MAGA Using Charlie Kirk's Death to Grift Followers?

Summary

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IHIP News: “MAGA Using Charlie Kirk’s Death to Grift Followers?”

Hosts: Jennifer Welch & Angie “Pumps” Sullivan
Episode Date: October 5, 2025

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Overview

In this episode, Jennifer Welch and Angie “Pumps” Sullivan break down the right-wing response to the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The hosts, known for their progressive, comedic tone, explore how figures within the MAGA and evangelical movements are using Kirk’s death for financial and political gain. The discussion includes reactions from MAGA politicians, religious leaders, and online commentators, highlighting the rampant grifting, religious fervor, and calls for retaliation that have surfaced in the aftermath. Welch and Sullivan offer critical, satirical commentary throughout, drawing on personal experience with evangelical culture to contextualize these reactions as increasingly mainstream in red states.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Questioning the Official Narrative

• [01:20]
  • Welch opens by questioning media and law enforcement narratives around Charlie Kirk's murder. She points out the lack of public evidence that Tyler Robinson (the alleged shooter) was a “radicalized lib,” suggesting Robinson's background is actually rooted in MAGA gun culture.
  • Welch criticizes conservative commentators (e.g., Joe Rogan) for claiming the left is celebrating Kirk's death:
    • “I haven't seen one person celebrate it. No, not one person. It's just such a false narrative.”

2. The MAGA “Grift” Begins

• [02:37]
  • The hosts play a clip of Rep. Troy Nehls (mispronounced “Nay has”), who refers to Kirk as the “13th Disciple.”
    • Rep. Troy Nehls: “If Charlie Kirk lived in biblical times, he'd have been the 13th disciple.”
  • Welch and Sullivan express disbelief at the religiosity and performative mourning from MAGA elites, accusing them of using Kirk’s death for political and financial leverage.
    • Welch: “These are the white men that everybody cannot stand, right, universally. ... I guarantee you his Google search history is not what he would be proud of.” [03:07]

3. Turning Tragedy Into Profit

• [03:52]
  • The hosts expose direct grifting using Kirk’s death, highlighting MAGA preacher Shane Vaughn who offers “Charlie Kirk coins” for booking coaching sessions:
    • Shane Vaughn: “When you do that, I'm going to pay your first-year membership, $199. ... And as a free gift, we just got in the Charlie Kirk coin.” [04:09]
  • Welch points out that Kirk’s widow was “sending out fundraising things for Turning Point” shortly after his murder.
  • Criticism is directed at the established expectation within church and MAGA circles to give—and be exploited—financially:
    • “Their churches do this. Their churches take Venmo. ... They're so primed to pay the patriarchy, they’re just so primed to do it.” [04:48]

4. Elevating Kirk to Martyrdom & Sainthood

• [05:41]
  • Audio clips liken Kirk to religious martyrs and advocate for his canonization, despite not being Catholic:
    • “Column I'm going to be working on soon is I'm going to call on the Catholic Church to canonize Charlie Kirk. He wasn't a Catholic ... I think it's time for us to start recognizing people who died for Jesus Christ.”
  • Welch updates with incredulous, blunt response:
    • “What the fuck is wrong with these people?” [06:38]
    • Sullivan echoes: “This is crazy. Crazy town.” [06:40]

5. Surreal Claims of Kirk’s “Heavenly Reward”

• [07:44]
  • MAGA prophet Cat Kerr claims spiritual visions of Kirk being welcomed by God and receiving “1,000 arrows of light” as a divine reward:
    • Cat Kerr: “I saw him standing next to the father ... he had on a quiver ... there were 1,000 arrows of light.” [08:18]
  • Welch contextualizes this as more extreme, mainstream magical thinking within American Christianity:
    • “America has a crazy Christian problem.” [09:39]

6. Calls for Retributive Justice—Public Execution

• [09:47]
  • Joel Weber demands execution of Kirk’s alleged killer on live television:
    • Joel Weber: “I believe that Charlie Kirk's murderer should be put to death and that his execution should be publicly, nationally televised.” [10:13]
  • Welch warns that such thinking is not fringe, but embraced by many in their own state’s mega church and evangelical communities.
  • Sullivan notes Kirk himself previously advocated for kids to watch executions:
    • “Charlie Kirk was the one that was saying as of 12, you should—kids should sit and watch people be executed.” [11:07]

7. Eliminationist Rhetoric from Christian Nationalists

• [11:16]
  • Christian nationalist Doug Wilson uses Kirk’s murder as a rallying cry for cultural war and purging the left:
    • Doug Wilson: “Charlie Kirk's murder will be wasted if they don’t exterminate the left.” [11:29]
  • Welch contextualizes Wilson (citing his notoriety and ties to MAGA figures like Pete Hegseth), warning that these views are prevalent, not extremist outliers:
    • “These people are serious and super ambitious and super hateful, and they salivate, salivate over the cruelty.” [11:46]

