Well-connected to the MAGA movement’s highest ranks, Thompson, who leads 412 Church Temecula Valley, got to know Kirk through local conferences and events hosted by Kirk’s Turning Point USA. In 2021, Kirk also appeared on Thompson’s “Our Watch” program that’s shared on social media.

Thompson and other Inland Empire conservatives are mourning Kirk, who was shot and killed Wednesday, Sept. 10, while speaking to thousands at a Utah university.

Authorities arrested a 22-year-old man and booked him on suspicion of murder and other charges in the assassination of Kirk, a close ally of President Donald Trump who built a media empire focused on recruiting young people to the conservative movement.

Chino Valley school board President Sonja Shaw and Temecula school board member Jen Wiersma, both Christian conservatives, took to Instagram to share photos of themselves with Kirk along with their shock and grief over his violent death.

“Charlie poured his life into equipping the next generation with courage and truth,” Shaw, who spoke with Kirk at events, said via text. “My husband even left work early so we could mourn together as a family, because this feels so personal to us all.”

Shaw, a Republican running for state superintendent of public instruction in 2026, once emailed Kirk asking for advice. He also highlighted her activism in a social media post.

Wiersma’s daughter works at Turning Point.

“Though I was not a personal friend of Charlie Kirk, our family has long supported the mission of the Turning Point organization and their focus on faith, family and freedom while passionately pursuing Gen Z,” Wiersma said in a text message.

“We mourn his passing and celebrate his legacy. Thank you to President Trump for honoring him with the Medal of Freedom. We, as Americans, have lost a national treasure.”

Kirk, 31, was a divisive American political figure. While an inspiration to the Make America Great Again movement, critics denounced him as a bigot who spread misinformation and poisoned political discourse.

Comments that incensed his foes include:

• Calling the 1964 Civil Rights Act “a huge mistake.”
• Criticizing business diversity initiatives by saying “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.’”
• Referring to the transgender identity as “a mental disease.”
• Describing Islam as incompatible with Western values.

Kirk’s brand involved visiting college campuses, debating students and sharing those exchanges on social media. He visited UC Riverside in May as part of his American Comeback tour.

The visit, staged at UCR’s Bell Tower, drew supporters and protesters. Police shut down a punk rock band attempting to protest Kirk by performing near the tower.

While critics urged UCR students to ignore Kirk, others engaged him, according to a Kirk profile — “Charlie Kirk, pied piper of the American right” — published in July by The Economist magazine.

“(A freshman) said he wanted to debate abortion,” the article states. “When Mr. Kirk, a devout, pro-life evangelical, asked the student to define life, he responded that life began at ‘consciousness and speech.’”

“Mr. Kirk interjected that babies usually don’t start speaking until they are a year old, ‘so if I murdered you at six months, that’s ok?’ Backed into a corner, the flustered student doubled down. ‘Yes,’ he said firmly.”

“The crowd bayed. ‘The fact that he’s a biology student at this university shows the horrifying moral rot happening at higher education,’ said Mr. Kirk, as the student was ushered away. Shortly after, a video was posted to Mr. Kirk’s YouTube channel: ‘UCR Bio Student Justifies Abortion Past Birth.’”

Thompson said that he, along with Calvary Chapel Chino Hills Pastor Jack Hibbs and Rob McCoy, Kirk’s personal pastor, first met Kirk at the 2019 Unite IE Conservative Conference.

Hibbs, a conservative leader like Thompson, paid tribute to Kirk on Instagram.

“Charlie was known as an intellectual giant, a very compassionate young man, and one who was tirelessly devoted to this nation’s welfare and our glorious republic,” Hibbs said in the post, which shows a picture of him hugging Kirk.

Thompson said Kirk was a skilled debater and “a man who walked in the truth and he spoke the truth and he was factual.”

“He was an educated man, a very well-read man, and that came across very clear when he would speak that he knew what he was talking about,” the pastor said. “And I watched people’s minds get changed.”

Kirk also gave courage to other conservatives to stand up for their beliefs, Thompson said.

