Candace Owens Says Erika Kirk 'Not Qualified' After Dodging Israel Questions

Conservative podcaster Candace Owens said Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk is "just not qualified" to run the organization after Kirk told Vanity Fair she does not spend time thinking about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Gallup found that Republican sympathy for Israelis has fallen 10 points since 2024.

Owens spent the first part of her latest episode of Candace on a Vanity Fair profile of Kirk. Kirk took over the conservative youth group after her husband, Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk, was assassinated at Utah Valley University in September 2025.

Candace Owens Says Turning Point's CEO Must Take a Side on Israel

When the magazine asked about Israel, Kirk said, "To be quite honest with you, I don't sit around thinking about what Bibi Netanyahu is doing." In the passage Owens read on air, Kirk added that she did not have "the bandwidth to go down the rabbit holes of all of it."

Owens called Israel "kind of a critical political issue right now to have an opinion on," citing the Iran war, gas prices and what she described as a fight between neoconservatives and the "America First" wing of the party. "It's central to the political divide today. The CEO of Turning Point USA is actually required to have an opinion on that," she said.

"If you don't have the bandwidth to fashion an opinion on Israel as it relates to the at-home and foreign policies of the United States you're just not qualified to be running the political organization." — Candace Owens

"It's not a rabbit hole that you have to go down It's like an opinion that you need to have if you are at the helm of an organization," Owens said.

What Vanity Fair Reported About Tucker Carlson

The profile reports that Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, said his personal conversations with Erika Kirk led him to believe she was more critical of Israel than her husband had been, The National Desk reported.

Owens said the passage proved her right. "I told you guys that Erika was more anti-Israel than Charlie was behind the scenes," she said. She argued that Kirk now "won't say anything other than glowing things about Israel" and that this is "not the direction that the organization was going in when Charlie was alive." That description of Charlie Kirk's private views is Owens' own interpretation.

In the passage Owens read on air, Kirk's answer about Israel's actions in Gaza was: "Do I think that you can question how other leaders run their country? Absolutely."

Publicly, Charlie Kirk was known as an ally of Israel. After his death, Netanyahu called him a "lion-hearted friend of Israel," and in January 2026, Israel planned to honor him with an award for opposing antisemitism, Fox News reported.

Vanity Fair Writer Says Erika Kirk Avoided Politics

Owens also read aloud a passage from the profile in which the author wrote that Kirk "seemed uneasy articulating her own political views," adding, "I couldn't tell if it was because she lacked conviction or if she simply didn't want to offend me."

At the end of the segment, Owens played audio of the profile's author discussing the piece. The author said Charlie Kirk "would have answered every single one of my questions quickly and succinctly," while Erika Kirk, "when push came to shove and we had that political conversation, she really did what she could to not touch on those topics." The author added: "It can come across as disingenuous or just not coherent."

Owens went on to attack Kirk's intelligence and motives, criticism she presented as her own opinion.

Where Republican Voters Stand on Israel

In Gallup's annual World Affairs survey, conducted February 2-16, 70 percent of Republicans said they sympathize more with Israelis and 13 percent said they sympathize more with Palestinians. Gallup found that Republican sympathy for Israelis had fallen 10 points since 2024, to its lowest level since 2004. The figure was 75 percent in Gallup's 2025 survey, JTA reported.

What Happens Next

Owens said she would return the next day with more on what she called a timeline of Charlie Kirk's final months. Kirk told Vanity Fair that her "brain bandwidth" right now goes to honoring her husband, her children and building Turning Point. It is not yet clear whether the organization will take a firmer public line on Israel before the midterms.