Turning Point CEO Erika Kirk discusses her late husband Charlie Kirk’s final book “Stop, in the Name of God: Why Honoring the Sabbath Will Transform Your Life,” how the two served each other in their marriage and more on FOX News Channel’s “Hannity.”
By the way, you can get it. Go to 45books.com. You can get a copy. It’s also in bookstores around the country.
Now, the book takes on the machine that we kind of look at it as modern life. This, you know, all the — you ever see somebody at a dinner table, they’re like, everyone’s looking at their own phone, right, Erika? We’ll get to — we’ll talk about that.
It’s a never-ending distraction for everybody which you know, it — it’s — which we all seem to be addicted to. This book is encouraging all of us one day a week to turn this off, to turn off electronics, learn to be present with our significant others with our loved ones with our children and truly rest one day a week.
God created the world in six days. He rested on the seventh. And to do that in the name of God and honor the Sabbath.
Erika Kirk, the CEO of Turning Point USA, joins us now for this interview.
It’s so good to see you. I got to spend time with you earlier today.
ERIKA KIRK, CEO, TURNING POINT USA: I loved it.
HANNITY: You’re stuck with me twice.
KIRK: I’m — you’re — we’re stuck. Our whole team is all stuck together for — it’s all good.
HANNITY: Yeah, Mikey taking, you know, a million videos over there.
KIRK: Right.
HANNITY: Before we talk about the book, which is really, I think, can transform people’s lives.
KIRK: Absolutely.
HANNITY: How are you doing? How are the kids?
KIRK: Doing the best you could expect. God is good and we’re — we have the most amazing Turning Point USA family. They’ve rallied around myself, my children, and you know, chosen families, everything.
And then, of course, we’re blessed with our family itself, but people like you, Ainsley, it’s — it’s priceless. It’s priceless.
HANNITY: You know, you go through this period, and you have the shock of something like this happen.
KIRK: Right.
HANNITY: You know, we — we all try to relate to people. I don’t know if you really could relate to this. And then all of a sudden, there are moments where you just like the reality hits you. He’s not coming home.
KIRK: Right. The permanency — I will always struggle with the permanency. It’s a love of my life.
I still talk to him every single day as if when I’m getting ready in the morning, when I’m getting ready to go to bed, when I’m just going about my day, it’s — I still feel him so much with me and I just — again, the permanency will never — it will never settle in.
HANNITY: You know, we talked a little about this on radio today, but when you think of heaven — and as a Christian, I believe in heaven, Jesus on the cross says to a person to his left, this day you will be with me in paradise.
KIRK: Yeah.
HANNITY: The eye has not seen, the ear had not heard, nor has it entered into the hearts of man what God has in store —
KIRK: Right.
HANNITY: — for those who love the truth.
I say at the end of my show, hopefully you stay up once in a while. Let not your heart be troubled.
KIRK: Yes.
HANNITY: But the verse goes on, in my father’s house are many mansions.
KIRK: Amen.
HANNITY: And I go to prepare a place for you so that where I am, you shall also be.
KIRK: Amen.
HANNITY: Does that give you comfort, those words?
KIRK: It does. And my daughter and I, we’ve talked about this at night. She would ask what did daddy — what do you think daddy did today in heaven? And I’ll have her relay that back to me or, you know, she’ll — we’ve come to the understanding and I’ve tried to explain this to her that daddy’s still with us he’s just in a different location and he’s building us a home in heaven and I’ve said this before but she said “I can’t wait to go”. I said, “Me, too, baby. Me, too.”
HANNITY: Yeah, this is an amazing message.
KIRK: Uh-huh.
HANNITY: I actually was — I was reading the book, as you can tell.
KIRK: I’m the same way.
HANNITY: I tore up Charlie’s book.
KIRK: I’m the same way.
HANNITY: But I read every page of it. First of all, he’s a biblical scholar, which was beyond impressive.
KIRK: Phenomenal.
HANNITY: I mean, I would think any scholar would be impressed by the scholarship behind this.
KIRK: Uh-huh.
HANNITY: The second thing that stood out about this is, wow, what a powerful message that he’s sending. Turn off your phone Friday night at sunset. Don’t turn it back on until Saturday night at sunset.
KIRK: Uh-huh.
HANNITY: I think that — it could be shocking to most people. How did it work in your life?
KIRK: Well, let me just explain first how much time and effort went into this book. Charlie would not — he didn’t write this book without doing what he’s talking about in this book. That’s not the way he operates.
