Candace Owens reviews a Vanity Fair profile of Erika Kirk and responds to new attacks against her
Candace Owens solo episode analyzing a Vanity Fair profile of Erika Kirk, CEO of Turning Point USA, and responding to a wave of new narratives targeting Owens personally.
Summary
Candace Owens opens with an extended analysis of a Vanity Fair profile piece on Erika Kirk, arguing that the reporter's evident frustration with her subject vindicates Owens's long-standing criticisms — that Erika is unqualified, politically incoherent, and running what Owens calls a "grift." Owens highlights specific passages from the article, including Erika's refusal to articulate political views on Israel or any other issue, her explanation for the Alo Yoga clothing purchase the morning after Charlie Kirk's death, and her claim that a $1,600 designer suit was "the only thing that fit" at AmFest. Owens then pivots to a new wave of attacks against her personally, including a narrative she describes as a complete reversal of the previous year's smears — now claiming she is a "cheating lesbian funded by a Zionist." She traces the origins of these claims to archived social media accounts, a college journalism project, and retweets by billionaire Bill Ackman, and connects the archiving dates to key moments in the Charlie Kirk assassination timeline. Tucker Carlson is quoted in the Vanity Fair piece confirming that Turning Point's leadership is "wholly focused on Candace Owens" and that Erika Kirk is privately more critical of Israel than Charlie ever was.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
The Vanity Fair Profile of Erika Kirk
Candace Owens: Not all heroes wear capes. Some of them apparently write for Vanity Fair. I never thought I would utter that sentence. But I would like to assert firmly that the writer Clara Malo should probably win a Pulitzer for this remarkable and unintentionally hilarious profile piece published in Vanity Fair regarding Erika Kirk, CEO and chairwoman of Turning Point USA.
We have to go through it. It is a certified hit. Hats off to Clara. I actually can't believe Turning Point USA agreed to grant four months of access to this reporter. The question I have is: no access for Lake Forest Group following Charlie Kirk's assassination to conduct an independent review of what went wrong on that day. You guys have been out saying it was UVU's fault. You have a chance to prove it. And you go, "No, no, we don't want to participate." But Vanity Fair? Yeah, here are my children. Here's my mother-in-law. Here's access to my ailing mother. Take it all. I just want to be in Vanity Fair. It's my dream to be famous. Yeah, totally what she was thinking.
A lot to unpack, you guys. Welcome back to Candace.
Before we get to the high points throughout this piece, I first want to give you my overall view on why it's dripping with snark throughout from the reporter. Most people would be like, "Oh, it's because it's left versus right. Vanity Fair is traditionally left-leaning." No, that's not this. This is not a leftist hit piece. I actually think that what this piece is is a frustrated reporter who, for four months of her life, is being forced to subject herself to an obvious grift — where a woman who purports to be a qualified CEO and chairwoman of a massive organization doesn't want to actually answer even the most basic questions about that organization or politics, and yet she's expecting you to just write up a shiny, glowing review of her.
The piece reads to me like a reflection of that reporter's frustration. You have a writer who is a young woman, likely had to try hard in life — at least try harder than Erika — a writer who had to do things based on meritocracy like the rest of us, who's probably underpaid, who's now sitting across from a multi-millionaire who's really accomplished nothing in her entire life and expects to be painted as profound because she's the widow. The widow. She's supposed to feel bad for me.
The Headline Photo and the Relatability Grift
There are so many gems throughout, but I feel like we have to start with just checking in on Blake Neff, because I remember he bookmarked my tweet, didn't he? I tweeted out on July 18th the following: "Instead, they are going to put Erika in a spread for Vanity Fair with her children to pull at our heartstrings. Save this tweet. It's going to age well." And Blake, who thought he was being so funny, decided to add that tweet to his bookmarks. Well, Blakey, you can remove that from your bookmarks. You guys are forever gaslighting me and my sources. But yes, Erika's profile was at long last dropped.
We should just begin with the headline photo because it is something. I don't know why she can never just be normal and do normal things. It's like they're doing it on purpose. They want us to respond to this. There's a lot happening here. The good news is that Erika is not in the drapes. She's not in the drapes. They're sheer and she probably wants to be there, but she's controlling herself. The bad news is that Gigi, her daughter — and I keep calling this out, I don't like the way Gigi's being treated — Gigi does not look comfortable in this photo. That's putting it mildly. The entire scene looks like it's happening in a crusty Motel 8 on the side of a highway. It's giving Breaking Bad. And when I envision how that moment came together, it just disturbs me a little bit. I just imagine a happy-go-lucky toddler being put under a hat, her mom saying sweet things between takes as she's trying to get the sad face right, trying to nail the sad face. It makes me uncomfortable to think about how they got that shot.
And then you have Charlie's bust in the corner. I think that's really the most authentic part of the picture because he looks mildly concerned, confused, disappointed. He's wondering — we're all wondering — what's happening in this photo.
Then of course comes the relatability grift. The kids' toys on the ground are supposed to make you go, "Oh, this is like a working single mom." The kids are at the office with her. A $700 pair of Christian Louboutins thrown in the corner, because everyone knows a pair of Christian Louboutins — that's the signature working mom shoe. And you have the kids' shoes laid beside them because Erika cannot afford a housekeeper and the kids are messy. So relatable, guys. Relate. Reality check: even people who have messy homes and don't have housekeepers are going to tidy things up if guests are coming over.
