30,000 turned out for Turning Point’s AmericaFest. For many, Charlie Kirk ran deeper than politics

Just before this past Christmas, Phoenix Convention Center hosted one of the most significant political events of 2025: Turning Point USA’s annual AmericaFest. You may have seen some of the big headlines about it: Turning Point President Erika Kirk endorsing JD Vance for president in 2028, for example, or rapper Nicki Minaj making an appearance.

But while what happened on stage at AmericaFest is important, it’s also critical to understand what was happening out in the crowd.

More than 30,000 people from all over the country packed the convention hall, many of them teenagers and college students. They came from all over the country, and their reasons for traveling thousands of miles — and spending thousands of dollars — to be there are an important part of the story.

The Show’s Sam Dingman was at AmericaFest, along with The Show’s senior producer Nick Sanchez and KJZZ’s political correspondent Camryn Sanchez. They sat down recently to debrief about the people they met.

Full conversation

SAM DINGMAN: So, Camryn, Nick, we have completed our second visit in two years to Turning Point’s annual AmericaFest convention. Nick, this was your second time also, right?

NICK SANCHEZ: Yes.

DINGMAN: But, Camryn, this is your —

CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Third.

DINGMAN: Third time.

CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Yeah.

DINGMAN: What I wanted to do today was to talk about what it felt like to be there this year as opposed to last year. Because obviously the identity of the organization has been transformed tremendously in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder. Camryn, I wanted to start by introducing us to a woman that you met on the convention floor. This is a young woman named Ellie Brown.

ELLIE BROWN: I think a lot of Christians are, like, scared to speak out in politics because they’re just like, oh, they just want to stay silent.

CAMRYN SANCHEZ: You know, Turning Point’s always been a religious thing since we’ve been going. I think a lot of people who were there said the same thing to me, which is that they felt Charlie Kirk was a very virtuous person, a religious person, devout person. And they are generally Christians who can relate to that.

NICK SANCHEZ: Absolutely. But I would say the difference between 2024’s event and 2025’s event is that in 2024, it felt more politically motivated; 2025 felt more faith driving politics.

CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Yeah, I would say so. I mean, I think the first year I was at AmericaFest, they hadn’t had that big red wave yet, right. So it was very much about the urgency of, like, “We’ve got to get things back from the Democrats, we’ve got to fight, we’ve got to get out the vote.”

And then the year that you guys joined me in 2024 was, “Yes, victory, the red wave. We did it. Power … triumph and joy and keep the momentum going.” And then this year, everybody is pretty much there for Charlie and talking about God.

DINGMAN: Yes, yes. Well. Well, in that vein, I want to introduce you guys to a woman that I met. Her name is Kai Harrelson. She was there from Florida.

KAI HARRELSON: Like, people could just relate to him. Sorry, I get, like, yeah, I got bullied a lot. And so, yeah, him, like, seeing him once I got into high school, I felt safe to be able to, like, express my views and beliefs.

DINGMAN: So what was potent to me about this conversation with Kai was this idea that in her experience, finding Charlie Kirk was not just a way to find a political project that she could get on board with, but it was a way to feel safe, to express her true self.

NICK SANCHEZ: I think what you hear there is very representative. I think, at least for me, across everybody who I got to talk to there at AmericaFest was the power of the personal connection that everybody has — or a lot of people have with Charlie or had with Charlie.

DINGMAN: Yeah, I think there’s been a lot of conversation when it comes to Kirk about the young people that he has brought to the conservative movement in the United States. But as we’ve been talking about, it seems like he’s done a lot of that through religion. The call to faith has been the primary thing for some of them, and then politics has been an extension of that.

CAMRYN SANCHEZ: I mean, I think Charlie Kirk saw opportunity with certain groups of people, right. Like the youth typically goes to the left. In history this has been the case, right. The youth are more liberal. And Charlie Kirk saw that, and he saw that there was a group of folks who felt like they couldn’t speak out because they were conservative, and they were in a group of folks who, based on their age, were not.

And so he made them feel like they were kind of being persecuted, but that they could go to him and to his movement and that he would give them a place and a purpose.

DINGMAN: And Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, is now in charge of the organization. And to that end, let’s meet Melody Brittingham.

MELODY BRITTINGHAM: Yeah, I just think she’s a very feminine, beautiful woman, and she is so in love with God. She has so much wisdom.

