Kathy Griffin used a recent episode of her podcast to mock Erika Kirk and label her late husband, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, a "straight-up Nazi", remarks directed at a grieving widow whose husband was killed during a campus speaking event eight months ago.
Griffin, 65, made the comments on her Talk Your Head Off podcast. The episode's exact date was not disclosed, but Breitbart News reported the remarks this week, drawing immediate attention to the comedian's willingness to disparage a murdered conservative leader and ridicule his widow by name.
Charlie Kirk was killed on September 10 during a speaking event at Utah Valley University. Griffin acknowledged having shared a stage with him at least once. That prior encounter did not temper her language.
Griffin devoted a portion of the podcast to Erika Kirk, referencing a video the widow had posted, though Griffin did not specify which video or when it appeared. The comedian's tone was dismissive and personal:
"Who knows how many assassination attempts there could be, just in the next day, or how many times Erika Kirk is going to switch from her sparkle pants to that weird video that she made that's just bizarre."
She continued mocking Erika Kirk's appearance in the video:
"Wasn't that Erika Kirk video weird? Her being not girly and looking like, I don't even know what, like a sniper?"
Griffin added that Erika Kirk "looks like she's going to an anti-ICE protest, which is something she would not do." The remark appeared designed to mock Kirk's appearance while simultaneously belittling her political convictions.
Erika Kirk has been a visible public figure since her husband's death. President Trump welcomed her to the stage at a Phoenix event in the weeks following the assassination, and she has continued to carry forward the work her husband championed.
Griffin offered no apology and made clear she intended to keep talking. "Look, I'm done giving her a pass, all right?" she said.
The comedian then turned her attention to the man himself, a man who cannot respond.
"I knew Charlie Kirk. I did a panel with him one time and his squished-in face."
That line alone would be notable for its pettiness. But Griffin went further, labeling Kirk with one of the most incendiary terms in American political life:
"And, yeah, I said that, because that dude was a straight-up Nazi."
She followed up: "And that is my opinion." She then complained about the public response to Kirk's death. "But, you know, the way we've deified him is bizarre. I've never seen anything like it."
Griffin did not provide evidence or specific actions to support the "Nazi" label. She offered it as personal opinion, applied to a man murdered during a public event, directed at a widow who has endured sustained public grief. Erika Kirk was left in tears after the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting just months after losing her husband, a reminder of the toll this period has taken on her.
Griffin's conduct here does not exist in isolation. This is a comedian who in 2017 posed with a prop resembling the bloodied, severed head of Donald Trump, an image that drew condemnation from both Democrats and Republicans at the time for promoting violence against an elected official.
Griffin initially apologized for that photo. She later withdrew the apology. In a February 2026 interview with WUSF, she declared herself "uncanceled" and expressed pride in the image. "When I look at that picture now, I'm very proud of it," Griffin told WUSF. She also said, "Oh, I think I'm uncanceled, which is a miracle to me, because I didn't think I would ever be uncanceled."
So the trajectory is clear. Griffin posed with a prop depicting a murdered president, apologized, retracted the apology, and now calls herself proud. She shared a stage with Charlie Kirk for a civil conversation, and now, after he was killed, she calls him a "straight-up Nazi" on a podcast while mocking his widow's appearance.
The willingness to deploy the most extreme rhetoric against people who are dead or grieving is not bravery. It is the opposite.
Calling political opponents "Nazis" is not new in American discourse. But context matters. Charlie Kirk was assassinated. His widow is raising their family without him. Applying the most inflammatory label imaginable to a murdered man, and doing so while ridiculing his widow, crosses a line that most public figures, regardless of party, would recognize.
Griffin is not the only public figure who has targeted Erika Kirk since Charlie Kirk's death. Turning Point USA pushed back after filmmaker Vivian Kubrick targeted the grieving widow in a separate incident. A pattern has emerged in which certain cultural figures treat Erika Kirk as a legitimate target for public contempt, as though her husband's murder somehow opened the door.
The broader culture of inflammatory commentary from entertainment figures has drawn repeated scrutiny. President Trump demanded Disney and ABC fire Jimmy Kimmel after the late-night host made an inflammatory remark about Melania Trump, and an Ohio teacher was terminated after a TikTok video appeared to lament a political figure surviving a shooting.
These are not isolated flare-ups. They reflect a segment of the entertainment and media class that treats conservative figures, and their families, as acceptable targets for the most extreme language available, with no consequences and no accountability.
Several questions remain open. Griffin referenced a specific Erika Kirk video but did not identify it. She claimed to have done a panel with Charlie Kirk but did not say where or when. The Breitbart report did not include a response from Erika Kirk or from Turning Point USA.
The article's framing notes that Griffin's rhetoric is of the same kind that "likely galvanized" Charlie Kirk's assassin, though no sourcing within the report supports a direct causal link. What is beyond dispute is the timeline: Kirk was killed eight months ago, and Griffin chose this moment to call him a Nazi and mock his widow on a public platform.
Griffin said she is "done giving her a pass." Erika Kirk never asked for one. She buried her husband and kept going. That Griffin treats a widow's grief as something requiring her permission tells you everything about who is owed a pass, and who is not.