He learned as much as he could about this topic. We have over 50 books on our bookshelf about the Sabbath. He wanted to know it so deeply and he saw the fruit of what it was like to actually detach from the world, stop the noise, stop the scrolling and just put pause on everything and focus on your family.
And he was at first, you know, it was started with an hour, two hours, but then once he fully incorporated into his life, he totally elevated. He became a next level husband, which I didn’t even think was possible because he was already so incredible to me and the babies.
But I saw how this changed his life. And it’s something so simple. So simple. Just turning your phone off or detaching from TV or your daily life and just taking a minute to pause and breathe and understanding how important family is and putting into perspective the battle’s already won.
Just — just love on what the Lord has blessed you with.
HANNITY: He talked about how that’s real rest.
KIRK: It is.
HANNITY: And —
KIRK: It is.
HANNITY: And that means not watching television, binge watching. It means present with your family. Present with God.
KIRK: Present with your family. Present with the Lord. Rest your brain. Rest your heart. Rest your soul.
We’re not machines. We’re humans. We have souls. We are here to make a difference.
And if — you can’t hear from the Lord if you’re being inundated constantly from other people trying to take your attention away from what the ultimate goal is, how are you able to make decisions for your family and for your company and for X, Y, Z if you are so inundated with whatever the enemy wants you to have?
I mean, we talked about this earlier. Busyiness that’s not the same as being productive.
HANNITY: You write that — in the right — the way he writes in the book is very powerful.
KIRK: Correct. Very much so. There’s a huge difference. We can get boggled down with to-do lists and thinking that that is productivity. It’s actually not.
Charlie was incredible with time management and time on this Earth is so limited. You and I both know that and now we see it in technicolor with what happened to my husband. But time is so precious.
And so, are you going to spend that time investing into your family, investing into the eternal things, investing into things that will — you will have in heaven, or are you going to waste that time getting in Internet debates and, you know, going down rabbit holes?
HANNITY: You know, I — when you were on the radio show today, I asked you to read a passage because I thought it would be better coming from you.
KIRK: Uh-huh.
HANNITY: And it was the Sabbath is a — Sabbath is not just a nice idea. It’s not just a day of rest for the religious or nostalgic.
KIRK: Uh-huh.
HANNITY: The Sabbath is God’s answer to a culture spinning out of control. And it is his ancient rhythm and sanity planted like an anchor in a world swept away by currents and chaos. And he said, “Six days, we work, build, engage. On the seventh day, we stop not because we’re weak.”
KIRK: Not weak.
HANNITY: We stop because we’re human.
KIRK: Uh-huh.
HANNITY: I mean, he’s 31 years old. And that’s way more profound than I think anything I could say.
KIRK: He’s — he — again, he did not just write this book, he lived it. So, when you feel something so deeply and you’ve experienced it and you lived it, you want to be able to tell other people, look, this will change your life. I know it might sound simple, but sometimes the best answers are the most simple ones. It is truth.
And he — again, our whole team knew on days where he didn’t get a full Sabbath and did because he just was so locked in and he — he just again was the most incredible man. But this just took him to a whole new level, and it was in a way where you would look at him and be like, “Whatever you’re doing, I want to do.” And he’s like, “Here.”
And this is his final message. This is what I’m trying to express to people. This is Charlie’s last book.
So, people can write books all about my husband and what he believed and what he said and analyze his videos. These are his words and when you read them, you feel him come to life.
HANNITY: You know —
KIRK: It’s powerful.
HANNITY: It is very powerful. And it really caused me as I read it — again, I read the whole thing, you know, and —
KIRK: I’ll be honest, I can’t read the last few pages. I’m not there yet. It’s just emotionally because once this book is done, it’s done.
HANNITY: Of course. I mean, you know, everybody thinks we should all mourn a certain way.
KIRK: Right.
HANNITY: Okay. Well, until you walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, you know, don’t lecture people.
KIRK: A hundred percent.
HANNITY: Because, you know, I grew up in an Irish family. In one corner of the room, there’s people pretty wasted. They were drinking heavily.
Another corner of the room, you know, there’s people crying. Another corner of the room, they’re telling jokes about the person that died.
Then there’s the two people that can’t stop touching the dead body, which used to freak me out.
KIRK: Right.
HANNITY: You know, but people mourn differently.
