Erika Kirk Blasts Media In Sit-Down Address
on Apr 29, 2026
Erika Kirk Breaks Her Silence After Being Present At The Correspondents’ Dinner Shooting
On April 25, a third major assassination attempt was made against President Donald Trump as he attended the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.
The suspect, a 31-year-old teacher from California named Cole Allen, allegedly ran through security and opened fire on Secret Service before being apprehended.
His manifesto reportedly presents his motive: eliminating the president and his administration.
Among those who was present at the Correspondents’ Dinner was Erika Kirk, the widow of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
Only seven months earlier, Charlie was killed by a gunman at a campus event at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10, 2025.
As a guest of Fox News, Erika was at the Correspondents’ Dinner, but the evening ended in violence … with Erika seen on video crying, saying, “I just want to go home,” as she was escorted from the scene.
Erika Kirk and Lawrence Jones both looking fabulous on the WHCD red carpet 🥰🔥 pic.twitter.com/XQewO2vM6j
— Gina Milan (@ginamilan_) April 25, 2026
Now, on Wednesday, April 29, Erika is speaking out about what she observed, as well as some of her takeaways from the incident…
RELATED: “I Just Want to Go Home,” Says Erika Kirk Amidst Correspondents’ Dinner Shooting
Watch Erika Kirk’s Video Statement
Wearing all black, Erika Kirk released a video statement from the desk of her late husband, Charlie Kirk, addressing the causes of the violence that occurred on April 25, leading to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner being postponed.
She began by saying, “It seems to me that nothing will ever be enough for the evil in this world. Our country has become unrecognizable. These people have perverted the truth to the point that they motivated the murder of my husband. They have continuously tried to assassinate the president, and anyone who stands in their way, is labeled hateful, racist, fascist, and every other trigger word that is grossly dishonest.”
Saying she and others like her “want the best for our country,” she bluntly stated that there are elements in the radical left who “don’t” want the best for the nation.
“This is why Charlie started Turning Point USA in the first place,” she said. “He didn’t trust the radicalized liberal teachers, and, this past Saturday, it was a school teacher, of all people, a school teacher that attempted to change our history — for the worst — with bullets.”
Addressing why she attended the Correspondents’ Dinner at all, she said, “It was because many of the journalists in that room have attempted to dehumanize me, and I wanted to meet some of them face to face.”
Erika noted that the press, all from different networks and political ideologies, were interacting together, despite the knowledge that they would be returning to work as opponents of one another after the festivities.
When the shots were fired from the lobby of the Hilton Hotel, she said “chaos” erupted in the room as reporters attempted to capture the shooting on their phones.
“[The journalists] were so concerned about getting a video in a room with an active shooter that they could have accidentally and quite literally filmed themselves being shot,” Erika stated, noting that would break the “No. 1 rule of journalism,” which is to not put one’s self in the story.
Of these journalists, she said, “Many of those people have become so desensitized that fight or flight became secondary to the opportunity of putting themselves into the story.”
Looking to the identity of the suspected shooter, Erika reiterated that, “ironically enough, the shooter was a teacher.”
Expounding on that, she said, “You have these people who are supposed to be teaching our children — the future of this country — and he’s so unhinged that he is able to teach children by day and then attempt to murder the President of the United States by night.”
While she admits the nation has big problems, she then points to “systemic indoctrination and radicalization” of American citizens as one of the biggest threats, saying:
“This is what got my husband killed. This is what has led to three legitimate attempts on President Trump’s life, and I can speak firsthand to that unbearable toll that this must take on our First Lady.”
To those in the media, and the public, who don’t take the reality of these attempts seriously, Erika said, “We are all human beings, and if you can just … pause and just take a minute and ask yourself, ‘How would you feel if even just one person made cruel jokes about the attempted murder of your loved one?'”
She then noted that Jimmy Kimmel, who joked two days prior to the Correspondents’ Dinner that First Lady Melania Trump had the “glow” of an “expectant widow,” was doing that to Melania.
When Melania and President Trump called for Kimmel to be fired from his gig as host of ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Kimmel responded on April 27 that his joke wasn’t an endorsement of violence but rather a joke about the disparity in age between the First Lady, 56, and President Trump, 79.
Powerfully, Erika then stated, “It turns having an opposing viewpoint into a moral crime worthy of punishment.”
She then offered what she has learned over the seven months following her husband’s assassination at Utah Valley University:
“If you strip someone of their humanity long enough, you will arrive at the chilling conclusion that they don’t deserve to exist at all. Every morning I wake up to a new headline lying about me. I have comedians dressing up in white face. I have people saying I’m not fit to be CEO, and I have Candace Owens claiming I murdered my husband, and the list goes on and on and on. There is a serious epidemic of dehumanization plaguing this country.”
She then said that violence like this just can’t be “explain[ed] away,” adding, “This is a moment for Americans to come together and decide what kind of country we are going to be before we lose our country altogether.”
She then quoted Romans 12:21, which reads, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
Pivoting back to her late husband, she said, “This is why my husband created Turning Point USA, so we could have civil discourse and debate and open dialogue, because when we stop talking to each other, bad things happen.”
Further, she said:
“I am choosing to fight for America, for my children, for your children, and for our humanity, because we all need to do our part, and by the grace of God, we will succeed, and America will remain what she was always called to be: a shining city on a hill, a light to the world.”
Concluding her message, she said, “So let me give you a perfect example of how it’s done. My husband did it best and left us the blueprint on how to have uncomfortable conversations with those who disagree. Buckle up, everybody.”
Watch Erika Kirk’s full comments on the state of journalism, the nation, and more following the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, here:
