Turning Point USA chairwoman and CEO Erika Kirk wrote a guest essay in the Opinion section of The New York Times titled “What I’ve Learned About Grief,” published on September 7. Baron Coleman reacted to the op-ed in his Real Baron podcast, where he pointed out:“But I find it interesting, twice now, at pivotal moments since Charlie Kirk passed, Erika Kirk has chosen to give The New York Times preference to her thoughts. The first national splash she did after he passed was with the very organization Charlie Kirk called pure propaganda, trash, agitating in favor of crime, crazy, unstable, dishonest liars. But when he passes, that’s where she runs.”Coleman, who is an attorney, political consultant, and radio show host, added:“But I would argue that if your husband despised The New York Times, refused to participate in most anything they did, constantly criticized them, called them all sorts of terrible names, it’s a little bit of a slap in the face…”In the same podcast episode, Baron Coleman said he heard from a “well-placed source” that TPUSA has decided to retain Erika Kirk as a “chair”, but not as a CEO, following the “failure of the Erika Kirk experiment” over the last year, since her husband died.Exploring what Erika Kirk wrote in the NYT op-edErika Kirk began her guest essay by describing the days in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. She recalled Second Lady Usha Vance telling her to “Just get through the next 15 minutes”, and how it stayed with her long after the fateful day.“The first Saturday without a love note from him passed. His 32nd birthday. My birthday. Thanksgiving. When I put the Christmas tree together wrong, it made me realize that being a widow means old traditions will need to make room for new ones. The wave crashes on me again and again. Every time, just get through the next 15 minutes,” Erika, 37, wrote.She continued:“Easter, our wedding anniversary, our son’s second birthday, the preliminary hearing for the man accused of murdering my husband, our annual trip to Maine, now as a family of three. Then the last of them, our daughter’s fourth birthday.”Erika Kirk wrote that tears rolled down her cheeks while she sang “Happy Birthday” for her daughter and in that moment she wished her late husband could see them. However, as her little girl held her arm and kissed her, she realized that she was “surviving her own little crashing waves, too.” The mother of two added:“Grief is strange. Time continues even when every part of you wants it to pause or, better yet, rewind. But the people we love who have passed on would not want us to spend the rest of our lives trying to rewind. At first, I needed to survive the next 15 minutes. Over time, I’ve realized that Charlie would want me to live them.”Erika Kirk admitted that she wasn’t angry at God, but was rather “blessed” to be the wife of Charlie, who she described as “one of one.” She said that his “assignment” on Earth, which he “more than fulfilled”, was to guide people who felt “lost” and lead them to “everlasting hope” through faith and a sense of meaning and purpose.“To the world, he was Charlie Kirk. But to me, he was the love of my life. To our children, he was the center of their world,” Erika wrote.She called grief “universal” and said it comes in “waves,” while explaining:“When you lose someone you love, it’s easy to struggle to understand God’s plan. One of the hardest tests of our faith occurs when bad things happen. True faith means accepting that we won’t get every answer and finding peace in that.”Ms. Kirk noted that she has now learned to “recognize” grief as it made her feel “impossibly close” to her late husband, who she says is in “heaven.”“I ache for him to be here. Still, I can stand and say without a shadow of a doubt that God is good… I am learning that grieving Charlie and living life at the same time are part of the rhythm of grief. I can miss him with every part of me and still laugh with our children. I can have a broken heart and still experience joy,” the Turning Point USA leader stated.Just like Usha Vance once told her, Erika Kirk also told her readers to just get through the next 15 minutes while navigating the grieving journey. She ended with the words:“One day, maybe when you least expect it, you’ll start to see that those 15 minutes hold more than just grief. The grief is there, always, but so is the beautiful gift of life.”Charlie Kirk was fatally shot at the Utah Valley University campus in Orem, Utah, on September 10, 2025. He was 31. Charlie, who founded TPUSA in 2012, was speaking at one of the events organized by his nonprofit.In the days leading up to his assassination, Kirk spoke to local Utah newspaper Deseret News about Turning Point USA:“We want to be an institution in this country that is as well-known and as powerful as The New York Times, Harvard and tech companies. And we believe we’re creating that.”It is noteworthy that Charlie Kirk had a contentious relationship with The New York Times. He often openly called out op-eds published by the outlet, while they too portrayed him in an unflattering light.