FILE - Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk speaks at a Turning Point event prior to Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speaking, Sept. 4, 2024, in Mesa, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)
Charlie Kirk, who rose from a teenage conservative campus activist to a top podcaster and ally of President Donald Trump, was shot and killed Wednesday during one of his trademark public appearances at a college in Utah. He was 31.
Kirk died doing what made him a potent political force — rallying the right on a college campus, this time Utah Valley University. The event was kicking off a planned series of Kirk college appearances from Colorado to Virginia dubbed “The American Comeback Tour.”
His assassination was one of an escalating number of attacks on political figur