The Content of the Article: Faith Over Politics
But the content of the article is even better than the photos. It's the best part. So let's go through some of these widow peaks, as I am now terming them.
Let's just first start with the fact that it's now okay that Erika is Catholic. It's a personal gripe, I will admit it — the earliest thing that they gaslighted me over. But since Erika attends mass every Sunday and travels with a priest, I guess it's now okay to admit that she's a hybrid. That's what she describes herself as in the article: an evangelical Catholic hybrid. It reads, quote:
"Across hours of interviews, Kirk spoke with remarkable candor about the most intimate details of her husband's death. Her faith, which she describes as a hybrid of Catholicism that she was raised with and the evangelical Christianity that she embraced as a young adult, came up in every single one of our conversations, but politics rarely did."
Never mind that it makes no sense off the bat. You're not a Catholic evangelical hybrid because you can't be. You either submit to the authority of the Catholic Church or you don't. It's not an ice cream shop where you get to choose flavors. And I wish she would just admit that what I said was true: she's whatever she needs to be for the money. Whatever room she's in is what she's appealing to. And right now she feels like she needs to keep up the faith grift. She can rely on well-meaning Christians who are being told by pastors to deliver sermons about why she should be honored. But on the political side, she doesn't want to address it.
The writer notes, quote: "In fact, she seemed uneasy articulating her own political views. I couldn't tell if it was because she lacked conviction or if she simply didn't want to offend me. Either way, it was hard to see how she could lead the movement that Charlie Kirk created."
She told the reporter that every decision she makes is based on the question: will this bring me closer to heaven or further away from it? "I am so fixated and paranoid," she says, "of having anything keeping me from going to heaven to be reunited with my husband."
I love that. That right there is absolutely what made the reporter know that she was dealing with a fraud. The absurdity of taking over a four-billion-dollar political organization and thinking that you don't have to respond meaningfully to political questions as long as you just go, "Oh, I'm just focused on heaven right now." Where else would that work? Give me the industry. Give me the CEO. Tell me where else that grift would work. In what world does a CEO and chairman get to abstain from answering questions by just being like, "I'm heaven-focused right now"?
Imagine the CFO of Enron being peppered with questions about the finances, about where the money was going, and he just says, "I'm really heaven-focused right now." I wish I knew that excuse back when I was in high school taking a chemistry exam. "Professor, I am just paranoid and focused right now on heaven and being reunited with my loved ones, and so I am going to have to abstain from answering your questions about the periodic table of elements."
If I'm the writer of this article, I'm annoyed that you think I'm dumb enough to just accept that — and not to realize that you probably just don't know the answers to anything because this is not your world, that you are pretending to lead a political organization when you probably don't even know basic civics answers. If they sat her down and were like, "Okay, Erika, what happens if, God forbid, the president and the vice president die?" — I bet she wouldn't be able to answer that question. Just admit you know nothing about politics. I think that would be so much more respectable. You're overwhelmed and you have no idea why you're in this position.
Erika on Israel and Bibi Netanyahu
Another point in the interview where Erika does the same emotional appeal is when the reporter asks her about her positions regarding Israel and Bibi Netanyahu — kind of a critical political issue right now to have an opinion on, given the war, given Iran, given gas prices, given everything that's happening internally in the Republican Party, the war between the neocons who have never been conservative and the America First group who doesn't care about Israel. That's a prominent issue to have an opinion on. The genocide in Gaza, all of it — it's central to the political divide today. The CEO of Turning Point USA is actually required to have an opinion on that.
And yet the reporter tells us, quote: "When I pressed Erika about her views on Israel, she says, 'To be quite honest with you, I don't sit around thinking about what Bibi Netanyahu is doing. My brain bandwidth right now is honoring my husband, loving on my babies, and building Turning Point to be everything that it could be. I really don't have the bandwidth to go down the rabbit holes of all of it.'"
It's not a rabbit hole. It's not a conspiracy. What's happening right now in Iran, what's happening with gas prices, the inflation, what people are spending on groceries — it's not a rabbit hole that you have to go down. It's an opinion that you need to have if you are at the helm of an organization. If you don't have the bandwidth to fashion an opinion on Israel as it relates to the foreign policies of the United States, you're just not qualified to be running a political organization. That's obvious.
The Enigma of Erika Kirk
My favorite laugh-out-loud portion of this is when the author just acknowledges that Erika is weird. Like, extremely weird. Everything she does is odd. The writer starts this passage:
"Erika knows that she doesn't make sense to most people. 'I'm built different,' she says. 'I do not know how to explain it other than this world will not break me.'"
The writer then jumps in: "It's true. She's an enigma right down to her clothes. The first time we met in the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Washington the morning of the White House Correspondents' Dinner, I came dressed in my best Jackie impression — conservative shift dress, ballet flats, and an overcoat. Kirk was dressed like a 2016 Kardashian, wearing a black silk set and a freedom cap, which she paired with glittery high-top Golden Goose sneakers. Her fingers, capped in a fresh set of baby pink acrylic nails, were embellished with Super Bowl-sized rings featuring her kids' initials, a blinding diamond engagement ring, and a copy of Charlie's Presidential Medal of Freedom."
"'I love your rings,' one of Turning Point's high school members would tell her weeks later. 'Thanks,' she says. 'They're real. Like my hair.'"