“When he first started doing the meetings on college campuses and you look at the audience, there were many people there opposing him,” Thompson said. “And what I saw was a change over the last year, whereas you see the people there on the campus when he’s there to speak, we see MAGA hats everywhere.”

While many viewed Kirk as cocky, “when you talk to him on a personal level, he’s a very humble man,” the pastor added. “He was just a man humble and ready to serve, and he really truly loved this nation and wanted the best for it.”

Kirk’s death also affected Thompson on a more personal level.

“This has been a hard time for my family because No. 1, they knew and loved Charlie,” he said. “But (this) brings it home when people are threatening my life and threatening violence against me for speaking truth, now my wife and my kids and my grandkids are concerned.”

“I just want to encourage everybody that’s speaking the truth to continue. Don’t let this stop them. We should be bold and don’t let this silence our voice.”

Despite the “tremendous loss” of Kirk, “the Scriptures say what Satan means for evil, God will turn for good,” Thompson said.

“I believe that trying to stop the movement … I think a hornet’s nest was just swatted at. I don’t believe this is going to stop the movement. I think it’s going to propel it even further.”

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In an unsigned memorandum, the department declared that there was no evidence that Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced deceased convicted sexual predator, maintained a client list or that he blackmailed prominent individuals for various misdeeds. The memorandum also declared that Epstein committed suicide.

Most Americans saw this news (if they saw it at all) and barely raised an eyebrow. The Epstein story was part of the past; he died in 2019. But it detonated like a bomb in the MAGA universe. Pro-Trump influencers with vast audiences couldn’t believe what they were reading.

After all, they’d been told for years that there was an Epstein client list. Pam Bondi, Trump’s attorney general, told Fox News in February that the client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review.” (She later claimed that she was referring to the Epstein case file, not a specific client list.)

In October 2024, JD Vance, then a candidate for vice president, said, “Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list. That is an important thing.”

Before he was Trump’s director of the F.B.I., Kash Patel told Glenn Beck, a right-wing radio host, that the F.B.I. had Epstein’s “black book” and that it was “under direct control of the director of the F.B.I.” In 2023, Patel told Benny Johnson, a MAGA podcaster, that members of Congress should “put on your big-boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are.”

In September 2024, Dan Bongino, now the deputy director of the F.B.I., told his listeners, “Folks, the Epstein client list is a huge deal” that would “rock the Democrat Party.”

These quotations are a small fraction of the right-wing discourse about Epstein. During the Trump era, references to Epstein have been ubiquitous in MAGA circles. And the statement “Epstein didn’t kill himself” was so popular that it leaked out into the wider American culture.

The Epstein story mattered so much in MAGA circles because it was a key element in their indictment of America’s so-called ruling class. Trump’s appeal to the Republican base isn’t just rooted in his supporters’ extraordinary affection for the man; it’s also rooted in their almost indescribably dark view of the American government.

Why are they so keen to burn it all down? Well, if you believe your government is populated by people so depraved that they’d participate in and cover up the systematic sexual abuse of children, then you wouldn’t just want them out of office; you’d want them prosecuted, imprisoned and maybe even executed. And you’d want all the power you’d need to make that happen.

And if you believe that the ruling elites would abuse children, then they’d certainly be the kind of people who’d gin up a Russia hoax or try to steal an election in 2020. People who are that terrible are capable of anything. And if you wonder why MAGA turned on the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice, well, it’s not just about the Russia investigation or the F.B.I. search of Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago. MAGA America also believed the F.B.I. was protecting pedophiles to preserve the status quo.

On the right, the Epstein story became the thinking man’s version of the QAnon conspiracy theory — the idea that American society was led by a gang of cannibalistic pedophiles. Whereas QAnon was rooted in the imaginary revelations of a shadowy figure who claimed Q security clearance, at least the Epstein story was rooted in some very grim, very real facts.

Epstein was a monstrous and grotesque sexual predator. Along with his convicted confederate, Ghislaine Maxwell, he systematically groomed and sexually abused (and enabled the sexual abuse of) hundreds and hundreds of young women and girls.

He was also one of the most well-connected people in the world. A host of powerful people attended his parties and rode on his jet.

