‘The Charlie Kirk Show’ And Kirk’s Books Surge In Sales And Streams

Topline

Books written by right-wing personality Charlie Kirk, and his popular “Charlie Kirk Show” podcast, have surged in sales and streams following his fatal shooting last week at a university event in Utah, with Kirk’s content topping charts across Amazon, Spotify and more platforms.

Kirk was shot and killed at a Utah college event last week. (Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images)

AFP via Getty Images

Key Facts

“The Charlie Kirk Show,” Kirk’s talk radio show and podcast, ranks No. 1 on both Apple Music’s podcast chart and on Spotify’s top trending podcasts chart in the United States as of Monday morning.

Kirk’s forthcoming book, “Stop, in the Name of God: Why Honoring the Sabbath Will Transform Your Life,” ranks No. 1 on Amazon’s book sales chart based on pre-orders, three months before the book, billed as Kirk’s reflection on his religious faith, is released.

“The College Scam,” a book Kirk published in 2022 alleging university students are being “indoctrinated” by “far-left professors,” ranks No. 5 on Amazon’s book chart.

The audiobook of “The MAGA Doctrine,” written by Kirk in 2020, ranks No. 3 on audiobook charts published by Audible and Apple.

The No. 1 song on U.S. iTunes as of Monday is a song by right-wing rapper Tom MacDonald called “CHARLIE,” a tribute to Kirk that also has 7 million views on YouTube, that includes the rap lyrics, “Shot down and he was barely thirty-one/ Another woke coward took a life with a gun,” with MacDonald alleging “woke people are the terrorists” (even though the motives of the killer remain elusive) and saying “liberals are celebrating murder like it’s justice.”

Surprising Fact

Some X users noticed on Thursday a book purporting to be about Kirk’s shooting was available on Amazon, though Amazon told PolitiFact it removed the book from its website because it was AI-generated and violated content rules.

How Many Books Has Kirk Authored?

Kirk’s first book, “Time for a Turning Point: Setting a Course Toward Free Markets and Limited Government for Future Generations,” was published in 2016 by Post Hill Press, a subsidiary of Simon & Schuster, in which Kirk wrote about engaging youth in conservative politics, the mission of his Turning Point USA organization. Kirk published “Campus Battlefield: How Conservatives Can WIN the Battle on Campus and Why It Matters” in 2018 under the same publisher, with a foreword by Donald Trump Jr. Kirk published “The MAGA Doctrine” under Harper Collins, while his subsequent works “The College Scam” and “The Right-Wing Revolution” were published by Winning Team Publishing, a conservative publishing house co-founded by Trump Jr.

Tangent

Last week, other right-wing streamers and podcast hosts earned record viewership as they covered Kirk’s assassination. Fox News journalist-turned-podcast host Megyn Kelly had 4 million views on a nearly three-hour YouTube livestream in which she learned of Kirk’s death on the air. The stream became Kelly’s second-biggest livestream and one of her most-viewed videos. A Daily Wire livestream broadcast on multiple YouTube channels, including those of hosts Michael Knowles and Ben Shapiro, garnered about 4 million views combined, with Shapiro’s upload becoming his second most-viewed stream ever. One day after Kirk’s killing, Kelly and Shapiro’s podcast episodes on Kirk ranked in the top five of Apple’s podcast episodes chart.

What Do We Know About Kirk’s Assassination?

Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at an event his organization, Turning Point USA, held at Utah Valley University on Wednesday. The shooting sparked immediate tributes from politicians of both parties, many of whom decried political violence. President Donald Trump announced Kirk’s death in a post on Truth Social, and later blamed the “radical left” for the “terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today and it must stop right now.” Authorities later identified Tyler Robinson, 22, as a suspect in the investigation, who was taken into custody on Thursday. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said Sunday Robinson is from a conservative family but “his ideology was very different.” Robinson has not been cooperative, Cox said, adding the information authorities have learned has come from “people around the suspect.”