That's not how you respond. That's not how you respond when someone says, "I like your rings." It feels Mean Girls-coded. Like the compliment goes sideways. Suddenly you're being told you're poor. It's like: these are real diamonds. Like my hair. And she keeps doing that — talking about her hair. I don't know if there's some conspiracy about Erika having fake hair. I haven't heard it. I'm not down that rabbit hole. But yeah, very strange, very odd thing to say.
Questionable Statements: The Office Shrine and the Alo Purchase
Now we should clock some of the to-be-expected lies and strange revelations. We've kind of grown accustomed to Turning Point USA just feeding us BS. But the article is an exceptional strand of that.
First is Erika pretending that she's sensitive about maintaining Charlie's spaces. The writer tells us, quote:
"Even though she's the CEO, Erika does not have her own office at Turning Point headquarters, opting instead to work on the couch in Charlie's office near his desk, which has been preserved as a shrine. When I'm there, Mac climbs into his father's chair, eliciting a gasp from Erika. 'No one has sat there since Charlie,' she tells me, before deciding that only Mac can sit there. The floor above, which was meant to become a full-floor office suite for Charlie before his death, remains a demolished construction zone, left exactly how it was the day he died."
I guess we're supposed to pretend like we don't remember that time Erika let Mikey McCoy slide into Charlie's home office — slightly more personal than the work office — twelve days after Charlie was murdered. Mikey McCoy was taking interviews, taking Fox News hits. Remember this? Then we had Picture Gate. The picture went missing. This is not a person who is sensitive to preserving the legacy of Charlie. So I'm just going to call BS on that. The internet remembers, Erika. It's forever. Do not pretend that you're maintaining spaces for Mac.
Also, I don't even understand the point of the construction thing. Not finishing a construction project just feels irresponsible. It sounds like a safety hazard. Finish the construction project. That's not a space that Charlie ever occupied. There's no core memory being unlocked from a demolished construction zone. Everyone, please stop being stupid in your pursuit to pull our heartstrings.
Another very questionable statement arrives when Erika explains the Alo purchase. You might remember this — we never covered it in depth. I now wish Erika had sort of left the story alone, let it die. But apparently people found that she made purchases at Alo through her Alo account the day after Charlie died, like the morning after he died. The reason I wish she had let the story die is because when I saw this going around, my assumption was that someone around her, while she was traumatized and aggrieved, thought to go out and get her clothes. That was nearly confirmed because Elizabeth McCoy did a long thread and answered, saying, "I'm the one who went to Alo. Nobody had any clothes." And my assumption was that Erika was in a hysterical state and that at no point was it Erika herself who sent someone to buy clothes because she was already thinking about PR.
But that's what we learn. Alas, in this article we are informed that, quote:
"The night that Charlie died, she remembers sitting in her Salt Lake City hotel room thinking about the only thing that she had to wear on Air Force Two the next day — a proclaimed T-shirt with the phrase 'heaven is my home' printed across the front and 'I'm just recruiting' on the back. 'The last thing I need is people reading into the fact that heaven is my home,' she recalls thinking. So the next morning, she had a Turning Point staff member go to Alo Yoga to buy plain black clothes for her and several others, including one young woman who vomited on herself from the trauma."
So Charlie is assassinated. My assumption was Erika was being sedated. My assumption would be that she may have even had to go to the hospital because the trauma of a shock assassination would warrant that. I now know that when she went back to her hotel that night, she thought — well, nobody knows me. I've never been introduced to the world. Nobody's been mean to me yet. There's been no online chatter about my outfits. And yet her thought was: what am I going to wear tomorrow when I'm on the plane?
I think the world would have been fine if she showed up in a hotel bathrobe. If she was wearing the same outfit she had on, if she was wearing somebody's jacket, if someone from Turning Point USA went and grabbed her one of the many T-shirts available at every event they give out — an American Comeback Tour T-shirt. Erika thought through this the night before. And these are the little things that I think add up to the fact that there's something very wrong with her. This is not a normal thing. She should have been catatonic, shocked, not thinking about food or clothing, not thinking ahead about outfits on Air Force Two. It's crazy.
To give you a real-life comparison — even though he did not die — I walked you guys through the story of our security in Russia who had a stroke and we thought he was going to die. His wife jumped onto the first plane, which was to get to DC to get an emergency visa, then jumped onto the second plane, had to lay over in the Middle East wearing cowboy boots. When she showed up at the hotel in Moscow, she was still wearing the cowboy boots because her thought process was not, "What am I wearing?" It was, "Is my husband going to live or die?" The shock of knowing that her husband had a stroke in a foreign country — that is not this. This is not normal. We're not going to pretend this is normal.
This makes it infinitely worse that it was Erika who directed someone to go to Alo because she was thinking ahead about how her outfit would be perceived. She issued the directive. That is just a lot for me. We didn't know she was weird yet. Now we for sure know that she is weird and that she was concerned about her outfit.
The Glittery Suit Explanation
Another questionable statement is the reason Erika provides for wearing the glittery suit. Obviously, this went viral. People were like, "This is a weird way to come out. Why does it feel like it's a celebration? You've got this glittery pantsuit on." It offended a lot of people — the fireworks, whatever you want to call it, and the $1,600 Alice and Olivia designer suit to open AmFest in her husband's stead.
Erika says this in the article, quote: "People can see the sparkly suit on stage, but they have no idea the fact that that was the only thing that fit. Everyone gets a half picture."
