JD Vance Will Travel to Utah to Visit Family of Charlie Kirk

Vice President JD Vance and his wife, second lady Usha Vance, will travel to Salt Lake City, Utah, on Thursday, to pay respects to the family of Charlie Kirk, following Kirk’s assassination Wednesday.

A source familiar with the planning told NOTUS that Vance and his family will no longer travel to New York City for the annual 9/11 ceremony at ground zero as previously scheduled.

Vance and Kirk were close friends, having known each other since 2017. The two spoke regularly, and during the 2024 campaign, Kirk pushed then-candidate Donald Trump to select Vance as his running mate.

“He wasn’t just a thinker, he was a doer, turning big ideas into bigger events with thousands of activists,” Vance said in a post on X about Kirk. “And after every event, he would give me a big hug, tell me he was praying for me, and ask me what he could do. ‘You focus on Wisconsin,’ he’d tell me. ‘Arizona is in the bag.’ And it was.”

Vance called Kirk a “true friend” and added, “So much of the success we’ve had in this administration traces directly to Charlie’s ability to organize and convene. He didn’t just help us win in 2024, he helped us staff the entire government.”

Kirk was fatally shot on Wednesday while holding an event at Utah Valley University. The shooter is still at large despite law enforcement having detained two people for questioning, only to release them hours later.