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False Flag

Candace Owens Has Already Won

Plus: MAGA, manliness, and a slap in the face.

Will Sommer's avatar
Will Sommer
December 17, 2025∙ Paid
Upgrade to listen10 minutes
166
(Composite / GettyImages)

A DRAMATIC EFFORT by Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, to broker peace with her podcaster antagonist Candace Owens seemed to produce a détente on Monday evening, much to the relief of the MAGA movement.

It lasted all of a few hours.

On Tuesday afternoon, in the first episode of her show since the four-and-a-half-hour summit with Kirk in Nashville, Owens continued to stir controversy and conspiracies around Charlie Kirk’s death. She railed against specific Turning Point USA staffers she’s accused of dishonesty, and said TPUSA’s lawyer had failed to convince her that Tyler Robinson was Kirk’s assassin. The key text-message evidence against Robinson, Owens declared, was still “fake and gay.”

“I did not recant,” Owens said of her suspicions about the organization that Kirk founded.

The remarks are undoubtedly a setback both for Erika Kirk and for Megyn Kelly, who helped arrange the carefully negotiated sitdown with Owens. And they once again raise questions about whether anyone can stop the podcaster from ripping apart the MAGA movement with her wild, irresponsible theorizing about Kirk’s death.

Even by securing the sitdown with Erika Kirk, Owens scored a win in

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