A $1,600 Alice and Olivia tailored suit was the only thing that fit her that day. And it's giving Mean Girls when she says it's the only thing that fits her — "The sweatpants are all that fit me right now." But Erika has a team of people working on her every move: hair, makeup, wardrobe, stylists. Apparently opening AmFest was supposed to have caught her off guard. She didn't know it was coming. She was completely stranded. Never mind the fact that the event was held in Phoenix — that's where Erika lives, right? Phoenix, Scottsdale. So even if she had no clothes in the building for some strange reason, she could have sent someone to her house to grab something.
And by this point in December, Erika was completing what I'd call the Everybody Grieves Differently World Tour. She had a lot of outfits that we saw. We saw immediately on September 12th when she addressed the nation — she was wearing the white blazer. She could have recycled that. Charlie's memorial on the 21st — white pantsuit. The Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony — a dress. Jesse Watters interview on November 5th — a green suit. The Charlie Kirk Legacy Award on Fox News — November 6th. Sergio Gore's appointment in the Oval Office on November 10th — she had clothes then. The New York Times Book Summit on December 3rd — she had an outfit. The Sean Hannity interview on December 8th. Fox and Friends on December 9th. Co-hosting Fox's The Five on December 9th as well. Outnumbered on December 10th — red jacket. The town hall with Bari Weiss — the black suit, which would have been very appropriate. Every single one of these is a different outfit.
I feel like Erika is not telling the truth when she says that was the only thing that fit her. I don't believe that. I feel like that's dumb and she had other options available. And it never feels like a necessary lie. She could have just repeated an outfit or simply said, "I wore the pantsuit because I thought it looked really nice." The problem is that it backfired and now she thinks we're dumb.
Candace Owens Vindications in the Article
Then there are the most critical Candace Owens vindications throughout this piece. They always say we never have any evidence. They say my sources are just wine-drunk moms. There's no positive evidence. Well, the interview served as proof to the contrary.
I really appreciated this part of the article where it says, quote:
"For its part, Turning Point has spent the last year chasing internal leaks to Owens, even firing employees — wrongly, I might add — suspected of being the source. I saw the paranoia play out in real time when Owens tweeted details about our photo shoot in July, causing the Turning Point team to spiral and go searching for the mole to no avail. In their eyes, this isn't just a media war. It's life or death."
Like, what? Yeah, that's what it feels like. That's what it feels like. Every day, mission critical is Candace Owens. They don't even know what they're doing anymore. And I'm just trying to figure out who killed Charlie Kirk.
The writer's observations were then reinforced because they apparently also interviewed Tucker Carlson for this piece. And Tucker added this quote:
"My sense is that the leadership of the organization is wholly focused on Candace Owens," says Carlson, who says that he advised Turning Point's Andrew Kolvet: if you don't like Candace Owens, don't focus on her. Carlson says he loves Candace and calls her "a very humane and decent person," a position that he says has upset some people at Turning Point. Owens declined to comment.
I did decline to comment on this piece. And I do want to say that's pretty good advice from Tucker, but it's coming from the top. Leadership at Turning Point USA is wholly focused on me. And guess who's leading the company, guys — it's Erika Kirk. It's not me obsessed with Erika. I keep telling you: behind the scenes, she's nasty. She's very nasty. And she directs these attacks. She meets up with people in DC. She knows these attacks are coming against me. She plays the part of an innocent, heaven-focused widow, and behind the scenes she's like the Department of War to take down Candace Owens. Totally normal Pentagon stuff.
The Will Update and the Board Vote
Despite their best efforts, they had to vindicate me on several points throughout this piece. I told you guys that Charlie and Erika had an appointment to update their will just a couple of days after — the Monday after Charlie died. What remarkable timing. He was going to update his will with his wife and then he never makes that appointment. I will also say, allegedly, I was told that Mikey McCoy gatekept that appointment and they had canceled it once or twice before, but it was finally scheduled to happen in Arizona on that Monday.
The article confirms that appointment was supposed to happen via their advisor Doug Degrroot — who is way too involved in things — who confirms it but also tries to implant in our minds that this appointment was really just related to death threats. We're told, quote:
"Erika and Charlie had been working on their will when Charlie was killed," says Doug Degrroot, who serves on Turning Point's board and also manages the couple's personal finances. "Charlie and Erika had planned to go to his office the Monday after his murder to sign the paperwork. Not only did they have two young kids, but Charlie was receiving mounting death threats. The night before Charlie was killed, he had been discussing with Erika and their pastor recommendations from his security team, which included bulletproof glass shields and vests."
So we're supposed to imagine this will update had something to do with the fact that Charlie thought he was going to die. But also don't forget that Erika is going to tell Glenn Beck in December that she has his phone and he wasn't concerned about the death threats — that he was awake because he was just so excited about starting the tour. I have it on good authority that the priest has told people that there were some marital issues, but more on that down the line because we have lawsuits pending.
Another vindication: I told you guys that Erika was more anti-Israel than Charlie was behind the scenes, at least leading up to his death. The confirmation actually also came from Tucker in that interview. It reads, quote:
"After Charlie's death, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called him 'a lionhearted friend of Israel.' But in his last year, Charlie had become increasingly willing to criticize Israel's actions in Gaza, even as he received mounting pressure from Zionist donors to support the Jewish state, toeing a line between two increasingly opposing factions of the Republican Party while trying not to alienate either."
Erika says, quote: "Do I think that you can question how other leaders run their country? Absolutely. That's the blessing of living in a country where we have freedom of speech."