8. Mainstreaming Christian Nationalism

• [12:46]
  • Welch and Sullivan discuss how such ideologies are becoming the norm in red states, especially among mega-churches and private Christian schools.
    • Welch: “All of these clips are mainstream American evangelicalism.” [12:46]
    • Sullivan: “I know personally that a lot of this hits hard with family members, right? That they would be all in. And it sounds crazy ... but I know it’s a fact.” [13:04]
  • The hosts critique the Democratic Party’s reluctance to address the weaponization of religion:
    • Welch: “Democrats largely avoid talking about religion ... this was the base of Charlie Kirk and all that Bible thumper stuff.” [13:16]

9. The Prosperity Gospel & Entitlement Culture

• [13:16]
  • Welch uses Oklahoma-based mega-churches as examples of how these beliefs flourish via prosperity theology and financial extraction:
    • “Life Church ... Their number one thing is growing. It’s the prosperity gospel. And they take Venmo ... all of this is real. They want their kids to know this.” [13:16]
  • Sullivan highlights Christian nationalist penchant for punishment and self-righteousness:
    • “They want to punish other people. They like it because they feel entitled to it, and they think they're better than other people.” [14:34]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Jennifer Welch criticizing the rhetoric:
  “These are the white men that everybody cannot stand, right universally. ... they grandstand ... I guarantee you his Google search history is not what he would be proud of.” [03:07]
• On canonizing Charlie Kirk:
  “I’m going to call on the Catholic Church to canonize Charlie Kirk. He wasn’t a Catholic ... I think it’s time for us to start recognizing people who died for Jesus Christ.” [05:56]
• Hosts’ blunt reaction:
  Welch: “What the fuck is wrong with these people?” [06:38]
  Sullivan: “This is crazy. Crazy town.” [06:40]
• Cat Kerr’s otherworldly vision:
  “He had on a quiver ... there were 1,000 arrows of light.” [08:18]
• Joel Weber advocating public execution:
  “I believe that Charlie Kirk's murderer should be put to death and that his execution should be publicly, nationally televised.” [10:53]
• Welch on mainstreaming extremism:
  “All of these clips are mainstream American evangelicalism.” [12:46]
• Sullivan on entitlement:
  “They want to punish other people. They like it because they feel entitled to it and they think they're better than other people.” [14:34]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:20] Welch critiques the narrative around Kirk’s murder
• [02:37] Rep. Nehls compares Kirk to a disciple
• [03:52] Preacher Shane Vaughn hawks ‘Charlie Kirk coins’
• [05:41] Calls for Kirk’s sainthood/canonization
• [07:54] Prophet Cat Kerr’s vision of Kirk in heaven
• [09:47] Joel Weber calls for public execution
• [11:29] Doug Wilson urges “extermination” of the left
• [12:46] Discussion on mainstreaming Christian nationalism in the U.S.

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Conclusion

Welch and Sullivan conclude the episode by warning that these radical, grift-driven, and punitive Christian nationalist attitudes are not fringe but represent a growing mainstream in much of America. They urge listeners to recognize the seriousness of these trends, especially as they become further ingrained in political and religious culture.

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Transcript

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[Podcast Host]

All right. In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's murder, number one, I'd like to point out that we've never seen a smoking gun, that Tyler Robinson is this radicalized lib. To the contrary, all I've really seen is that he used memes on bullets and his parents were die hard MAGA maniac steeped in gun culture. And so of course, cash money, Cha Ching Patel's FBI has been crickets on that case. And then the nausea, the nauseating, sanctimonious from all these MAGA people trying to be the thought police and saying we're not sad enough or blah blah blah. That's such. I heard Joe Rogan the other day saying people on the left celebrating his death. I haven't seen one person celebrated. No, not one person. It's just such a false narrative. And my super duper choked up. No, but the violence of that, that really bothered me to my core. But what remains of him? His legacy of racism, homophobia and all that? No, but let me tell you what, how bad these people are. The MAGA movement, they're such grifters. Let's play the first video. This is Representative Troy Nay has and he says that Charlie Kirk would have been quote, the 13th Disciple. Play the clip.

[Representative Troy Nehls]

Charlie Kirk was a Man of faith, first and foremost. He loved his. He loved his Lord Jesus, he loved his family. Beautiful wife, beautiful children. Just a remarkable, honorable man that was silenced with this assassin's bullet. I would say if Charlie Kirk lived in the biblical times, he'd have been the 13th disciple.

