Candace Owens Facing Backlash After Text Message Released
For an organization already staggered by tragedy, the fallout from Candace Owens' bombshell could not have hit Turning Point USA at a worse moment.
Just weeks after Charlie Kirk—the firebrand founder and face of the modern youth conservative movement—was assassinated in broad daylight, the last thing his grieving team expected was to be thrust into a bitter internal feud. And yet, on October 6, that’s exactly what happened.
Owens, once heralded as Kirk’s rising star and ideological heir, released private text messages Kirk had written two days before his death. On air, she claimed to have received the messages from an external source—someone outside the Turning Point orbit—and read them aloud on her show. The texts painted a picture of a man under intense pressure, reportedly losing major donors over his refusal to “cancel” outspoken Israel critic Tucker Carlson.
“I cannot and will not be bullied like this,” Kirk had written in the group chat of nine people. “Leaving me no choice but to leave the pro-Israel cause.”
The fallout was swift, emotional, and deeply destabilizing.
Inside Turning Point, the mood shifted from mourning to crisis management. The man who had built a conservative empire rooted in grassroots activism, who had once kept peace between disparate factions of the movement, had suddenly become the subject of a very public—and very divisive—battle over his legacy.
Andrew Kolvet, Turning Point’s spokesman and longtime confidant of Kirk, confirmed the authenticity of the messages but warned against interpreting them as a definitive break from pro-Israel positions. Instead, he described them as the venting of a man under immense strain, wrestling with the realities of donor politics in an increasingly polarized landscape.
But nuance rarely survives the viral cycle.
Owens, who has long courted controversy, took things further. She told viewers that Kirk had appeared to her in a dream, and floated the explosive suggestion that his death—just 48 hours after the texts were sent—was not merely tragic but suspicious. “Did he just, 48 hours later, conveniently catch a bullet to the throat before our on-stage reunion?” she asked, leaving listeners reeling and the MAGA movement split.
That remark, according to multiple sources, was a breaking point for many inside Turning Point.
While Owens insisted she was seeking truth “as a friend,” and honoring Kirk’s memory, others saw it differently. Privately, staffers described her behavior as reckless, inflammatory, and antithetical to the very stability Kirk worked so hard to cultivate. “This was the kind of distraction Charlie always feared,” one source told the Daily Mail.
Kolvet, joined by producer Blake Neff, took to The Charlie Kirk Show again to try and stabilize the narrative. He acknowledged the emotional impact of Owens’ disclosures but called for patience and unity. “We want justice for Charlie,” he said, emphasizing the organization’s continued cooperation with investigators and their confidence in the current direction of the case.
Still, the damage was done.
Even Owens’ closing comments—comparing the feud to Succession and “warring siblings fighting over the empire their father built”—struck a raw chord among those closest to Kirk. He wasn’t a monarch. He was a mission-driven leader. And yet, here they were, embroiled in the very drama he had tried to shield them from.