Tucker Carlson told the reporter that based on his personal conversations with Erika, he knew her to be much more critical of Israel and the interventionist approach to US foreign policy in general — more than her husband ever was.
So Erika was more vocal than Charlie was behind the scenes. And I told you that bothers me deeply, because her complete 180 since then — where she won't talk about Israel, won't say anything other than glowing things about Israel, her further partnerships with Turning Point USA and pro-Israel causes — that's not the direction the organization was going in when Charlie was alive. And if you think of her as someone who was in Charlie's ear pushing him to be more against Israel, it doesn't sit right. It does not make you think that Erika is innocent and honest. Why are we hearing this information from everybody but Erika about Charlie's opinion on Israel? And where are her opinions? Why have they suddenly shifted?
And of course, a final vindication: I told you that the decision to make Erika the CEO happened faster than the public was even made aware of — within the first 48 hours. I knew because Andrew Kolvet told me, even though he denies some of this stuff. At the time I was like, "Great, I'm so happy to hear that it's Erika." But in retrospect, I realized how weird it was that Erika would have had any discussions regarding taking over her husband's company so soon after his death.
Doug Degrroot puts a PR spin on the reason why they moved that quickly rather than just giving an interim CEO. He says Erika saved Turning Point two or three years of searching for and training a new CEO from outside the organization. The board voted two days after Charlie's death, hoping to get through his memorial before announcing Erika's new role to the world. Quote: "But unfortunately, the media was just all over us and asking the question all the time," says Degrroot.
Who is "us"? You're a board member. People are not messaging you questions for PR. They were so pushed to find a replacement? I don't accept that within 24 hours of Charlie's death they were so inundated that they had to put it to a vote right away. The world was shocked about Charlie's death. I don't believe that reporters were like, "Forget who the killer is — who's going to replace him?" And then they said, "We better put it to a vote right away, we can't wait." I smell BS with that statement. They're all starting to feel uncomfortable with the things that I have revealed and been honest about and that they have gaslighted me about for a very long time.
The Reporter's Own Words on Erika
I wanted to end this section by letting you listen to the writer Clara Malo in her own words describing what her experience was like working on this piece with Erika.
One of the important points she wanted to speak with Erika on was her political opinions. Did they differ from Charlie's? Were they the same? He obviously was a political animal and would have answered every single one of her questions quickly and succinctly — and even if she hated his answers, in a way that impressed her. Erika very much feels like a religious person. She speaks openly and often about her thoughts on Christianity. But when push came to shove and they had that political conversation, she really did what she could to not touch on those topics. And the reporter thinks it can come across as disingenuous or just not coherent.
Everybody's saying it. Everybody's saying it. But only Candace is going to be attacked for saying from the very beginning that she is not coherent, she is not comprehensive in her ideas, she is not carrying on the legacy of Charlie Kirk because she's not capable of doing that. She's also just not that bright. Every time you see an interview, it's not impressive. And so what she does is she manipulates through faith. Faith, faith, faith. How could you question? How could you ask? Faith. I'm focused on heaven. I'm just focused on heaven right now. And so I can't be expected to give you a coherent response.
The UVU Independent Review and the New Attack Narratives
All right, you guys. It was in the air when the UVU independent review was coming out that Turning Point was leveling up. They're very obvious. There's a pattern here in terms of what they do. When I say Turning Point USA, I'm also talking about the fact that they're an extension of the state. Obviously, Pentagon Erica is like the Department of War's emotional asset, whatever it is.
We had told you that this UVU independent review was coming. Baron actually had the scoop on that and that it was going to be very bad for Turning Point USA. So first we got the precursor, which was a very sloppily filed "we intend to sue UVU." Then we learned they didn't even participate in the independent review and they lied. Brian Harpull — they dedicate pages to debunking Brian Harpull's narrative on Sean Ryan's podcast, where he pretends that a fake message — meaning it was not his message — was presented like it was his, like he was in communication with the police. He never was. There was so much wrong with the independent review. We do an episode on it. It goes viral. It's like 3 million views on YouTube alone.
And you know, I've got to pay for what Turning Point does. I am the sole focus of that organization. So I wake up and — I don't read everything, I'm going to be honest with you, because it's getting so unhinged — but the Daily Mail runs this headline. Somebody's gonna have to give me the SparkNotes on this. "Candace Owens in crisis" — this is like the Michael Jackson thing where you pretend the person is just radical. "Candace Owens in crisis as family begs her to disappear and prays she isn't killed." In big print: "Insiders reveal whispers of a foreign reconnaissance mission and her links to a secret military location."
Didn't even read it. It wasn't even worth reading. I've never in my life even been on a military base. Nobody in my family has served in the military. I've never been to a military base. Secret missions. I can't do James Bond. Whatever that is, I've got to stay away from that.
Then we have to get ready because on the same day there's a whiplash of a narrative shift. Just absolute whiplash. For the last year, you have been met with what feels like a billion-dollar campaign against me — that I was secretly in love with Charlie Kirk, that I wanted Charlie all to myself, that I'm jealous of Erika. They all kept using the sentence, "She's mad because Charlie chose Erika. She wanted to marry Charlie." Then they said also that the reason Charlie started pulling back from me — this was Andrew Kolvet — was because I just was getting too crazy on the Israel stuff. You've been bombarded with news over the last two years, since I left Daily Wire, that I'm akin to Adolf Hitler, that the Jews are not safe with me running around. Literally, in the last year, they tried to cancel me for saying — they claimed that I said, though I did not — that I supported Josef Mengele. I'm banned from Australia for hatred towards the Jews, making a mockery of the Holocaust, making a mockery of people who were turned into bedside lamps and soap. There have been so many insane headlines calling me anti-Semitic.
