The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 1741 - Debunking the Erika Kirk Conspiracy Theories

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

Today on The Matt Walsh Show, I can no longer ignore the conspiracy theories that are being spread about Erika Kirk, and I will debunk them today. Ep. 1741 Here's a link to Ep.1706 - Why I Don��t Buy The Charlie Kirk Conspiracy Theories: https://youtu.be/Q9lbXPvzVw4 - - - Click here to join the member-exclusive portion of my show: https://dwplus.watch/MattWalshMemberExclusive - - - Today's Sponsors: PureTalk - Make the switch in as little as 10 minutes and start saving today! Visit https://PureTalk.com/WALSH Helix Sleep - Go to https://helixsleep.com/WALSH for an exclusive offer. - - - DailyWire+: Become a Daily Wire Member and watch all of our content ad-free: https://dailywire.com/subscribe The Real History of the American Indians is available now, exclusively on DailyWire+ Watch now: https://dwplus.watch/RealHistoryAmericanIndians Subscribe here: https://dwplus.watch/RealHistorySubscribe The Real History of Slavery is available for free on youtube: https://youtu.be/UivhqdhcHNI Episode 1 of "Black Lies Matter" is available here: https://dwplus.watch/BlackLiesMatter 🍿 The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin is now streaming exclusively on DailyWire+ https://dwplus.watch/ThePendragon 🔥 Friendly Fire is here! No moderator, no safe words. Now available: https://dailywire.com/show/friendly-fire 👕 Get your Matt Walsh flannel here: https://dwplus.shop/MattWalshMerch - - - Socials:  Follow on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3Rv1VeF  Follow on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3KZC3oA  Follow on Facebook: https://bit.ly/3eBKjiA  Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RQp4rs - - - Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Service is not available in all areas. I still remember where I was and what I was doing when I heard about the massacre at Sandy Hook almost 14 years ago. It was the second national tragedy in my lifetime after 9-11 that left an indelible and permanent mark on the conscience, something you remember for the rest of your days. Now, the two events are not the same in terms of their scale, severity, geopolitical importance, or death toll, obviously. But they were so shocking, so morally outrageous that they imprint themselves, someone. where deep in your soul, like a kind of psychological impact crater. I also remember just as vividly the conspiracy theories that almost immediately sprouted up like weeds around the Sandy Hook shooting. Within days of the attack, if not hours, it had been decided by legions of internet commenters

and a few prominent right-wing personalities, Alex Jones, most famously, that the attack never actually happened. It was staged. It was a hoax. The government had perpetrated an elaborate route. one that apparently involved hundreds of people, including not just government officials, but members of the media and so on. The dead children were not actually dead or maybe never existed. The grieving parents were frauds, crisis actors, playing a role. Now, none of this was true, of course. There was no evidence to support any of it, but many people apparently believed it anyway. They pointed to weird details surrounding the event. And from those data points, if we can call them that. They constructed an entire cinematic universe. The conspiracy theorists said that the initial

reports out of the school were inconsistent and contradictory. There was talk of a second shooter, but then it turned out that it was only one shooter. They pointed to other things like news articles about the shooting with timestamps appearing to show that the articles were published before the event occurred. And most of all, most of all, they pointed to the mannerisms of the parents. They circulated clips of the parents smiling or appearing to chuckle or behaving in other ways that were deemed strange and inappropriate. Now, rather than conclude that people respond to grief differently, especially when there are cameras pointed at their faces, the theorist decided that an inappropriately timed smile must be evidence that everything we think we know about the crime isn't true. And

instead, their wild competing narrative for which there was no actual evidence is true. In reality, there were reasonable explanations for all of the weird details. Early reports out of mass casualty events are almost always inconsistent. Reports of phantom second shooters are extremely common. Time stamps on news articles can be wrong. And people who are grieving sometimes smile. Anyone who's ever been to a funeral knows that. At any rate, even if these little tidbits were unexplained,

even if we all agreed that they were somehow bizarre and troubling, they still wouldn't prove the conspiracy theory. Indeed, if Sandy Hook was all a highly coordinated government ruse, then why would they post news articles about it ahead of time? Why would they put out inconsistent information? Why would their paid crisis actors be smiling? As is often the case, the conspiracy theory makes less sense of these points than the so-called official narrative does. The conspiracy theory does not do the single thing that a legitimate theory is supposed to do, which is to make sense of the facts on the ground. It makes less sense

of them. It introduces even more unexplained and unexplainable variables. It takes a well-supported narrative with maybe a few holes and replaces it with a new narrative that has 10,000 more holes. Now, in the case of Sandy Hook, this wild and baseless theorizing was not just an academic exercise. real children actually died. Real parents were dealing with a trauma beyond comprehension. And now, thanks to the Sandy Hook Truthers, they found themselves cast as the villains of the story. You know, it wasn't enough to suffer the worst tragedy of their lives. Now they also had to deal with being demonized and defamed for no good reason. I bring all this up because it reminds me very much to an almost eerie degree.

of the third national tragedy that impacted me and many millions of Americans so deeply that will never forget where we were when we heard about it. That would be the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Just like Sandy Hook, Charlie's Kirk assassination has become the subject of wild and baseless conspiracy theories. And just like Sandy Hook, one of the living victims of this tragedy, in this case Erica Kirk, has become, for no good reason, a target. She's been demonized and defamed and on the exact same basis. The internet peanut gallery has decided that she smiles at inappropriate times.

