CBS aired its “Town Hall with Erika Kirk” this weekend. Editor-in-Chief of CBS News Bari Weiss conducted the interview in which Kirk discussed her life during the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. 

The town hall also featured a question-and-answer session with a several people asking questions about various matters. 

At the beginning of the town hall, Weiss asked Kirk about her response “in the hours and days after her husband was murdered” and how she approached her address before the public shortly thereafter. 

“You should probably say thank you to the authorities and just make a statement,” her team told her at the time. “I said, ‘Okay.’ I wasn’t afraid. They said, ‘Let’s go to the office and let’s discuss.’ We’re at the office and they say, ‘Do you want to go live… yeah, let’s do that. We can easily pre-record this.” I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ My husband always went live. I have nothing to hide. We’re fully transparent. What you see is what you get. If I start breaking down on live TV, I break down on live TV.”

She then discussed Charlie Kirk’s approach to dialoging with others who had different views than him.

“My husband did something very simple. He talked to people. You’re going to be murdered for talking to people. He didn’t go after people. He went after ideas. And if you think it’s okay to murder someone because you think they had it coming for them, because they took the time to have people come to the front of the line if they didn’t agree with you; and you think it’s okay because you don’t like what they say or how they say it; that they should be murdered and you’re enjoying it and you’re rejoicing in that: that is evil.”

“My husband never incited violence,” she continued on the same subject, responding to a writer for the Foundation of Individual Rights and Expression. “He never once said, ‘Go after them because they’re saying XYZ and they deserve to die.’ My husband never once said that, and he never would.”

“What did he say?” she asked. “‘Come to the front of the line. I’ll put my mic down. Tell me, why you believe that? That’s interesting: I never thought of that, but have you thought of this?’” 

Amid negative impressions some have received from Charlie Kirk’s rhetoric, Kirk defended her husband, deeming these impressions a misunderstanding of his true character. 

“Again, my husband was an amazing man,” Kirk said. “We’re human, but I do not once, for one second, think he was anything else than exceptional.”

A woman asked Kirk for advice on dating: specifically on how to find a partner of the same conservative values as her while simultaneously living in New York City and having a career.

Kirk lived in New York City for five years, and found the dating scene unproductive due to the experiences of her roommates. She gave the following advice.

“So if you’re expecting to marry someone that I was blessed with, like a Charlie, you have to be the type of woman that will attract a Charlie. Are you going to church? Are you going to Bible study? Did you tell your pastor that you are ready for the Lord to bring into your life the man that you’ve been praying for? You yourself need to be prepared for that man. And only you will know how to do that.”

“Does that mean staying out and going out with the girls? she continued. “I’m not saying you sit on your couch and all of a sudden he’s going to ‘Honey, let’s rendezvous. That’s not how it happens. It’s not. Granted, my situation was a little different.” 

Kirk concluded the town hall with a religious message for the audience, stemming from the way in which Charlie Kirk lived his life.

“Charlie lived his life and I lived my life in a way where God comes first. And that bleeds into everything else. And I think when you live authentically, you’re not trying to be someone else… And again, let the Lord use you. It shows on full display that if you want to make a difference in this world, you don’t you don’t remove that very important piece and point. And everyone saw the type of man that Charlie was. And it inspired a lot of people as it should. But notice how when he was murdered, they didn’t go and grab a Constitution. They grabbed a Bible. And once you get that Bible in your hands, the Constitution makes way more sense.”