New narrative now. The attacks are not landing. So someone sat down at a meeting and said, "What if we say the exact opposite?" And by golly, you guys, the narrative has indeed shifted and it is the exact opposite. Because now I'm a cheating lesbian who is funded — this is the headline — by a Zionist. The deconstruction of Candace. And then it says: "Candace Owens's hidden homosexuality. The federal agent promoting Candace Owens to become president so that he can blackmail her with a sex tape. And the Zionist who secretly owns her anti-Zionist business."
Lot to unpack. It's schizophrenic. It's amazing. You have to laugh. These people are so lost. I actually think they need to hire me to go after me. I keep saying that. Hire me. There's a lot of money. I know they're paying people on Discord to do this stuff, but they're acting too proud. I can help them. I highly recommend you guys throw it into ChatGPT or Claude. It's so unhinged. It's unabashed schizophrenia.
The "Zionist" Claim and George's Hebrew Studies
Let's just start high level with the now-I'm-a-Zionist-again narrative. A secret Zionist. The Zionist behind me they're referring to is my husband. The proof that they have that he's a secret Zionist is that George speaks Hebrew. So I went to investigate. I'm a lesbian and George speaks Hebrew and George is running the show. He's the Zionist that's behind everything. I actually love Israel and I'm just waiting until I'm president of the United States to tell you guys that I'm secretly working with Israel.
Reality, of course, is that George majored in theology at Oxford. I've told you this ad nauseam. As part of that program, you're given two options: you either have to take ancient Hebrew or you have to take ancient Greek. George chose ancient Hebrew and he did well. He had to learn it. Not to be confused with modern-day Hebrew — ancient Hebrew, in his first year. He got a first on his exams. He's really proud of that. So I guess this is it. He's the hand that's manipulating everything because he's interested in theology.
The College Video and the Fabricated Lesbian Narrative
On the opposite side of the pond, I'm guilty of the same thing. This whole thing started because I was like, where is this coming from? This is so unhinged. Secret sex tape — please, somebody drop it. Drop it. It doesn't exist. It's just so crazy.
I was a sophomore in college when we had to do a final project in journalism class. You have to put together a story edit. They give you some sort of a prompt. In my class, we were spotlighting epidemics. It's literally a final — similar to George's situation, it's a final. We are working on our camera skills. And so I picked the Adderall epidemic on college campuses, and I made an absolute banger, hilarious video, which of course you would upload on YouTube to send in the link as your final.
Well, apparently that got hacked or discovered or found. And that's going to get interesting in a second. The most hilarious part is that these people are so not thorough that they're going to use this as the basis to say that I'm a lesbian. They never make the connection. You can ask Claude. There's nothing of substance here. But they use this as the basis and they pretend it's completely hidden, that I have no access to this account — obviously, this is 20 years old — and that I'm scared and trying to hide this. We actually put the video in the description. If you're watching this on YouTube, you should watch it. It's hilarious. I think I'm a star. Early YouTube star Candace does this project.
So they find this video, and then they find a Flickr account that has photos of me — certainly my entire album, which was on my Facebook, of me at a birthday party in 2015. My birthday party with my family and friends. They also found that I had a Twitter account in college that I've regularly said I wish I could get into because it's so funny. And then that's when I was like, okay, now they're getting crazy. They said that I had a MySpace. I have never in my life had a MySpace account. This is not something you can just make up. MySpace was in middle school. You can't pretend someone had a MySpace account. There would be so much data out there that you'd be able to pull photos of people.
And so then they started saying, "This must be her account and this must be her account." And finally they arrive at Candace Owens — and it's not even a lesbian. I want to tell you it's the most deranged thing, because the college video — which they missed, this was an oversight — the college video is actually shot in my boyfriend's dorm. So they're basically confirming that I have a boyfriend. This is actually in Massachusetts. My high school boyfriend. I dated him on and off all through college. So this is my sophomore year. He was a freshman and his roommates — I asked them to play the part in my final. And actually when I saw the video I was cracking up because I was like, this is a great memory that I totally forgot about.
So yeah, we are linking that video so that you can see it. Beyond that, there's just nothing but the most debased and disgusting profiles that I cannot even show you. They are so disgusting. And the person admits he can't fact check it. You just have to trust the science that they found this YouTube video of me at my then-boyfriend's dorm and so now I've been exposed as manically posting the most graphic, disgusting group hookups all across the state of Rhode Island across like four different accounts. "This is her. This is definitely her." Can we check this evidence? "No. We got it from a data leak, but we can't show you the data leak."
This is unhinged. I would have told them maybe go 50%. You know what I mean? Like, it's college. Say that you heard rumors that she hooked up with girls at frat parties or something. She kissed a girl and she liked it. You don't go from a serial monogamist — someone who's dating her first real boyfriend — to the radical disgusting profiles, which they say I maintain to this day. They claim that when I was pregnant with my daughter in 2022, I reactivated my profile. So I moonlight as a lesbian. But you can't have the evidence to review. We just have to trust them. I don't even know what to say to it. It's so deranged and crazy. I just think they're running out of ideas.
