Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk canceled a highly anticipated appearance with Vice President JD Vance after receiving “very serious threats,” a spokesman for the group said Tuesday.
Andrew Kolvet, a spokesman for the conservative student activist group, stepped in for Charlie Kirk’s widow at the Athens, Ga., event and informed the crowd why the grieving mother of two couldn’t be there to interview the vice president, who still attended the event.
“I’m going to address it right at the front, Mr. Vice President, I’m on stage here instead of our friend Erika Kirk because unfortunately she has received some very serious threats in her direction,” Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet said.
“It’s a terrible reflection on the state of reality and the state of the country,” Kolvet added, arguing that some have made ”part time jobs out of attacking Erika.”
Vance indicated he was aware of the threats against Kirk, 37, and was worried the University of Georgia event would be canceled but decided to attend after consulting with the Secret Service.
“Obviously these guys do a very good job,” he said of his Secret Service detail, “and I said, ‘You know what? Let’s let Erika do what she needs to do for herself and her family, I’m sure Andrew will fill in, and let’s go and make this an amazing event.’”
The vice president lamented the “two separate living hells” Kirk has been subjected to since her husband’s assasination last September, namely the shocking, public murder of her children’s father and the intense online criticism of her that followed.
“Everybody is attacking her over everything, and they’re lying about her, and it’s one of the most disgraceful things that I’ve ever seen in public life,” Vance fumed.
“The people telling you that Erika wasn’t grieving her husband are full of s–t,” he raged.
Vance called the unhinged conspiracy theories that Erika Kirk is somehow complicit in her husband’s murder “so preposterous and so disgusting.”
“The response to Charlie Kirk getting assassinated by a left-wing furry lover,” Vance argued, “should have been, let’s go after left wing violence and terrorism.”
He added, “If you’re going after Erika Kirk and not the people who are trying to destroy the United States of America, you’re part of the problem, not part of the solution.”
Kolvet later justifiably defended Kirk’s absence from the high-profile event, noting that she “has to live with this constant reality that her kids are one parent away from being orphans.”
“We take that extremely seriously,” he said.