[Podcast Host]

I mispronounced his name. It's Congressman Nels. And okay, here's the guy. This pink arm just, I mean this just below hard. This is just the, these are the white men that everybody cannot stand, right universally. And they, they throw out this overt, nauseating religiosity and they grandstand. And at the end of the day, I guarantee you his Google search history is not what he would be proud of. I don't give a. Because I'm not a prude and I don't sit around and judge people's kinks. That's not a big thing for me. But this guy, I guarantee you we're really tiptoeing into some pretty up stuff.

[Podcast Co-host]

Oh, a completely.

[Podcast Host]

So let's go on. MAGA preacher Shane Vaughn giving away free Charlie coins with your purchase of a one on one session. They are grifting off the death of their 13th disciple to gift you two things.

[MAGA Preacher Shane Vaughn]

Not only am I going to pay for Your annual membership $199 if you book an appointment tonight for one day this week and answer the phone when they call you. God's money.info go click book an appointment. When you do that, I'm going to pay your first year membership $199 the next 10 people. But also as a free gift. We just got in the Charlie Kirk coin. We just got it in.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, so here they are grifting off of his death and immediately, I think everybody knows his wife was sending out fundraising. His widow, I mean, very traumatizing thing that she went through and she's sending out fundraising things for Turning Point. And you know, I think that their political party is so primed for this because their church, their churches do this. Their churches take Venmo. This guy's some reverend, some MAGA preacher. Trump does this stuff. They're so primed to pay the patriarchy, they're just so primed to do it. And I think they feel some sense of, oh, I'm being a good Christian by doing this. I'm giving money to the preacher, to the reverend. Moving along. We have two dipshits here and they compare Charlie Kirk to someone imprisoned and killed by the Nazis and call on the Catholic Church to canonize him. I'm not making this up.

[Pacific Life Narrator]

Is something beautiful about heroes like Charlie and even more beautiful when they're martyred. When I think of Bonhoeffer, you think, my goodness, this beautiful, brilliant young man murdered by the Nazis.

[Podcast Guest or Commentator]

My favorite saint, Joan of Arc. The British. The British really made a mistake by burning Joan of Arc. If they had left her alive and she'd gotten caught up in the sordid back and forth of French politics. And is there anything more sordid than French politics? I actually, I'm going to write. Column I'm going to be working on soon is I'm going to call on the Catholic Church to canonize Charlie Kirk. He wasn't a Catholic, but then neither were the Coptic Christians who were killed by ISIS in Egypt a few years ago. And the Catholic Church has recognized them. I think it's time for us to start recognizing people who died for Jesus Christ, even if they didn't happen to attend the same denomination that we do.

[Podcast Host]

What the fuck is wrong with these people?

[Podcast Co-host]

I don't know. I'm just sitting here going, what the fuck? This is crazy. Crazy town.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, but I mean, this is. This stuff, you know, when you think about the. Your old Christian school crowd, this. I mean, my proximity to all of that was. Is kind of like suburban Oklahoma. And I guarantee you, those people, this is their world. This is the world they live in. They sign documents, documents saying that they will actively demean and be bigoted towards gay people. And they're proud about it. This is something that they're very flagrant about. So it's not that big of a stretch when you see this. And this is what the people that go to these mega churches that send their kids to hate academies, this is their entertainment source. This is the stuff at the end of the day where they put their head on the pillow at night. This is their world. And this world has become mainstream.

[Podcast Co-host]

It's crazy. And did I miss something? That Charlie Kirk died for Jesus Christ? What the fuck is he even talking about?

[Podcast Host]

Okay, next up, we have MAGA prophet Cat Kerr, who went to heaven and saw Charlie Kirk hanging out with Jesus Christ and receiving arrows of light as a gift.

[MAGA Prophet Cat Kerr]

I saw him standing next to the father. He was right there up to the throne with the father. And there was silence in the throne room at that point. People always come to welcome people there. He was wearing, like a tunic outfit, a tunic top and pants, and it was white and it had gold trimmed all over.

[Podcast Host]

You mean that he.

[Podcast Guest or Commentator]

He had a choice and he went and got that? Is that what you're saying?

[MAGA Prophet Cat Kerr]

The Father took him. He wanted him. He went for, for a purpose. Okay, this is you. And I realize now after seeing this, he was getting part of his reward for what he had done for all the years he had given himself to rescue people, especially the youth. And then when I saw him turn, he turned. He had on a quiver, and that quiver I knew was there, there were 1,000 arrows of light.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, this is just crazy shit. But you know, when you think about the Republican Party right now, when they talk about manufacturing weather, they traffic in a lot of magical thinking. And for somebody who's always been secular, this does not surprise me. Because when you say you think the earth is 6,000 years old, when you fundamentally believe that people used to live to be 900 years old, when you think that God committed mass genocide on the earth and picked Noah and he got two animals and put them on a boat and floated around, this is just an extension of all of that Iron Age magical thinking. And so a lot of these people are just so primed to sit here and hear this. And America has a crazy Christian problem.

