for a saner racial discourse in America. This is the kind of thing that Charlie did. If you were a college student who is getting bullied

for saying something true in class, Charlie would find a way. He would exhaust his network to find a way to reach you and to encourage you. If you were a politician running for office and you were getting raked over the coals, Charlie would go to bat for you. He did regardless of whether you liked him, regardless of whether you liked Trump, whether you agreed with him on everything or not, Charlie was always building bridges. If he could find a single point of commonality with you, even if it was just the belief in free speech, he would find a way to welcome you. A month ago, I was on Fox with Charlie when he guest hosted Fox and Friends. I hadn't been on that show in years, but Charlie got to church.

choose his guest that day. So I went on. We talked about the rise in Christian music, which included Forrest Frank. And Forrest Frank them posted our segment on Instagram to his millions of followers. And he got all kinds of hateful comments from people maligning both of us, but especially Charlie as being some kind of radical. So what did Charlie do? He reached out to Forrest, not to defend himself, but just to encourage him to tell Forrest that he's doing a great job and that he's cheering him on. A couple years ago, we spoke together at a big church in Phoenix, and we got to do what Charlie really loved more than debates, more than campaigning,

and that was Defend the Faith. His knowledge of the Bible, his relentless passion for truth, just absolutely overflowed into everything. I could play you hours of footage of Charlie sharing the gospel over the years, but here's one video I came across from a conversation with an atheist on a college campus. Here it is. You a Christian? Very, very much so. Like, why is that exactly?

Jesus saved my life. I'm a sinner. Gave my life to Christ. Most important decision I ever made. So you believe the Bible is real? Yes, I believe the Bible is true and real. Why is that? Well, I could give you the technical answer.

there's never been an archaeological discovery that has contradicted the truth of the Bible. And then, of course, the wisdom. There is not a truth of the Bible that if you apply to your life, your life does not improve dramatically. And then finally, we have the most accurate and transparent, historically robust account that one can have of the most important figure ever to live in the history of the world, Jesus of Nazareth. And the resurrection is the pinpoint of my belief that Jesus did rise from the grave so that we may live. What makes Christian mythology real? So that's not mythology, but that is theology.

If Genesis 1-1 and the resurrection is true, anything in the Bible is possible. You're looking at the greatest miracle. The greatest miracle is creation. And then the fact that Jesus rose from the dead, and I say, how do you know that Jesus rose from the dead? Well, show me another historical piece of a story where so many people willingly died a brutal death for a lie. Every single person around him had everything to lose, and yet they went to the absolute death, from Paul to Peter to the half-brother of James, saying that Jesus is Lord. rose from the dead. Not to mention, if you were going to fake a story, you would not use female

witnesses in the ancient world. In the scriptures, it said that the feet, the women were the first one to see Jesus Christ. If you're trying to fake a story, you would never do that. I know if I could have texted Charlie this morning and asked him, hey, Charlie, I've got this really tough subject to talk about today. What do you think about it? Is there anything I need to make sure that I say? I know exactly what he'd tell me. He would just have said, Jesus. That's it. Just point them to Jesus. That was his heart.

That was his passion, the drive behind everything he did. It shaped the way he adored his wife, cherished his kids, led his organization, spoke to crowds. It shaped the way he treated his friends. If you look through X, you'll see all kinds of people sharing text. that they'd received from Charlie, always words of encouragement. Our text thread over the years is filled with the same kind of thing, short but really meaningful exchanges. And a couple years ago, the Atlantic wrote a profile about me. Actually was just last year. And it had some positive descriptions, but it also took some jabs. And as you can imagine, the reception from the

Atlantic's audience was not kind. And what should have felt like this big accomplishment for me actually made me very anxious at the time. But then I got this text from Charlie with a link to the article. And he just said, huge honor. Well done. Keep slugging. And when I got the news yesterday that Charlie had been shot, I like everyone else was in shock. And my first thought was, that's it. Like, I'm done. We're all done. We on the right thought that we were in this battle of ideas and we're not. We were wrong. We're bringing words. They're bringing weapons and it's too scary.

