'I will be an enemy of you': MAGA leaders in bitter civil war over Charlie Kirk's legacy

Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 15, 2025 (Maxim Elramsisy/Shutterstock.com)

In an article for The Bulwark published Thursday, political analyst Will Sommer highlighted a growing power struggle within the MAGA movement following the murder of conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk.

Sommer's piece detailed an increasingly bitter feud among right-wing influencers, donors and media figures, each vying to shape Kirk’s legacy and the future of the massive political media empire he left behind.

At the center of the turmoil, the piece noted, is Kirk’s onetime protégée, Candace Owens, who has claimed that Kirk was rethinking his staunch support for Israel in the weeks leading up to his death.

Owens suggested that tensions with pro-Israel donors reached a boiling point at a billionaire-funded retreat in the Hamptons, describing it as an “ambush” aimed at stopping Kirk from featuring former Fox News primetime host Tucker Carlson at an upcoming Turning Point USA (TPUSA) event.

While billionaire Bill Ackman confirmed hosting the retreat, he and other attendees denied any confrontation with Kirk.

Still, Owens has pressed ahead with her version of events, asserting that Kirk had begun to question American backing of Israel and hinting at donor pressure to silence him.

“No one, and I mean absolutely no one outside of my husband and Erika Kirk, has the power to shut me up right now,” she said on her show, the piece noted.

Owens’ allegations have drawn support from a surprising set of voices. Carlson echoed her narrative, claiming on his program that pro-Israel donors “tormented Charlie Kirk until the day he died,” and that Kirk had even lost a $2 million donation over Carlson’s scheduled appearance at a TPUSA conference.

Carlson added that Kirk was “appalled” by the war in Gaza and had grown more concerned about wealth inequality — hinting at a broader ideological shift. “There’s no question his views were changing fast,” Carlson said.

Sommer reported that these claims are fueling an open war among Kirk’s former allies, marked by leaks, threats of damning recordings and social media broadsides.

Owens and Carlson have both suggested a backstage conversation from a July conference — recorded while both were wearing microphones — might reveal Kirk privately urging Carlson to tie convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to the Israeli government in his remarks.

Carlson said, “I think that that conversation — he had a mic on and so did I — probably exists somewhere on somebody’s server.”

So far, no such evidence has surfaced. What remains is speculation, clashing narratives, and a palpable hunger among MAGA influencers to define the meaning of Kirk’s death — and control the future of TPUSA.

That fight is attracting attention from figures as prominent as Vice President JD Vance and members of Congress, signaling the high political and financial stakes, Sommer noted.

Far-right podcaster Benny Johnson urged MAGA to use Kirk's death to unite against liberal critics.

“This is a generational opportunity,”Johnson said. “We must crush them.”

But others are consumed with intramural battles, jockeying for power in a post-Kirk, post-Trump right-wing landscape.

As Sommer notes, the paranoia is feeding on itself, with some conspiracy theorists suggesting Israel was behind the assassination — a claim Netanyahu himself has publicly denied.

“I will be an enemy of you,” Owens said to MAGA influencers in a now-viral clip emblematic of the internal chaos. "There is nothing that can stop me."

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