Charlie Kirk, who helped build support for Trump among young people, dies after campus shooting

Charlie Kirk, who rose from a teenage conservative campus activist to a top podcaster, culture warrior 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 shooting was one of an escalating number of attacks on political figures, from the assassination of a Democratic state lawmaker and her husband in Minnesota to last summer’s shooting of Trump, that have roiled the nation.

Trump announced Kirk’s death on his social media site, Truth Social.

Kirk personified the pugnacious, populist conservatism that has taken over the Republican Party in the age of Trump. He launched his organization, Turning Point USA, in 2012, targeting younger people and venturing onto liberal-leaning college campuses where many GOP activists were nervous to tread.