The Archiving Dates and the Charlie Kirk Timeline
Here's the part that I found to be the most interesting. When we were looking into this, we were actually trying to figure out when they started coming up with this narrative — like who hacked into the YouTube, or if they created a new YouTube on a dormant account. But the point is that this video of my YouTube project in sophomore year of college is real. And here is what we found, and it is shocking. This is actually the most relevant takeaway from this entire scandal.
Somebody for the very first time archived this YouTube page. Look at the date: July 9th, 2025. I want you to remember that. July 9th, 2025. Somebody lands upon an actual project of mine and archives it. The MySpace account that they're purporting is mine — look at the date on when they archived it: August 5th, 2025.
Now we're going to plot this into the Charlie Kirk timeline. This actually terrified me when I realized this. July 9th is when Bibi Netanyahu was in Washington DC. It's the same day that somebody archives a college video that's two decades old. The next day, we know that Turning Point USA reaches out and the president says they're being vague, but they just want an event in the courtyard. They're being vague. Are they being vague because Candace is potentially going to be back on tour with Charlie? I don't know. This scares me.
What was going on on August 5th when they archived this? Charlie was in the Hamptons receiving a phone call from Bibi Netanyahu offering to take Turning Point USA to the next level — but we don't know in exchange for what. We just know that Charlie said no.
And who do you think was among the first to retweet this absurd, schizophrenic, crackhead, zero-percent-true narrative that I was running lesbian accounts while I had a full-time boyfriend? Bill Ackman. Bill Ackman writes: "X is incredible where the world's experts gather and share their knowledge" — and then interesting — "on Candace Owens, the plot thickens." Ackman has since deleted this tweet, but not before we grabbed it. And he's retweeting another person who actually confirms that the lesbian links are all fake, but says that he did confirm through AI voice analysis that the video is me, and that he did confirm that the Flickr account is me, and that George studied Hebrew. I could have told you all of these things, guys. This is nothing that we're ashamed of or would hide.
But why is Bill Ackman tweeting that? Ackman, you're a billionaire. We're supposed to believe that your money is not mysterious. Tucker Carlson thinks it's mysterious. He thinks your money is very mysterious. He says, "What do you do? You're not that intelligent. You're not that impressive." And that's a very weird thing. Billionaires are supposed to be untouchable. They don't play here. Billionaires are not on X retweeting crackhead feeds about college accounts and college projects and whether or not George studied Hebrew. What's going on? Why is Bill Ackman in particular interested in this thing that happened to be archived when Charlie was with Bill Ackman? What's going on?
I found this to be disturbing. You can check it yourself. Go through — like I said, I never am going to tell you information without telling you to go try to fact check it yourself. You will see that the entire narrative is fake. It is being pushed by Bill Ackman among other people. Of course Daily Wire — to be expected, they're never going to stop. But Bill Ackman seems very interested in taking down Candace Owens. Why, Bill? Why would you perpetuate this?
I don't find it plausible that for the first time these accounts were archived, it happened to be when Charlie was going through hell over what was happening with Israel. That timeline is getting too tight. And we'll actually save the rest of it until tomorrow, because I have contracts that I also want to show you. And that timeline is getting very scary. I'm going to be honest with you. The timeline is getting very scary. And it makes you go: what the hell was Charlie going through in his last days? What was going on? Why is Bill Ackman so invested? Why delete the tweet? Why delete it?
Viewer Comments and Closing Reflections
All right, you guys. Top comments from the last episode. Searching for Keys writes: "UVU did more to prevent this tragedy than Charlie's security team and they had the nerve to say that they are going to sue UVU." Wild. Yes. A factor in the story is just the arrogance and the narcissism — suing everybody else and never admitting any faults, yelling at people, spewing biblical proverbs completely out of context to make people think that you must accept what they are telling you, even if it makes no sense. If they're caught lying, rather than exercising any humility and saying, "We got that wrong, I'm really sorry, let me explain what happened," they just get angrier at me. It's nutty. It really is. If I was in those strategy sessions, I would just be like, "Guys, some humility. Say you're wrong. Stop. Pause. Reflect." Tucker gave them good advice. Why is Candace your central focus? It's weird. I want to find out who killed Charlie Kirk. I'm not interested in anything other than clocking you on lies when I'm investigating and realizing that for some reason you can't tell the truth.
Christina writes: "We notice the pain of your investigation is unbearable. Yet you march on. God bless you, Candace. What a true friend and truth seeker you are." You know, I'm beginning to think that after looking at this timeline — and like I said, tomorrow it's going to get very dark — that Charlie was an even truer friend in those last days. And our unbreakable bond is something that, despite all of these people trying to pull me and Charlie apart, it wasn't possible. And yeah, I think as we show you what we have tomorrow and are able to fill out the timeline more, you are going to start to see what we see, which is that none of this is coincidence.
LR Nichols writes: "First time catching a live. God bless and protect you and your precious family always, Candace. Keep up the great work that you are doing for Charlie and for what is right." Thank you so much.
Thumbelina Grace writes: "Candace, today is my 63rd birthday. I can't imagine a better gift than spending time with you. Christ is King." Happy birthday. 63rd birthday. What a blessing. What an absolute blessing. Another year around the sun.
Flame of Love writes: "I do not fear the soldiers for my road is made open to me. And if the soldiers come, I have God, my Lord, who will know how to clear the route. It was for this that I was born." Joan of Arc, my patron saint. 1429 is when that quotation was uttered.