She rubs them the wrong way. They don't like her vibes. And for that reason, she must be the villain of the story rather than the victim. Now, we're finding out that the internet is like the Matrix. It allows you to construct whatever reality you want for yourself. That's how the trans craze took hold. that's every weird subreddit full of bizarre perverts living out their fetishes in the company of other perverts who share the same interests. And it's what conspiracy theorists do.

They marinate in a selectively curated assortment of facts that stitch together whatever story they're telling themselves. The earth is flat, Sandy Hook was staged, Erica Kurt conspired with a half dozen foreign intelligence agencies to murder her husband and frame a gay furry, etc. And this time around, the chief media personality promoting the all-tenths, alternative version of events is, of course, Candice Owens. Now, as you may remember a couple of months ago, I laid out the reasons why, contrary to claims by Candice, it's clear that Tyler Robinson killed Charlie Kirk. To the extent there was any evidence of a potential conspiracy, it involved the several trans activists who posted messages online that appeared to indicate, at a minimum, that they may have had advanced knowledge of the assassination plot. And, of course,

there were the strange text messages between Robinson and his roommate, in which Robinson stated that his roommate had seen him engraving bullets. But there was no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Charlie Kirk's associates, or Erica Kirk, or Turning Point USA, or the French government, or the Israeli government, or the U.S. military, had anything to do with Charlie's murder. Now, for months, Candace has stated otherwise. In October, she wrote this message on X, quote, with all we've crowdsourced, it looks like a decision to murder Charlie Kirk in Utah, was made around July 18th. A military meeting with foreign leaders took place on July 20th on U.S. soil. The plane flew into Provo, direct from France, on September 4th, and stayed until just

after Charlie was assassinated, flying out to Wilmington on that day. The plane returned home to Egypt the following day on September 11th. In November, Candace provided the following update, quote, urgent. Two days ago, I was contacted by a high-ranking employee of the French government after determining this person's position and proximity to the French couple. I've deemed the information they gave me to be credible enough to share publicly in the event that something happens. In short, this person claims that the Macron's have executed upon and paid for my assassination. Yes, you're rather correctly. I'm told there is one Israeli that is on this assassination squad and the plans were formalized.

Again, this person provided concrete proof that they were well placed within the French government apparatus. Further to this point, this person claims that Charlie Kurt's assassin trained with the French Legion, 13th brigade, with a multi-state. involvement. I have more specific information, which is definitively verifiable, should they care to reach out to me. That same month, she posted this message, quote, today is going to be a big day what we will present in the Charlie Kirk investigation is going to change everything. That is not an exaggeration. Nothing will be the same. In December, Candace followed up with this message on Instagram, quote, it feels like today will be the day that the government can no longer deny it. Charlie Kirk was assassinated and our military was involved. I can't wait to share this information.

with you guys today. She also wrote the following on X, quote, I received information last night that put the final pieces together for me. I can now say with full confidence that I believe Charlie Kirk was betrayed by the leadership of Turning Point USA and some of the very people who eulogized him on stage. Yes, I'll be naming names, providing evidence for my claims, you were lied to, and leadership knew. Now, around the same time, Candace interviewed a guy named Mitch Snow, who she says she was connected with via email. and Mitch Snow claimed with 95% certainty that he saw Charlie Kirk's head of security,

along with Erica Kirk, at a military installation in Arizona right before Charlie was murdered. Watch. Mitch, welcome to my podcast. It's so great to have you here. It's wonderful to be here, Candace. How are you doing?

I'm doing very well. I obviously know the story of how I instantly got the email from one of your friends that just said, you should call Mitch after I prayed and said, I'm missing a piece of this. Please, God, give me a piece of this story. And the first email I see when I get back from church on a day of holy obligation is this email. And so, Mitch, my audience is up to date on what happened to you when you were 20 years old. And I'm wondering if you can just sort of briefly recap in case I got some things wrong. I obviously can't confirm that you saw who you say you saw.

if you had to put it at a percentage that you saw Brian Harpole, what percentage would you put it at? 95. 95%. 95 to 99. I mean, when I saw him, you know, on the interview with his face and gestures, I, yeah, with that photo, it struck me in my gut. I blew it off until there was, you know, some other pictures that came up with other people. What other people? Other pictures? If you want me to say, there's a picture of Erica Kirk with a ponytail and from her past.

that person matches who I saw at Fort Wachuka in the lobby the night before and she was with that with that man in the lobby and that man he was present at that meeting the next morning if you had to put it at a percentage that you saw that the girl in the ponytail matches the description of Erica Kirk what percentage would you put that at Those are really rare eyes. That's 95-99%. Now, that interview has nearly 3 million views, and all the comments that are visible,

every single one of them, treats the interview like a bombshell revelation. Lord have mercy, one person writes, nothing will be the same after this. Now, Mitch Snow would later claim on social media that his father was the Zodiac killer. He would also present no corroborating evidence whatsoever for his claim.

