Pastor Lucas Miles, one of the leading evangelicals in the nation and a close friend of slain conservative leader Charlie Kirk, on Thursday praised the appointment of Erika Kirk as the new chief executive officer and board chair of Turning Point USA, telling Newsmax that she is the "best person" to carry forward her late husband's vision.
"Erika is the best person who is suited for this job," said Miles, the senior director for TPUSA Faith and author of the book "Pagan Threat: Confronting America's Godless Uprising," on "Newsline." "Charlie's DNA and imprint and vision, she understands it better than anybody. And I think that Turning Point USA is in very good hands moving forward, despite this horrific week that we've had."
Earlier on Thursday, the Turning Point USA board unanimously elected Erika Kirk as its new chief executive officer and board chair, according to a post on the organization's official X account.
The organization's decision followed private conversations in which Charlie Kirk, the TPUSA co-founder, reportedly expressed his wish that his wife assume leadership in the event of his death, to ensure continuity of leadership for the movement he built.
Miles, who worked closely with Charlie Kirk as senior director of TPUSA Faith, described the late conservative leader as a mentor and visionary.
"I've been honored to serve under Charlie for about the last year and a half," said Miles. "He was a friend. He was a boss. He was a mentor, even though he was 15 years younger than me in so many areas of life. And it's the honor of my life to be able to work alongside of him."
Kirk's last published words were the foreword to "Pagan Threat," and Miles said that including Kirk in his project was an obvious choice.
"Charlie was a no-brainer to have part of this project," Miles said. "He understood the threats this nation really better than anybody. He was such a futurist, such a forward thinker ... and the underlayment of that was his biblical worldview and his relationship with Jesus Christ."
Kirk had also long warned about the cultural and spiritual dangers outlined in the book, Miles said.
"There is a threat to our nation," he told Newsmax, adding that the danger was "the thing that took Charlie's life" and pointing to Marxist indoctrination and what he described as self-deification in American society.
Miles admitted the timing of the book's release was painful but said the mission must press forward.
"I think this is an important time for America," he said. "I wish this was not the week that my book was releasing. Honestly, I wish I was wrong about some of these things, but we've got a lot of work still to do. And you know what? In Charlie fashion, come Monday, we're going to get started."
"Pagan Threat" is available on Amazon, but can also be obtained for free through a special promotion on the Newsmax website. Kirk's foreword was a call to action in which he urged Americans not only to read the book, but to internalize it and share it.
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.