Oddly enough — considering MAGA’s obsession with Epstein — one of his most powerful friends was Trump. They flew together, they partied together, and in 2002, Trump told New York magazine: “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy.” But Trump also made this ominous observation, “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” After Maxwell’s arrest, Trump said: “I haven’t really been following it too much. I just wish her well, frankly.”

This was the man that MAGA trusted to fully expose Epstein and all his misdeeds?

Make no mistake: MAGA is very angry. After the Department of Justice released its memo, MAGA influencers exploded. Tucker Carlson was furious. “The whole thing that this tape shows that he didn’t kill himself is, like, a joke, but worse than that, it’s a joke that we all get,” he said. “I feel like we’re at a dangerous point now.”

Alex Jones said the Trump administration was now “part of the cover-up.” On X, Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote, “RELEASE THE EPSTEIN CLIENT LIST!!!!”

This moment is significant for another reason: It allows us to peer into the future of MAGA and see its potential crackup. After Trump is gone, this movement could tear itself apart. Its very existence is premised on a series of fantastical assertions about America and American government.

This means that MAGA influencers are constantly deceiving themselves, one another and the right-wing public. It’s an ecosystem that operates in a constant state of crisis and grievance, and MAGA supporters are so convinced that the worst possible stories are real that they’ll turn on anyone not named Donald Trump who dares to tell them the truth — or who deviates in the slightest bit from the stories they tell themselves.

Once Trump leaves office, there will be no one left to end the internal arguments and direct everyone to fall in line. If the Democrats have a problem of too many purity tests, Republicans will soon experience the consequences of putting together a coalition that may have too few. In red America, you can believe anything so long as you support Trump.

Remove that man, and only the grievances remain, and many of MAGA’s grievances are against other Republicans. The G.O.P. coalition contains pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine factions, internationalists and isolationists, normie Republicans and wild conspiracy theorists.

Republican ideological diversity is its temporary strength. It could build a tent big enough to win very close to a majority of the popular vote. But by pulling a critical mass of disgruntled Americans into one party, Republicans have created a culture of constant conflict, and those conflicts are often rooted in completely false beliefs about American life.

Those internal conflicts are fully underway. CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reported on Friday that “it’s hard to overstate the infighting” in MAGA over the Epstein case. Also on Friday, Axios reported that Bongino took the day off work after clashing with Bondi at the White House, and CNN is reporting that he’s considering resigning from the F.B.I. In fact, we can see a consensus hardening against Bondi: “She’s the culprit. She’s the one who pulled the bait and switch. She told us that the list was on her desk.”

Trump himself isn’t immune from attack. As part of his divorce from the MAGA movement, Elon Musk has claimed that Trump and his longtime ally Steve Bannon are in the Epstein files. “How,” Musk posted on Tuesday, “can people be expected to have faith in Trump if he won’t release the Epstein files?”

By Saturday evening, Trump had enough. He posted a long screed on Truth Social that declared his support for Bondi — he said she was doing a “FANTASTIC JOB!” — and then bizarrely claimed that the Epstein files were written by “Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the losers and criminals of the Biden administration.” In a pointed reference to Patel, he said that the F.B.I. should be focused on investigating “Voter Fraud, Political Corruption, ActBlue, the Rigged and Stolen Election of 2020, and arresting thugs and criminals,” rather than “spending month after month looking at nothing but the same old Radical Left inspired Documents on Jeffrey Epstein.”

Judging from the early response online, MAGA is not satisfied. The usually faithful Benny Johnson was shaken. “By admitting that the Epstein Files are real,” he said, “and that you’ve read them, and you don’t like their contents, and they were written by your enemies, it doesn’t make the most compelling case as far as I’m concerned. Holy moly.”

The Epstein case remains a bit of a black box to most Americans. We still don’t know all the details of Epstein’s relationships with the rich and powerful, and in the absence of knowledge, wild allegations spread unhindered by hard facts.

This much we do know: Some of MAGA’s most trusted voices — including Patel, Bondi, Bongino and Trump himself — are suddenly telling their movement: Move along, there’s nothing to see here. But MAGA does not want to hear what they have to say.

The post MAGA Is Tearing Itself Apart Over Jeffrey Epstein appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.