I felt at one point in this book, man, I felt like this lecture was just for me, but it really I think applies to everyone. I related to it.
KIRK: Uh-huh.
HANNITY: He gives you — he — it’s sort of like a salesperson overcoming objections.
KIRK: Right.
HANNITY: He gives you every excuse your mind can think of not to do this.
KIRK: A hundred percent.
HANNITY: And I’m like, check, check, check.
KIRK: You don’t have time.
HANNITY: The president may call.
KIRK: Right. exactly. You don’t have time to do this. You have kids’ soccer games. No, he goes through all of it and he says respectfully, it’s making adjustments, not excuses.
HANNITY: Yeah.
After all this happened, you know, I knew Charlie more on the political side of him, but the most important part of Sean Hannity is the personal private side that has been hesitant, never wanted to proselytize.
And especially as I’ve gotten older, my faith has grown stronger and stronger. And after this happened and he was assassinated, you know, Ainsley, for example, myself started watching videos of the two of you.
KIRK: Yeah.
HANNITY: And one really stood out about how you would — Charlie would always ask you and you would ask him how you can serve each other.
You know, in a lot of marriages that go wrong, it’s well, she won’t, he won’t. Horrible cook, whatever.
KIRK: Right.
HANNITY: Right?
I want to play with a little of that.
KIRK: Sweet.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KIRK: And I check in with each other every single day. How can I serve you better? What can I do for you to make it better when you get home? Is there anything that you need me to have ready for you when you come back from the office or this trip X, Y, Z?
He asks me the same thing if I’m out doing something or even if I’m out with the kids, what can I do? How can I make your day better?
You are a team and you guys are not at ends with each other. Work together, communicate, and grow together as equally yoked partnership.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: I think there’s — there’s a lot of deep meaning in that and a lot of lessons for couples to learn.
KIRK: Uh-huh.
HANNITY: Can you give us more detail? What did it mean for you to serve him and for him to serve you? Because I often joke, why did they take away love, honor, obey? I’m kidding. I’m not Bam-Bam. I’m not Fred Flintstone.
But what did it mean to you?
KIRK: What it meant to me was that he actually genuinely cared about how he could improve himself as a husband. Not from the standpoint of, you know, look at me, I’m better than you, but in the standpoint of I want to serve you because I love you and I want to make sure that I can be the provider that you need spiritually, emotionally, and every other way with the children.
And we never looked at each other as competing roles. It was never from the standpoint of, well, you’re the wife, you need to stay in X, Y, Z, and I’m the husband and I go out and it was always we’re a team. There was no daylight between us. He always told me about his day, everything that was going on with Turning Point USA, everything that he was up to and vice versa.
And that’s why there was we were always in lockstep with the Lord. We were equally yoked when we got married and we remained that way because our full focus and our full — our full through line was the Lord. We made — we had a fire at the covenant when we made — when we got married and we made that covenant with the Lord. That was not something that was just, oh, this is so cute. We have a really beautiful wedding.
No, this is a big deal. You found the love of your life. The Lord has been able to bring you guys together for a purpose and for a reason and God is going to use your marriage in ways that will blow your mind.
And yes, there is some pain in that. There is some deep pain and people — not everyone will understand it, and I don’t expect anyone else to. But the love that Charlie and I had and still have is something that transcends this world and into heaven and that’s why I still feel so connected to him because again we made that covenant and how intentional he was about serving. Myself, that made me be a better wife. How can I serve you when you get home? What can I do better to be a better wife to you? How can I love on you better?
When you communicate with each other, that’s what’s missing in this world. You talk about us being detached on our phones at dinner. I saw that tonight. There was a five-year-old girl at a round table with her family of five and the only person with headphones on, Rhinestone headphones, was the five-year-old girl.
What message does that show to her? Your voice doesn’t matter. You’re not an adult. You’re not raising a little girl. You’re raising a woman.
And so, in this book, too, Charlie talks about how important it is. Put your phone down, engage with your family, pour into them. That’s your legacy. You don’t want to ignore that. You want to pour into them.
HANNITY: Are people actually — do they spend all that time running away? They don’t want to face whatever it is. I mean, I think one of the hardest things to do in life is, and I think Christianity is misunderstood in a lot of ways, and that, you know, oh, I’m a Christian. Oh, you think you’re holier than thou.
That’s — I don’t believe that at all. I think the first thing you acknowledge as a Christian is you’re a failure.