DINGMAN: What was striking to you about Melody?

CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Well, she’s not alone. So young women see her as basically an example, both as a mother and as the leader of Turning Point, and as Charlie Kirk’s wife and widow. You know, they’re like, “We have the same values as you as we want to achieve the things that you’ve achieved.” And they say that they relate to her because she is a woman, and they say that they share a feminine experience.

DINGMAN: And that’s why I think it’s so important to hear from these young women in particular. Let’s meet just one more of them. This is another person you spoke to, Camryn, Stefanie Barela.

STEFANIE BARELA: I just think she’s an incredibly strong woman who really is firm in her faith, and that’s how she’s able to get through this horrible tragedy that she’s had to go through.

DINGMAN: I think it’s fair to say that this idea of Erika “grieving wrong,” that she shouldn’t be so public in her grief — which is commentary that we see at the national level a lot when it comes to Erika. That could not have been less true to the perception of the people that I spoke to at AmericaFest.

They see her as having been presented with practically a saintly challenge and actually rising to the occasion, meeting the moment in a way that they seem to find very inspiring.

CAMRYN SANCHEZ: A thousand percent. And I’ve talked to folks about this who, you know, are not really in the political scene, who obviously would never want to go to Turning Point or don’t know anything about Turning Point. And they have said that to me, and I’m like, well, you know, far be it for me to say what Charlie Kirk would have wanted, but this is very much what he was about, and she is absolutely leaning into it.

I do think that Charlie Kirk was in people’s lives every day for many years in many formats. He had the podcast, the show. And Erika Kirk, you know, she can build up her image, but there’s just no way to get around the fact that she hasn’t done that. No one else has. No one else, I mean, can — unless they start from scratch. But they’re not there yet.

And so I think that there’s still that loss. You know, it feels like loss in the air of Charlie. That presence is gone from people’s lives.

DINGMAN: Well, this for me, gets to the piece of tape that I have not been able to stop thinking about. This is a woman named Pam Daniel. And she was there because she has two teenage sons who were very affected by Charlie’s death. They’re 16 years old and 17 years old. And in this clip, you’re gonna hear her telling me about the day they found out that he had died.

PAM DANIEL: And my 16-year-old, who doesn’t show a lot of emotion, he started crying. And I said I was surprised. And I asked him, he said, “Mom, I looked up. I listened to him every day. And I looked up to him.” And he goes, “It’s just — I’m shocked and I’m really, really sad.”

I mean, he definitely does feel, but he hides his emotions more. And I was just shocked when I saw him crying. And I didn’t know they listened every single day, and I didn’t realize how much he looked up to him. And it’s just opened up a door for so many more conversations. And I really think it’s made us even closer than we were before.

NICK SANCHEZ: That clip is so powerful because I think this shows, for a lot of people, this is deeper than politics. Like, it’s somebody in their family. Like, Charlie is a — we talk about, you know, back in the day, somebody who was very effective on TV, a personality, news anchor, a show host, who it felt like they were in your living room with you. I think for a lot of people, Charlie Kirk was in their living room with them.

DINGMAN: I think that’s really well said, that for a lot of these young people, it was not a relationship with a political idea. It was a relationship with a guy who they felt like they knew really well.

CAMRYN SANCHEZ: I think this sort of, for me, makes me think that there are people who will listen to stories that we’ve done on AmericaFest and be like, you know, “Why are we hearing so much about this? This is just a small fringe. Like, you know, did really people actually listen to this stuff or care about this? Why are we amplifying it?” You know what I mean?

And I think those people completely miss the point. We’re talking about an event with 30,000-plus people, representative of millions of people in this country. That’s very much the mainstream. They helped to get Donald Trump elected. He is the president. JD Vance was at the event. That is the vice president of the United States of America.

And these kids throughout the United States, they are being reached by this kind of social media, podcasting, whatever it is. I think people would be surprised if they knew just how far this extends and how long it’s been going on for.

DINGMAN: Well, we are going to have a lot more to say about this on The Show in the coming days and weeks. But for now, I have been speaking with The Show’s senior producer, Nick Sanchez. Thank you, Nick.

NICK SANCHEZ: Thank you.

DINGMAN: And Camryn Sanchez from the politics desk here at KJZZ. Thank you, Camryn.

CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Thank you.