And I talked to my dad and he told me, Allie, you know, after all of this clears, you need to ask yourself, what do you think Charlie would tell you to do? And the truth is, I know exactly what he would say to me. what he'd say to all of us. Keep slogging. Keep going. He'd say don't stop. Don't slow down. Don't back down even for a second. Our last exchange was him giving me advice for an opportunity I have. One that after this news from yesterday, I wanted to cancel. But I know what he'd want me to do. there's so much ugliness online right now people cheering on charlie's murder and i'm not going to highlight those people instead i'll just remind you of this that charlie would not care one bit about what those people think he was extremely aware of the existence of evil and of spiritual warfare demons are rejoicing right now

Satan is glad that he took an effective soldier out of the fight, and everyone who follows Satan feels the same way. What an incredible honor. May we all, when we die, make the demons rejoice. May we all be so courageous, so bold, so effective, so faithful, so obedient to the Lord, so relentless in the pursuit of His glory that when we die, all of God's enemies cheer. May they lament every breath we take. May they be enraged by every morning that our feet hit the floor. May they wince at every word we say. We don't wrestle against flesh and blood, my friends.

Ephesion 610 through 20 reminds us of this. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm. Stand, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and as shoes for your feet having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace

in all circumstances take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of god praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication to that end keep alert with all perseverance making supplication for all the saints and also for me that words may be given to me and open opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak. Charlie could have been anything. With enough time, he would have been president. There's no doubt in my mind about that. That is in part why they kills him. He's largely responsible for Trump winning and preserving what's left of Western

civilization. Every day he was adding droves of people to the side of goodness and truth, but ultimately they killed him not because he's presidential or because he's persuasive, but because they hate God. Now, I won't spend a bunch of time talking about the evils of progressivism right now. There are people on the left who have condemned this violence, but to those people and to everyone else, I just want to say, wake up. Wake up. Whether it's the school shooting in Nashville or the one in Minnesota, whether it is Trump's assassination attempt or the assassination of Charlie Kirk, understand what we have been telling you for decades. Leftism as an ideology is inherently anti-God and violent. I know that some of you out there think it's actually about welcoming the

migrant and helping the poor and I commend you for your compassion, which I believe is real, but I want you to know you're being deceived, that you're on the wrong side, that this is not a both sides problem, this is a one side problem, and it goes down to the very foundations of the progressive worldview. Now, if you want to learn more about what I just said, start listening to Charlie. Listen to his podcast, read his books, watch his exchanges. I am already seeing God do what he does, thwart Satan's plans, bring beauty out of ashes. He is using this moment to unite people and bring them to the truth. If the enemy's goal was to scare us into silence, he has failed tremendously. This is what happens when you make a martyr. You emboldened everyone who believes

like they do. Charlie, and the truth he represented will spread further and wider than they ever have before. to the people who did this, to the people who support this, you have changed the country forever. And if you are scared of Donald Trump, if you are worried about Charlie Kirk, you will be very disappointed when you learned that they were the nice version of what you claim to hate. If your goal was to immortalize Charlie's ideas and to raise people up even bolder and more relentless than him, good job. that's exactly what you've done do not forget it my friends charlie kirk was murdered for believing the same things you do he was not a radical in any way he was not hateful he was not a flamethrower he believed in and leveraged the free exchange of ideas to try to persuade people of biblical truth that is it there's a quote that says that the further a society drifts from the

truth, the more they hate the people who say it. That is true of us today. And in John 1518, Jesus says this, if the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. And I just want to say this, because this is what Charlie would say. If you don't know Jesus, please get to know him. He is the only way to the satisfaction and the love that you're longing for. Pick up a Bible. Start in the book of John. Go to church this weekend. Maybe for the first time, maybe for the first time in years.

Pray even if you don't know how. Cry out to God. Ask him to help you. That's what Charlie would say to you if you were here right now. Charlie right now is with his greatest love. Jesus. He is with the fellow saints and martyrs and the persecuted by which the church has been advanced for millennia. And I am so happy for him.

I'm so happy for him, but I am so sad for us. Heaven gained an incredible person. And we have lost a huge presence here on earth. A young wife has lost her husband. her person, her confidant, her protector. Two babies have lost their father. And thousands of us have lost a dear, dear friend. To those of you who loved Charlie, please pray for his family.

Pray for all of us. Pray for protection. Pray for wisdom. Pray for courage. We'll miss you, Charlie. But I'll see you again. one day and thank you for everything. Thank you.