‘Pray for Hasan Piker’s soul’: Charlie Kirk mentor responds to critic’s on-stage mockery

Christian author Frank Turek said Hasan Piker’s mockery of the late conservative commentator Charlie Kirk should inspire prayer for the far-left Twitch streamer in an interview with Heartlander News.

Kirk was assassinated by a gunman at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10, 2025, leaving behind two children and his wife, Erika Kirk, who succeeded her husband as CEO of Turning Point USA (TPUSA). Turek mentored Kirk in Christian apologetics and was with Kirk at the Utah event. Turek performed CPR on Kirk while he was being transported to the hospital.

Piker sparked intense backlash after recently performing We Are Charlie Kirk – a song thought to be AI-generated and commonly used in online videos mocking Kirk. The crowd cheered in response at what appeared to be his Aug. 21, 2026, tour stop in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Theatre.

When asked about Piker’s mockery of Kirk, Turek said, “Charlie said something in a tweet back in 2016 that ‘you can tell a lot about who somebody is by how they react when someone dies.’ That’s pretty much all you need to say.”

“If you’re mocking a man who was peacefully answering questions on a college campus and was murdered – and you’re mocking that – that says a lot more about you than anything else,” Turek said. “You need to pray for Hasan Piker’s soul, because quite obviously it’s not right with the Lord.”

Turek argued that Erika Kirk forgiving the assassin shortly after the tragedy stands in sharp contrast to Piker’s rhetoric.

“She forgave the killer. If you want to see the difference between a Christian worldview and a non-Christian worldview [and] how it expresses itself after a tragedy, there’s no clearer contrast than Erika Kirk versus Hasan Piker,” Turek said.

Turek recalled witnessing Kirk’s assassination and what the two discussed in the days leading up to the tragedy on the Sept. 16, 2025 episode of his show, CrossExamined.

“This is going to be the most difficult show I have ever done,” he said. “He was like a fourth son to me … I have three sons. Charlie was my fourth.”

The Christian apologist documented more details about his experiences surrounding the assassination and Kirk’s legacy in his upcoming book, The War on Reality, available Sept. 8.

“The only good news is that Charlie died instantly and felt no pain,” Turek writes in the book, shared with Heartlander News. “The surgeon later told us that they couldn’t have saved him if he was shot inside the operating room. … After private time with Charlie’s body, we are all preparing to leave the hospital. Erika and I see one another in the hall and embrace. Through tears, she whispers, ‘Charlie loved you. And he was doing exactly what he wanted to be doing when he died. Please don’t let his legacy die.’”

Conservative backlash

Piker’s recent performance drew major backlash from conservatives including TPUSA staffers, with Andrew Kolvet, executive producer of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” posting the video and writing that Piker is “engaging in pure, unadulterated evil.”

Piker responded to the outrage on Aug. 24, insisting that he was not mocking the assassination but that he was “just carrying the flame,” referencing the song again.

“I guess they would be less mad if I had fireworks on stage like his wife?” Piker said, referring to the pyrotechnics display triggered when Erika Kirk took the stage at a TPUSA memorial tribute for her husband.

Kolvet responded to the online criticism of the display at the time, stating that it is a staple at TPUSA events and “most importantly, Charlie loved it.”

Piker said on Sept. 11, 2025, that Kirk “shouldn’t have been killed” but “def was an extremist,” pointing to a handful of out-of-context past comments from Kirk to make his case.

Just three months after the assassination, Piker defended the virality of the “We Are Charlie Kirk” and “Kirkification” memes. In response to the news that hundreds had been fired from their jobs for their comments about Kirk following his murder, Piker wrote that “you can’t mandate reverence for a generation that saw their classmates get slaughtered in school shootings.”

Many people fired from their jobs after Kirk’s assassination were celebrating the act of political violence online, not merely criticizing Kirk or disagreeing with his political legacy.

Piker did not respond to Heartlander News’ request for comment.