KIRK: You’re a sinner and you need a savior.
HANNITY: Exactly.
KIRK: That is the first thing. So, I don’t know how that’s holier than thou when you realize upfront you need a God and it’s not you.
HANNITY: And you’re asking for help and you’re asking for transformation.
KIRK: Correct.
HANNITY: From the Latin, the word repentance means to change one’s heart.
KIRK: Right, right.
HANNITY: And that you’re asking for help to do that.
KIRK: Right. And Charlie talks about that in this book from the standpoint of do not idolize yourself. You don’t have all the answers. You’re not supposed to.
And that’s where it’s so important for you to do a deep dive. Know your nature. Like Charlie said, figure out — obviously, you’re not perfect. No one is. Only God is.
But there are things that you can do in your life to be able to be more in tune with the Holy Spirit and be able to make a difference in this life, a short life. And it starts with you realizing you’re not perfect and the world doesn’t revolve around you, and you’re here to serve and to love others. That’s what’s most important.
HANNITY: You know, you talk about what the heart of Christianity is. What was Jesus’s commandment? You know, love others as I have loved you. And he gave the ultimate sacrifice.
KIRK: Correct.
HANNITY: As I — as I look at this, and by the way, it’s 45books.com. I hope everyone will get a hold of it. You know, we’re mind, body, and spirit, you know, and we’re all into health, wellness, fitness, nutrition – –
KIRK: Try staying alive forever.
HANNITY: Cold plunge.
KIRK: Right. Saunas.
HANNITY: Do everything saunas, and eating healthier.
KIRK: Yes.
HANNITY: All right. We nourish our minds, we know — by reading and intellectual knowledge. We nourish our bodies. We eat healthier. We work out.
But I think we often forget the spiritual component of the — of human existence and stillness.
KIRK: Uh-huh.
HANNITY: I think my best moments or the moments I feel closest to God or when I’m still and I’m quiet.
KIRK: Absolutely.
HANNITY: And there’s probably — I don’t — pro — I don’t do it enough. Not I probably don’t. I don’t.
KIRK: Well, the enemy would love for you not to. The battleground is in your head. The enemy would love nothing more than to be able to just confuse things in your head and make it so loud that you cannot make any decisions.
You can’t absorb the word. You can’t engage with other people. You can’t communicate with other people.
You’re just so — you’re on autopilot. The enemy would love that.
But when you’re able to stop and be still with the Lord, that’s when he’s able to use you the most.
HANNITY: Yeah.
KIRK: When you’re surrendered, when you’re fully surrendered.
HANNITY: It’s like saying the Lord’s Prayer slowly with meaning and not getting, oh, I’m thinking about my next show. I’m thinking about, you know, what I’m going to say to so and so the next time I see them.
KIRK: No, that’s right. And that’s what’s so important, when you start — when you say that prayer and you catch yourself thinking outside of that space, start over.
HANNITY: I start over. Yeah.
KIRK: Yeah.
HANNITY: 45books.com.
KIRK: Yes.
HANNITY: It’s called “Stop in the Name of God: Why Honoring the Sabbath Will Transform Your Life”. What an unbelievable final statement from somebody that I came friendly with and came to love and admire.
KIRK: And you know what’s so powerful is that he is now living the ultimate sabbath.
HANNITY: He’s going to change lives with this book and I think millions of them. It really is a powerful book. And I hope people will consider — at least try the hour, the two hours first and then maybe work into it.
KIRK: You don’t even have to be religious. You can be a non-observing citizen and use this book to change your life.
HANNITY: Shabbat shalom.
KIRK: Amen.
HANNITY: I watch “The Chosen” over and over and over again. I feel like I know it.
But, Erika, I’m so glad you came to be with us tonight. You’re going to be on “FOX & Friends” tomorrow.
KIRK: Yes.
HANNITY: You’re going to be co-hosting “The Five”.
KIRK: We have a busy week.
HANNITY: Welcome to our FOX family.
KIRK: Thank you. God bless you.
HANNITY: It’s really an honor to have you here.
KIRK: Thank you for being such a good friend, Sean.
HANNITY: And we pray for your children and you and your whole Turning Point family.
KIRK: I deeply appreciate that. We need the prayers.
HANNITY: Thank you.
KIRK: God bless you.
HANNITY: It’s 45books.com.
KIRK: Yes, sir.
HANNITY: All right. And in bookstores around the country.
