Franklin Graham says attacks against Erika Kirk are ‘from the devil’ to sow discord: ‘Makes my blood boil’

Evangelist and Samaritan’s Purse CEO Franklin Graham said during a recent interview that he believes the continued attacks against Erika Kirk, including from some self-professed Christians, are demonic in nature and intended to sow discord.

Speaking during an interview with CBN about spiritual warfare last week, Graham warned that the devil “is wanting to trap every believer, every Christian” by luring many into apathy and leveling overt attacks against others.

“The devil is a deceiver, and he deceives Christians every day,” he said. “And then he’s attacking those people that put their faith and trust in God. They’re being attacked.”

“I think of Erika Kirk,” continued Graham, who went on to say that he is personally offended by the onslaught of attacks against the widow of the late Turning Point USA founder, Charlie Kirk.

“She has been attacked since the day her husband was assassinated. And she is a nice, sweet young lady who’s grieving for the loss of her husband, and she’s attacked all the time, even by Christians. It just makes my blood boil.”

Graham discerned that such tactics are part of a demonic agenda to encourage division and frustrate the work of the Gospel.

“All this is coming from the devil. He wants us to be at each other’s throats. He wants us to not only attack one another, but he wants us to fail and he wants us to fall,” he said.

Erika Kirk and members of her family were in Utah this week to attend the preliminary hearing for Tyler Robinson, who stands accused of assassinating her husband while he was speaking at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10, 2025.

Since her husband’s death, Erika has fielded attacks from figures such as Candace Owens, who has suggested she was somehow involved in a cover-up regarding her own husband’s death. When asked last December during an interview with Bari Weiss what she would say to Owens, Kirk replied: “Stop. That’s it. That’s all I have to say. Stop.”

Earlier this year, lawyers for Erika Kirk sent cease-and-desist letters to right-wing influencers who have amplified such claims, writing: “Mrs. Kirk had nothing to do with her husband’s death. Any statement to the contrary is absolutely false and made with actual malice.”

Owens, a former TPUSA employee who was friends with Charlie, has been prolific on X this week throughout Robinson’s preliminary hearing, floating conspiracy theories about Kirk’s death and the identity of his killer while attacking members of TPUSA.

On Wednesday, she implied Daily Wire host and former colleague Ben Shapiro was somehow involved.

“For ten months, you’ve been slandering Charlie’s wife, his friends, and all of the people he worked with. You’re working to acquit his murderer,” Shapiro wrote in an X post to Owens on Thursday. “You’re spreading conspiratorial poison for cash. That’s something anyone of decency should condemn. The fact that so many are unwilling to do so is demonstrative of widespread cowardice, stupidity, wickedness…or all three.”

Since Kirk’s death, much of the political right and President Donald Trump’s MAGA base has fractured over multiple flashpoint issues, chiefly Israel and the conflict in Iran. Some have assessed that Kirk served as a generational and ideological linchpin between various factions within the Republican Party, with historian David Austin Walsh writing in January: “It turns out that Charlie Kirk was the glue holding MAGA together.”