The claim that even take, at face value makes no sense. If Erica conspired with the U.S. military to kill her husband for reasons that have yet to be explained, why should she be meeting at a military base in person to discuss it? I mean, that's not how assassinations actually work in real life. And if all of the most powerful forces on Earth were engaged in this kind of plot, it seems highly unlikely that they'd be so sloppy that some random guy named Mitch could blow the whole thing wide open because he just so happen to be walking by at the exact right moment. So this is a person who is obviously not credible making wildly implausible claims for which he has no proof. It's hard not to conclude that this is

what's fueling most of the conspiracy theories. Random people are sending in tips making claims, and those tips and claims are taken at face value. Now, the problem is that there are a lot of people feeding information to Candace or posting it online themselves or sending it to other proponents of the conspiracy theory. And there are a lot of reasons why they might be doing that. One of the possible reasons is that they are sincere, sane, honest actors earnestly trying to help crack the case and find Charlie's real killer. But that is just one possible explanation, and by far not the most likely. The other reasons why people might be sending tips to Candace or posting them online or sending them to anybody else or whatever is that they're confused and

diluted or they're trolls or they have personal and political grudges that they're trying to settle. Candace has said many times publicly that she has informants inside TPP USA. Why might people inside TPSA be supplying Candice with ammunition against their own organization? Are these honest crusaders for the truth? It's possible. It's also extremely possible that these are people with personal grudges and professional ambitions that they've decided are served by sending Candice after their rivals within the organization. And on top of all this, there's the risk that foreign intelligence agencies are contributing to the maelstrom by feeding bad information. Now, certainly the temptation for a foreign intelligence agency to jump into the fray and foment further divisions and chaos with bad intel must be very profound.

And if you think that shadowy foreign governments were involved in Charlie Kirk's assassination, despite there being no evidence to support such an idea, consider the possibility that shadowy foreign governments could also be involved in creating and fueling false things. theories about Charlie Kirk's assassination. If you believe that they do the former, then you must believe that they could do the latter. Now, the point here is that any evidence that is based entirely on unverified tips and unverified claims from random sources cannot actually be taken on its own as evidence of anything. There are just too many other potential reasons why these parties may be involving themselves. But I've already explained in detail why I think Tyler Robinson did in fact kill Charlie Kirk, not at the behest of TPSA or any foreign government

or our own government, but instead moved by his own left-wing pro-trans radicalism. Trans-radicals are murdering people in this country constantly. There is nothing at all surprising or implausible about the idea that they also killed Charlie Kirk. And you can go back and watch that episode to hear that case laid out. I hope you do if you haven't seen it. Today I want to focus instead on the increasingly aggressive and single-minded attacks on Erica Kirk specifically. As you may have seen last night, Candace debuted a new series called The Bride of Charlie, which purports to tell us the sinister truth about Erica.

This, of course, didn't come out of nowhere for weeks now. Candace has openly suggested that Erica may have committed a crime in connection with her husband's murder. For example, here she was a couple of weeks ago, stating that the police should detain. Erika and subject her to interrogation. Watch. Look, I have seen enough, ladies and gentlemen. I've seen enough. Erica Kirk should be dragged into a police precinct for questioning. Like I said, you can show me the person who disagrees with me on that. After I will reveal to you what we can now confirm, you can show me that individual and I will show you a full blown fraud. That's the only

people that would disagree with that assessment. Well, but as we'll see, there isn't enough evidence to justify dragging her into a police precinct, much less charging her with the crime, much less convicting her. There isn't any evidence, actual positive evidence, that Erica has committed any crime, or covered up any crime, or had any involvement in any crime, to include especially the crime of murdering her husband. And that's why, although the innuendos about Erica may be compelling fodder for YouTube videos, they would not be compelling to a grand jury or a prosecutor or a judge.

If you took everything that's been said about Erica or implied and tried to present it as evidence in a court of law, you would be laughed out of the room. There's no case here. There's no evidence of anything. Now, these attacks on Erica by Candace and by everyone else engaged in this campaign are wrong, deeply, desperately wrong. wrong morally and factually.

They are wrong morally because they are wrong factually. The whole crux of the matter here is not just that Erica is a grieving widow, but that she is innocent of the accusations that are being made or implied against her. The point is not that, hey, Erica may have killed her husband or been involved in it or covered it up, but we should take it easy on her because she's a grieving widow. The point is that Erica didn't do any of that. There is no evidence that she did any of that. No evidence at all, period.

Defaming anybody with untrue accusations is very bad, but defaming a widow, the grieving wife of a man that we all say we loved and admired, is unspeakably, horrifically bad. Now, most of Candace's critics have responded to her latest episode and every other episode over the past several months by shouting angrily, calling her evil and just leaving it at that. And I understand why people are emotional. But if there's any hope of saying anything that makes any kind of difference

that actually succeeds in cutting through the noise and persuading anyone to back away from these grandiose and baseless conjectures, then it's going to require that we deal with the claims being made and address them head on, shouting insults at each other across the void will not actually accomplish anything. It's cathartic. It's not useful. This year, our sponsor, Pure Talk, is giving you great wireless service for only $25 a month. Get unlimited talk, text, and plenty of data for the cost of only one or two meals out.

