Almost a year after conservative organizer Charlie Kirk was shot dead at Utah Valley University, two of America's biggest podcast hosts are still questioning whether investigators have the right man — even as prosecutors tell a Utah judge their evidence against suspect Tyler Robinson has only gotten more solid.
Rogan Tips Toward Owens' Version of Events
On the August 21 taping of The Joe Rogan Experience, recorded alongside comedians Shane Gillis, Mark Normand and Ari Shaffir, host Joe Rogan told his audience he's increasingly persuaded by conservative commentator Candace Owens' take on the case: "The more time goes on, the more I'm leaning towards Candace Owens." The remark centered on a specific claim Owens has pushed — that blurry security-camera images investigators released of the shooting suspect were manipulated to make the person look bulkier through the shoulders than Robinson, who is notably thin, actually is. Rogan framed his skepticism as part of a broader distrust of press coverage generally, telling his co-hosts he assumes some degree of spin colors every account reporters put out.
Owens, once a Turning Point USA communications director who has compared her closeness with Kirk to a sibling bond, has spent nearly a year floating an expanding roster of alternate culprits — among them the Israeli and French governments, Egyptian military surveillance, U.S. armed forces personnel, and staffers inside Kirk's own organization. In one video breaking down the released stills, she described the pictured figure in specific physical terms: "Broad build. Left-handed. High white socks that look like they're hiding something." She has also alleged, without confirmation from any investigator, that a cluster of Israeli-registered cellphones were detected near the shooting scene — a claim law enforcement has not corroborated.
A Defamation Suit — and a Fuller Response Than It Might Appear
Those theories have now landed Owens in federal court. Brian Harpole, who ran security for Kirk through his firm Integrity Security Solutions,sued Owens, her media companies, and a self-described former military source named Mitchell Snow in Tennessee, alleging the pair fabricated a story that placed him at a secret meeting with senior military officials at Fort Huachuca the day before the shooting — supposedly to help plan it. Owens is far from silent on the matter: on her podcast shortly after the suit was filed, she disputed Harpole's account and described the lawsuit as a publicity stunt, and by late June her legal team was seeking court permission to file a lengthy motion to dismiss the case entirely under Tennessee's anti-SLAPP law.
Erika Kirk's Public Line, and a Private Meeting That Didn't Change Much
Charlie Kirk's widow, Erika, who now runs Turning Point USA as CEO, addressed the rumors directly during a CBS News town hall with editor-in-chief Bari Weiss in December, asked pointedly what she'd say to Owens and other conspiracy theorists. Her answer was blunt: "Stop. That's it. That's all I have to say." Days later, the two women held a private, nearly four-and-a-half-hour conversation that both separately called productive on social media.
The peace didn't hold for long. Owens later told British broadcaster Piers Morgan that Kirk never personally asked her, face to face, to drop her investigation, and that she has no intention of stopping. Morgan pushed back hard, comparing her trajectory to that of discredited conspiracy broadcaster Alex Jones and suggesting she could be guilty of "spewing bulls--- to the public" for profit. The audience numbers back up the profit motive, if not the theories: Owens' YouTube channel has climbed past six million subscribers as of this month, a jump of well over two million just since the start of 2025, according to an independent analysis of subscriber growth.
Where the Actual Criminal Case Stands
While the theories circulate online, the court case has advanced on a separate, much slower track. Robinson, now 23, was taken into custody in Washington County, Utah, following a roughly 33-hour manhunt that ended two days after the September 10, 2025 shooting, and he has been held without bail since on charges including aggravated murder, felony discharge of a firearm, obstruction of justice and witness tampering. Prosecutors say Robinson admitted to the shooting in messages to his roommate and in a Discord group chat, and that surveillance footage placing him on the rooftop sniper's position above the rally forms the backbone of their case.
Robinson's defense is now trying to strip out the only factor that would make him eligible for execution if convicted, arguing in a 41-page filing that prosecutors never proved anyone besides Kirk was endangered by the single shot fired. Prosecutors filed a rebuttal disputing that characterization, and a Utah judge is set to rule September 1 on both whether the case moves to trial at all and whether the death penalty stays on the table.
With Harpole's defamation suit still working through federal court and Robinson's pivotal hearing just days away, the distance between the courtroom record and the version of events playing out on podcasts shows no sign of narrowing. The criminal case keeps converging on a single defendant even as the online conversation about who really killed Charlie Kirk keeps pulling in new directions.