[Podcast Co-host]

I completely agree. I look at her and I think she needs help. She needs in like something is not right with her. And they're just think it's the cutest thing in the whole world.

[Podcast Host]

All right, and then we have Joel Weber and he calls for Charlie Kirk's killer to be executed on public broadcast in order for justice to be served. Play the clip.

[Joel Weber]

Is a murder, a capital crime that happens at a national level with a public, national figure, as it did occur in the case of Charlie Kirk, then I believe that that capital punishment, it should be just fair trial, swift.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Joel Weber]

If justice is delayed, Deuteronomy says, then evildoers will spring up. They'll take that as a license to do more evil. Look, somebody got away with murder. So it needs to be proportional justice, it needs to be fair justice. There's a fair trial. It needs to be swift justice, not delayed. And if it's a public, national crime, like it like the case of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, then that justice should be carried out publicly. What do I mean? I'll speak in no uncertain terms. I believe that Charlie Kirk's murderer should be put to death and that his execution should be publicly, nationally televised.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, I'm going to tell you guys something that will terrify you. In our state mega church, Christians and evangelicals, that is a mainstream thought so many people would listen to him and think, yeah, I agree with that.

[Podcast Co-host]

Absolutely. And Charlie Kirk was the one that was saying as of 12, you should. Kids should sit and watch people be executed. So that surprises me.

[Podcast Host]

Zero, right? All right, and then last we have Christian nationalist writer Doug Wilson. And he says Charlie Kirk's murder will be wasted if they don't exterminate the left. That's uplifting.

[Doug Wilson]

The history will show that Tyler Robinson, if he is convicted of firing the shot that killed Charlie Kirk, will also be revealed as the man who put a bullet in the neck.

[Podcast Host]

Pause that real quick. This is Pete Hegseth's pastor right here. This is the guy that wants to do away with the 19th amendment. So this idea right here is not fringe. And maga. And that's the thing I want to tell you about this stuff right here. As a person who grew up around crazy Christians, none of this surprises me. None of it. People pay tens of thousands of dollars to send their kids to private schools to get this type of education, to get this type of thinking. This is mainstream in MAGA red states. These are mainstream ideas. And I'm telling you guys, these people are serious and super ambitious and super hateful, and they salivate, salivate over the cruelty. All right, continue with the clip.

[Doug Wilson]

Progressive leftism, but only if one of the most important principles of war is pursuit. General Meade was the capable Union general at Gettysburg whose leadership there secured a victory over the Confederate forces. But because he failed to pursue the war, went on for two more years. He won the battle when he could have won the war.

[Podcast Host]

This, I'm telling you guys, this is mainstream. In red states, when you get outside of the urban core and you get to suburbia, and then you get to rural America, this shit. All of these clips are mainstream American evangelicalism.

[Podcast Co-host]

I know personally that a lot of this hits hard with family members, right? That they would be all in. And it sounds crazy, and I look at it, and I think that's crazy, but I know it's a fact, and.

[Podcast Host]

That'S why I think it's important to cover this, because the Democrats largely avoid talking about religion, and they don't. MAGA doesn't avoid talking about it. They talk about it all the time. They weaponized it to get these people to vote for them. And now these crazy Christians are tongue talking in the. In. In the. In the Oval Office and outside the Oval Office, and you've got, you know, these crazy evangelical preachers running around in there, and. What's her name? Caroline Levitt. Everybody's wearing all these crucifixes, acting like nuts. This shit right here, this is the. This was the base of Charlie Kirk and all that Bible thumper stuff. But if you go, there's a. I always think about this church in Oklahoma. It's called Life Church. It's a big, big mega church. And their number one thing is growing. It's the prosperity gospel. And they take Venmo, and after Trump, the Butler assassination attempt, they posted about it and they showed completely who they were. And in that world, Crossings Christian, Oklahoma, Christian School, in that world, all of this is real. They want their kids to know this. They want them to be raised with this type of hellfire damnation Christianity.

[Podcast Co-host]

They absolutely do. And I'll tell you what else. They want to punish other people. They like it because they feel entitled to it and they think they're better than other people and they think they can judge other people. I mean, it's just unbelievable, the entitlement.

[Podcast Host]

No, it really is.

[Audible Narrator]

All right.

[Podcast Host]

That's all we have. This is very uplifting stuff to know that so many Americans believe in this Iron Age cruelty, but they do. And they've. They've ascended to power. You have. The speaker of the House is a crazy. He believes all this. J.D. vance. I don't know that he does or not, but he knows that he has to get this type of base to go along with what he wants to do. And Peter Till, who bizarrely does lectures on the Antichrist, which is a weird thing to do. All right, that's all we have. Like, and subscribe and we'll see you later.