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slash walsh for 27% offsite wide. It's helixleap.com slash waltz. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you helixleap.com slash walsh. So let's begin then with the first episode of Candace's new series, Bride of Charlie. At no point in this episode, which ran roughly an hour long, did Candace present evidence of any misconduct by Erica Kirk, much less evidence that she had any connection to Charlie's murder. Instead, we were given a demonstration as to why courtrooms have rules of evidence. In particular, she demonstrated why evidence has to be relevant before it's presented to a jury. Otherwise, you get a barrage of irrelevant details, all with vague insinuations of guilt that don't actually mean anything.

For 50 minutes, Candace delved into the backstory of Erica's family, pointing out that, for example, some of them were involved in gambling. There seems to be the vague suggestion that these details are sinister, but it was never explained why, and even if they are. Even if Erica comes from a weird family or a bad family, and I have no reason to think that that's the case, it wouldn't prove anything relevant about Erica herself. You could tell me that Erica's mother was a serial killer and her father was a terrorist, and it wouldn't move us one inch in the direction of proving that Erica has done anything wrong or been involved in her husband's murder in any way. And Candace began the episode by reading a lengthy tweet from somebody named Elizabeth Lane.

Lane says that Erica is a Hillary Clinton-type figure who married Charlie in order to get ahead in life until it all fell apart. Watch. Despite all that, the public remains unconvinced that she is simply a grieving widow because she isn't simply a grieving widow. She's also the CEO and chairman of an organization. In fact, during our preparation for this series, an investigative journalist named Elizabeth Lane went viral on X because what she authored about Erica was brilliant. It just was objectively brilliant. It gave voice to what millions of people worldwide were feeling, but didn't exactly know how to express. And I'm going to read you her words in their entirety because I think it's very important.

In my head, the story goes like this. For a moment, it works. She becomes the wife of a rising political figure with access to donors, institutions, and national platforms. At that point, the ceiling isn't social media influence. It's empire building, foundations, global reach, a legacy, a brand, the Kirk's. It's obvious that Charlie listens to her, whether it's about donors or the trajectory of Turning Point USA, the most influential figure in any mentally healthy man's life is going to be his wife. She's going to be the biggest influence, and that is just how it is.

That is why you need to pick your partner wisely. and everything was going well until Charlie began making decisions based on conscience rather than expansion in money. He turns down money. He refuses to play dirty politics. I am assuming someone like Erica, who married into this because she had a vision for this brand, would not be very happy about that. The life she appears to have signed up for.

The power couple expanding influence, historical relevance, was collapsing into something else entirely. Domesticity, housewife, kids, and now Charlie refusing to accept the money that can make him a global power. power. A supporting role instead of Senator Sage is not her thing. Now, this tweet, which goes on at great length, has something like 10 million views. And Candice obviously thinks it's compelling as a way of suggesting that Erica had some motive to be unhappy with Charlie and to want to replace him. Quote, the life she appears to have signed up for power couple expanding influence, historical relevance, was collapsing into something else entirely.

Now, this is not how Charlie would describe himself because he was modest, but if Charlie and Erica were not a political power couple at the time of his death, then no couple qualifies as a power couple. Charlie was one of the top three outside advisors with a direct line to the president. He hosted pretty much all of the president's events from Butler to the election, obviously played a major role in Trump's victory. He could influence legislation and executive action with a phone call. And based on the massive receptions he was getting on college campuses and his fundraising efforts,

Charlie was a legitimate contender to be the president of the United States one day, probably sooner than most people think. Now, the idea that Erica saw all of this and concluded that her allegedly selfish dreams of being famous and important were slipping away is complete nonsense. But even if you accept the premise that this Elizabeth Lane character has the mind-reading ability, she apparently ascribes to herself, still, this would not constitute evidence of anything. Let's say that Erica is a psychotic social climber interested only in fame and fortune. She's not.

I work in media. I know a lot of people like that. She's not one of them. But even if she were, so what? Imagine calling the police with this bit of evidence. Imagine telling them that they need to come and arrest Erica Kirk right away in connection with the murder of her husband. Why?

Well, because it seems like she's a really shallow and superficial person. What police department on the face of the planet would send the squad cars over to Erica's house and frog marcher and leg irons in front of the cameras on that basis? Well, let's continue and see if we're presented with anything that could be considered a reasonably probable cause. Watch. So they decided to get married on Erica's what would have been Erica's seventh birthday? Okay, that's strange. I mean, at least the birthday she says she has, but this document is saying, no, she's born two days later. so I guess it wasn't her seventh birthday. Attached to this document, which was filed on July 20th, 998, is another document that I can only assume was scanned in with an intention to further confuse people.

It's a separation agreement, which is not not not not dated, so it's almost not relevant. And it completely edits the date of the marriage between Kent and Lori from November 20, 1995, down to November 7th, 1982. A casual 13 years and 13 days wiped out. Okay? Like I said, you can just ignore that because I think that document was just put in there to confuse people.