Seven Sheets writes: "Turning Point is going even lower. Should we be surprised? Even in that video, you're talking about the dangers of Adderall. Strengthens our tie to you and truth. Backfire prayers and faith." Please do watch the video. I think I was a talent. I was cracking up when we pulled it up. I was like, "Oh, this is totally me." I remember doing this project and my boyfriend's friends were hilarious. They were absolutely hilarious in the video. The editing tools weren't as great in 2008, so give me some credit. It sounds a little staticky, but it's part of journalism. You have to do all these stories. And I did a few of them in college. I also remember doing one on tanning beds in salons — that was a group project with my friend Julia, if I remember correctly. There were all these epidemic-type things you had to do. And I made mine obviously funny and arrested a dealer who was selling Adderall. I played a police officer also. Thank you very much.
Natty Nicole writes: "Tim Dylan is going to have a field day with that article. I predict it'll be the same as what he does with Meghan Markle." Yes, that is exactly who I want to watch go through that Vanity Fair article. Tim Dylan, you hear that? We are electing you to go through the Vanity Fair article.
Flower Powers writes: "Erika has unwittingly become Turning Point USA's number one most useful idiot. Somebody should show her the updated Google Earth images of Gaza. Miles and miles of dust and ash. The only buildings visible are hospitals — no schools, no green parks, no libraries." I honestly think she's like a blank slate and all she cares about is fame and she thinks that it's owed to her and people should make it happen. She's in DC right now, by the way — source on that, which they're going to gaslight me on, or at least she was yesterday. And it seems to be that when she's in DC, the Department of War attacks against me start doubling.
They've just got to pick a better narrative. I feel like if I was sitting in the room trying to help them come up with something, I would have been like, I don't know, maybe go with drug dealer. Maybe I always say I partied after college through New York. I would go through something like that. Maybe Molly raves. I just feel like "deranged lesbian posting the most graphic disgusting things" — by the way, the reason why my husband and I looked at it and laughed is they even put a video of some girl whose profile says she's Indian, because she's probably Indian. The oversight for these clowns. I've talked about this on the podcast — tattoo regret. Now, I have no tattoo regret because they cannot make fake content about me unless they know my tattoos. Two of them would have been seen in this shot. And they were also missing a belly ring. I told you guys I went through a little trashy millennial phase and I'm not proud of that. But I am kind of okay with it now because my husband didn't have to blink. It's like, this is just not your body. Like they tried to show a body of a girl whose face wasn't showing and go, "This is Candace." You can't miss the belly ring. I've talked about it extensively on podcasts. So that was also another detail that, if you're detail-oriented like I am, you would have caught — and they missed it.
John Dreams writes: "You are stronger than all the trash that they throw at you. The ops against you are military grade strength, but you have something even stronger behind you — God and the truth. Go max Candace." Yeah. I'm also just very sure of who I am and who I'm not. And that — it's just such a crazy thing. It's beyond — like I read the headline about a secret military base, foreign ops — do I even have to read this? I do believe that all of this is happening because it's exposing a greater evil and I'm playing a small part in that. And it does feel like we are all kind of united in this understanding.
I think by the end of this, the black robe mafia is also going to be exposed — that's the judges and the lawyers that are working on behalf of the state. And you can see that with this ever-present intention to bankrupt me. I'm not tired. I am not tired. I feel very much how Charlie knew what his mission was. I know what my mission is now. And I also just think that the repetition of how it works — how they pass around the attacks, the same people involved every time, trying to echo it and support it — people aren't dumb. It's not working anymore. You've lost support. You've got to try something different. Maybe telling the truth. Would that be crazy?
It makes everyone think they killed Charlie — that's what it makes people think. Because there would be no other reason to be this radical, this angry, and to be partnering with such disgusting people on just creating nonsense on the internet that people can fact check themselves and will learn is not true.
Zack Castello writes: "Isn't Erika supposed to have a double major in political science and international relations? Isn't her master's degree in American legal studies? She's the CEO of the largest conservative organization in the US, but she has no interest in politics." Zack, she's heaven-focused right now. And I just find it to be really demonic that you would ask that question. There's no other reason that you would expect her to be able to answer any questions about international relations and political science despite the fact that we're told that's her degree. So I hope that you see a pastor. Hopefully that pastor is Frank Turek and he will get you sorted right away.
Alaska Dog Lady writes: "Wow, I got nothing. I think it was all said in this piece of journalism. God bless you, Candace. We have reached the comedy era of this fake and gay world. St. Michael, defend us in battle." Truly, St. Michael, defend us in battle. I absolutely love that prayer. I think it's very powerful. We should pray a prayer of protection every single day. We are in a spiritual battle. Charlie understood that. I understand that. You understand that. But also understand that we are winning, which is crazy. That's crazy. We're winning. And all we're doing is telling the truth. We're not playing dirty. We don't have the Department of War behind us. We don't have people on payroll working day in and day out to attack anybody. We're just committing ourselves to telling the truth and saying when we're wrong — which happens sometimes. We get things wrong. We correct. We pivot. There's something that's really beautiful about that.
So I don't want you to miss this in all the noise. And don't ever worry about attacks on me. We are good. We're just not that concerned. Although, I do like the idea of George — Shabbat shalom. Shabbat shalom. Hebrew-speaking, secretly working for the Zionists. We'll see what they come up with next week.