Take it from me. I'm a notary, one in the state of New York, although my license has expired. You can't just skip over a notary portion of a document and just be fine with that. I do want to note that this was the fastest divorce in the history of divorce because she filed on July 20th, 1998,

and then we have a decree on November 10th of the same year. So this is like three months later. Once again, the marriage date is listed, the initial marriage date between Kent and Lori, as November 20th, 1995 in Marblehead, Massachusetts. But oddly, you can see that somebody just went in and tried to edit that date by hand afterward, adjusting the wedding date down this time to 1985,

not 1982, hoping, I guess, that no one. one would catch that. I guess the unnotarized 1982 that we saw in the initial filing was too difficult. It would have been too obvious. So this time they're attempting to do it by hand and edit the date of marriage back just 10 years, not 13 years. This is not subtle. It is not normal and it bothers me greatly. Take it from someone who is chronically being sued. That is not how modifications work on court documents. You can't just use a pen and write something on a divorce decree. You can't, you just can't do that.

People have to initial, you got a date, you got to see who saw it. This is, this is crazy to be. My suspicion, and again, this is just a general suspicion, is that this was done after the fact, maybe someone had a friend down at the county clerk. Now, none of this

leads anywhere. She finds a couple of clerical errors on a divorce filing involving Erica Kirk's parents, including Erica's birth date. And from that, we're supposed to conclude what, exactly? Notice the way the information was framed. You're led to believe that random divorce filings and random courthouses are always perfectly correct and never modified in this fashion. But there's no proof of that. Now, if she wanted to,

she could have had some kind of local expert come on and give his impression of these documents. Somebody objective doesn't have a sort of a dog in the fight and talk about what they might mean, but that doesn't happen. And if it did, she'd likely be told that clerical errors are not unusual at all. Instead, Candace simply states that it is unusual and that you should draw some unknown conclusion from that information. Again, this is why in the legal system, irrelevant evidence is not introduced. It's not simply a way to save time. I mean, the main reason that we exclude irrelevant evidence is that when you present a mountain of evidence, people in general want to believe that it leads somewhere. They don't want to stop and ask the question, hey, what's the point of this?

Or what does this have to do with anything? Instead, they assume that the lawyers and the more knowledgeable people in the courtroom are introducing the evidence for a reason. It must prove guilt in some way, even if it's hard to see how. People draw inferences that aren't actually supported by the fact. So to prevent that from happening, irrelevant evidence is not allowed. Unfattering but irrelevant details about a suspect would be considered prejudicial because it prejudices the jury against the suspect, giving them a negative impression,

which makes them more likely to convict, even if there's insufficient evidence of the crime the suspect is accused of committing. And that's what a lot of this stuff is. It's prejudicing the jury. In this case, the jury in the court of public opinion against Erica, even without proving that she committed the crime

that she is, by insinuation at least, being accused of. There's a lot of other irrelevant evidence. Here's another example. Carl Kenneth Franzfei is Erica's paternal grandfather. Okay, he participated extensively in horse racing. More crucially, though, he was an executive at the American Banknote Company in Illinois. This is the company that was responsible for printing

lottery tickets. It's a big contract, a big deal. Here he is in a newspaper in 1974 doing just that. It reads, printing began this week on the first Illinois state lottery tickets. Up to 10,000 agents. It tells us at the bottom there that Kent Franz Faye of the American Banknote Company, the printer examines the first tickets of the initial press run. Let's stick with Grandpa Carl Kenneth Franci for a little bit because he is, by all accounts, obviously, Swedish. Erica herself is therefore Syrian-Lebanese on her mother's side and Swedish on her father's side. So something which struck me as immediately odd about Erica is just how deeply she identifies

as Swedish, despite her public insistence that she was. raised by a quote unquote single mother. Think about that just from a social perspective. If Erica was indeed raised by a single mother, wouldn't you expect her to identify more deeply with those Lebanese Syrian roots, right? You might even understand it if she resented her Swedish roots. Like, my dad didn't do anything. Now I'm paraphrasing, but they said, Candace, Erica is referring to her grandfather as her morpher. I was like, okay, so I looked it up. It means. grandfather in Swedish. Like she's, maybe she doesn't, you know, she, it's cute, okay? Maybe she's not fluent, but she's cute. And then they explained it to me a little further. They said, no,

Candace, the Swedish language is quite literal here. More far, quite literally translates into mother's father, more far. And far far, quite literally translates into father's father. We have different words for these things. These have entirely different meanings. You would never call your father's mother, your morfar. You'd never call, and that's what she's doing. She's calling him her more far. Here's the true timeline. Erica was in Cincinnati, Ohio for daycare in 1992.

She attended a place called Walnut Corner, Children's Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, located inside of a massive corporate building. Oddly, the filing for that daycare doesn't have a floor number, but I can show you this photo of her at daycare. L.O.L. by the way, to her being dressed as a little B and accidentally throwing up some Freemason hand signs. That's just like a nice ad. She looks adorable. Now, the problem is that you could do this to anyone. You could relentlessly dig up old photos and social media posts and legal documents and find minor inconsistencies that have no relevance to anything and present them as a

part of a nefarious plot. You could dig into anybody's life and find embarrassing things, weird things, inconsistent things. You could dig into anybody's family and find all kinds of of weirdness. Find me a person who claims to not have a weird family, and I'll show you a person who apparently doesn't know their family very well, or more likely is lying. But again, this is all innuendo. It doesn't prove anything. It's not evidence of anything. Now, to be fair, in recent episodes of her show, Candice has relied less on innuendo and more on direct accusations. Her series about Erica's ongoing. Some of the stuff from her previous episodes might give us a clue is to where the current series is headed.

So let's take a look. I want you to listen to this now with new ears in retrospect. And if you see a clue, I want you guys to shout at the screen. Say, a clue, a clue. Let's listen. For him that night, he was so excited. I mean, he just was like, I can't wait. It's going to be the best.

He got up around 2.45-ish to go into the kitchen to grab a snack. and our daughter had woke up, but around that same time, we live in a small space, you can kind of hear when everyone's kind of shuffling around. And so she came to our room, and she stayed in our bed. And he always loved when Gigi slept in our bed because she's, you know, little ones, they, like, curl up inside of you,

and, like, they're just nuzzled in. But she, you also know that it can be very acrobatic when a three-year-old is in your bed and somehow their feet end up on your face. So I said, I want you to have a good night's sleep. go ahead and sleep in her room. And I'll turn the air down so it's nice and cozy in there. And I just want you to get a good night's sleep.

So you can be amazing tomorrow. And so Gigi and I stayed in our room. And that morning he woke up super early. And he came into our bedroom, into the bathroom, because that's where his wedding ring was and his necklace. And he came in and he grabbed that. And then he left. I didn't even get to give him a kiss goodbye.

What's that in the chat? People are saying a clue. Did you guys see clues? Oh, okay. Let me revisit that. Let me actually reiterate what Erica is saying happened the night before because it doesn't make any sense. Well, to me, it makes perfect sense.

I mean, there's nothing unusual about anything in that interview. But let's see what Candace says about it. She says, Charlie was so excited. And then she quotes. He was like, I can't wait. It's going to be the best. End quote. It's a quotation from Charlie.

I can't wait. It's going to be the best. Okay, can I ask why? Why was UVU going to be the best? Has Charlie never been to UVU before? No, he has. Actually, he's been with me. I've done UVU with him. I honestly have done a lot of college events. I've never seen this level of excitement to go sit down with a bunch of teenagers, mostly, who are over-coddled by their parents and who are going to be shouting all sorts of questions like you. It was going to be the best? We already did it. Why was it going to be better? feel offended. I thought we had a good experience up at UVU. Certainly wouldn't have described it as the best and wouldn't be on the brink of my seat looking to go back, itching to go back to UVU. So that's weird. So the idea is that Charlie wouldn't have been excited about the start

of his fall campus store, even though he'd be greeted by thousands of fans and clearly enjoyed getting out of the studio. There's nothing weird about the fact that Charlie enjoyed doing his life's work. It also was, by the way, perfectly consistent with everything I saw from him personally. He was always amped and excited at any event where I saw him. Let's continue. She then says that Charlie woke up for a snack at 2.45 in the morning. And apparently he was so loud, the apartment's small. And maybe it was his excitement. He's like, yeah, you be you. Yeah, I'm so excited. Who knows? Okay, we're not clear on that. But the implication is That's what woke up her three-year-old daughter at 2.45 in the morning.

That's not when toddlers at the age of three wake up, okay? These are sleep-trained toddlers, okay? Gigi wakes up at 245, three-year-old kid, who should be in the REM stage of sleep. Toddlers knock out. Maybe Gigi is a light sleeper. It's also just curious that they're all awake. It's 2.45 a.m. in the morning. I don't know what's going on.

But toddlers do wake up at 3 a.m. I mean, I have a toddler right now who wakes up in the middle of the night almost every night. In fact, every one of our six children have gone through that phase around that age. It's the most normal thing in the world. So there's simply no reason at all to think that she lied about this. And even if you do think she lied about it, still, and maybe you're sensing a theme here, it would not be evidence of any crime. But it continues, watch.

maybe there's noise, not from excitement, but maybe an argument. Maybe there was an argument that would make more sense to me, especially when we add in how she concludes that portion by telling us that Charlie took off his wedding ring during that same night, which is why he, of course, then had to put it back on the next morning. And Erica says he snuck in the next morning to put that wedding band on. I immediately, immediately clocked that. Even when that interview was live, I said that's weird, just because I know Charlie, but I couldn't explain that to the audience.

I know Charlie. Charlie's the kind of person who could sleep with his boots on, like this little ring. I don't know virtually any men. Truly, I don't know any. But obviously, I'm assuming there are. Maybe you've got a funky little band and maybe your hands swollen with summer. I don't know that like meticulously take that little band off. Charlie doesn't strike me as type person who would do that.

I said that seems a little off. Now, you know, I mentioned before how these kinds of conspiracy theories not only draw unsupported conclusions based on irrelevant and sometimes imaginary details, but that the theories actually make less sense of the irrelevant details. And we see that again here. If Erica is a criminal mastermind who's managed to avoid detection for her nefarious plots and she's in league with the U.S. military and other extremely powerful organizations, then why would she also confess live on primetime television to numerous incriminating details for no reason whatsoever. She didn't have to mention anything about the wedding ring, which, by the way, many men

do take off at night. She didn't have to mention anything about the bed that Charlie slept in or the toddler waking up. But Erica slipped up apparently and revealed all of these incriminating details because in all her sinister planning, she couldn't think of a good cover story. Now, if Erica is hiding some sinister truth, none of that makes sense. she would be doing the opposite of what she's actually doing in real life. Continuing. I also want to add this little tidbit. Erica is, as you're going to see, exceedingly uncomfortable discussing Charlie's final day.

Fox News had to use a lot of cuts. A lot of, you can, now that I'm telling you that and you watch, you're going to go, oh, yeah, they're cutting and kind of like putting her answer in a different place. very obviously and poorly edited out entire portions when Jesse asks her a fairly simple question. Tell me about the day before the shooting. That would be Charlie's last full day on Earth. So Erica is exceedingly uncomfortable describing Charlie's final day. Well, that again makes perfect sense to me. She's uncomfortable describing the last day that her husband was alive on this planet. I think I would be too in her shoes. And this is another common theme. Things that are

perfectly understandable and normal, are recast as ominous and bizarre. For example, Erica has frequently been criticized for not announcing the exact location of her husband's burial site. And the implication, again, is that she's hiding some dark secret, but the much more reasonable and plausible and totally understandable explanation is that she doesn't want leftists showing up and defacing her husband's grave, which we all know they would do. And she doesn't want random deranged people showing up and trying to exhume his body so that they can conduct their own unofficial forensic analysis, which would also probably happen. So again, we have no evidence of any crime at all, least of all the crime, of conspiring to kill her husband. But by far, the number one

piece of evidence against Erica, the thing that really got the conspiracy theory is rolling and which fuels them even now, is the same thing that put the Sandy Hook parents in the crosshairs. It is Erica's general demeanor in public, her facial expressions, what she wears. It's definitely not just Candace drawing sinister conclusions based on Erica's wardrobe and body language. It's all over the internet. It's all over the place. The Daily Mail even published this headline this week. As Erica Kirk finally comes out of hiding at the State of the Union, shock-new expose plagues, giggling widow who can't shake questions over her tears and those leather pants.

Now it's strange that Erica is accused of being in hiding. She's also accused of being too public, too hungry for the spotlight. So somehow she's guilty of being too visible and not visible enough at the exact same time. I've never seen anyone in my life who has been put in such a morbidly absurd, lose-lose situation. If Erica laughs, she's criticized for not crying. If she cries, her tears are fake. If she's out in public, she should be home grieving. if she's home grieving, she should stop hiding and come out in the public. If she laughs,

she's a cruel, unfeeling psychopath. If she frowns, she's an icy, scheming villain. Literally, no matter what this woman does, no matter what she says, how she looks, what facial expression she displays, it is used as evidence against her. Look at this tweet from the news outlet RT. It says, Erica Kirk's State of the Union demeanor goes viral. Commenters on social media argued Charlie Kirk's widow was acting weird, fake and performative at the State of the Union address. Do you spot anything? And you can see the video there. Well, the answer is no. I don't spot anything strange. She's just sitting there. What do you want her to do? At some point, she looks like she's getting emotional. At other point, she smiles in response to something Trump says from the podium.

She looks up. She looks down. What do you want? What is the precise facial expression that Erica Kirk is supposed to have? Maybe one of her critics can show us. Go ahead and prescribe for Erica exactly what her face is supposed to look like at all times. This is completely ridiculous. I mean, we're at the point now where Erica's facial expressions are being judged on a second-by-second basis. People are parsing the slightest move of an eyebrow and looking for evidence of something sinister. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that nobody in history has ever been subjected to this intense level of scrutiny so much that they literally can't smile or use a tissue without 10,000 people on the internet attacking them in the most ruthless and uncharitable terms possible.

I've never seen anything like it. If you have, let me know. Now, I've heard it argued by Candace and many others that Erica has put herself in line for this level of scrutiny by assuming. the role of CEO. Now, I'm not sure why a person becoming CEO of an organization inherently justifies ripping their life apart. I'm not aware of any other CEO who's ever been subjected to anything like this. It seems more that her becoming CEO offers a pretense for the criticism, not a necessary reason for it. And in any case, even if becoming CEO makes her a candidate for increased scrutiny. What it doesn't do is lower the evidentiary bar for everybody else before accusing her of nefarious crimes or implying that she's guilty of them. Her becoming CEO does not give

anyone moral license to make wild and defamatory speculations about her. And anyway, her decision to become CEO is not surprising. It certainly is not scandalous. Wanting to keep a man's life work in the family to preserve his legacy is an understandable instinct, and by the way, a very conservative one. Now, as to her behavior, I personally don't think that she's been acting strange at all. But if you do, then here's your explanation. Not that Erica owes you one. Any human being under that much scrutiny in a situation this traumatic and terrible would behave strangely. Indeed, I don't even know what a normal reaction would be. This is not a normal circumstance. We have no frame of reference for it. Our only frame of reference is how private people mourning much

less public deaths behave. And even based on that comparison, a comparison, which is not entirely fair to Erica, still her behavior is wholly understandable. Grieving people often laugh. They smile. Other times they're crying. They try to compartmentalize their grief and carry on hiding their trauma as best they can. That's what Erica is clearly doing, and she's doing it while trying her best to carry on her husband's legacy and life's work, which is what she feels called to do. Again, that is not difficult for a reasonable person to understand. But all of this is irrelevant. Even if you don't like how she acts, the pants she wears, her facial expressions, anything else.

You have no actual evidence-based reason to think that she is guilty of committing any crime. And if she isn't guilty of a crime, then all you're doing is nitpicking a widow, which is every bit like critiquing the color of somebody's nail polish while you watch them drown in the ocean and make no attempt to help. Yes, maybe she made an odd choice of nail polish that day. she's also drowning. And that would seem to be the more salient fact. And it's interesting to me to note that Tyler Robinson is not subjected to even a fraction of the public scrutiny, even though all of the evidence, literally all of the evidence points to him. There is no evidence connecting Erica to the crime. All of it. All of the evidence we do have. Every bit of it connects Tychoice Tyler Robinson to it. And yet for some reason, he's not the subject of public scorn. Instead,

it all goes to the widow of the man he killed. So I've laid out over these past 45 minutes or so the argument. I've made the case. I've tried to explain as thoroughly and systematically as I can why Candace's claims about Erica and insinuations about her are not based in fact. And having done that, I'd like to now, if you'll forgive me, merely a epilogue, speak on a more emotional and personal level for a moment. I admit that I have a certain advantage when it comes to assessing Erica's actions and motives. I've spoken to her multiple times since Charlie died. You know, you don't need to know her or speak to her to understand that the accusations and insinuations against her are utterly without merit. You don't need

to know her or speak to her to understand that there is no legitimate reason, no evidence to justify treating her with anything but compassion and sympathy. You don't need to know her or speak to her to understand the biblical mandate to be kind to widows. But if you did speak to her, you would see, as I have clear as day, that this woman is completely devastated, broken into a thousand pieces by this tragedy. She is shattered. She is crushed. And now, already grief-stricken and gutted, she must deal with public scorn, mockery, and defamation unlike anything I've ever seen in my life, much less experienced myself. If you're worried that she isn't sad enough, fear not. I can report she's sad. She is very, very sad. And if for some unknown reason it makes

you feel better to know that? Well, now you do. The other thing you notice about Erica, if you talk to her in real life, is that she is a real person dealing with a real thing. Everybody else on the internet has the benefit of treating this whole thing like some kind of game, a piece of content that you watch and then scroll past. You engage with the story in bits and pieces when you want to here and there, and then you don't. I'm talking about it right now as an episode of my podcast. Candice has done many episodes about it. Erica lives with it every second of every day. This is her life. It's not a game for her. It's not content. It's her life. Now, I've talked about how deeply Charlie's death affected me, and it did. I was changed by it, and not for the better. I'm sorry

to say. I'm an angrier person now. I admit that. But I also recognize that even in the immediate aftermath of his death, I could still put my phone down and turn off the TV. and try to take my mind off the tragedy and go spend time with my family, with my wife who is alive and my children who are happy and safe with two parents who love them. I have that luxury, so does Candace. Erica does not.

When I was trying to take my mind off of things, do you know what Erica was doing? She was explaining to her young children that their daddy will never be coming home. Do you know what that's like? Have you ever had to have a conversation like that? I haven't. I pray I never do.

And every night since that day, while I am happily at home with my family and Candace is with hers, Erica is home with two children who are suffering a trauma that they're far too young to process while she carries a grief that most of us can't comprehend. And all the while, she is gleefully ripped to pieces by hordes of people who cannot muster even the faintest shred of sympathy for her. Will anything I'm saying right now change that? Will it make any difference at all? I don't know. Probably not. Is it likely to persuade Candace or any of her fans or anyone else who's been attacking Erica?

That's probably unlikely, though I can always hope. You know, there's a debate on the right right now about the best way to defend Charlie's family and legacy through all of this. Is it better to starve the conspiracy theories of attention, deprive them of oxygen? Or should we focus on them intently? Should we scream and shout and get angry? Should we approach the issue objectively and offer a dispassionate rebuttal? I'll be honest with you. I've argued with myself about this. I don't know the answer. All I know is that Erica Kirk is a victim, not a culprit or a conspirator.

She doesn't deserve any of this. What she deserves is sympathy and maybe a little bit of grace. And if we really loved and admired Charlie, then extending that basic level of decency to his wife is the least we can do. That'll do it for the show today. And this week, I'll talk to you next week. Have a great weekend. Godspeed.

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