In the sprawling, often brutal, landscape of American conservative media, rivalries are as common as broadcast agreements. But a newly surfaced series of text messages, allegedly sent by the late Charlie Kirk, has exposed a rift so deep and personal it threatens to redefine the movement he helped build. The messages, sent to his then-protégé Candace Owens, paint a picture not of friendly competition, but of perceived betrayal, sabotage, and a bitter struggle for dominance, with The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro cast as the antagonist.

The content of the texts is nothing short of cinematic. In them, Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, frames his and Owens’s burgeoning success as a direct threat to the established order, an order he clearly believed Shapiro represented. The most stunning message employs a dark, epic metaphor pulled straight from Game of Thrones.

“The ben thing involves me more than he wants to admit…” Kirk allegedly wrote to Owens. “He knows Jon Snow is stronger as the dragons fly higher… And he is sending his incestuous brother to go try and kill us.”

The imagery is potent and precise. In this narrative, Kirk casts himself (and by extension, Owens) as Jon Snow—the outsider, the underdog, the authentic leader of the “movement fighters” whose power (“dragons”) is growing uncontrollably. Shapiro, in this analogy, is the entrenched, jealous monarch, willing to use deceitful, “incestuous” tactics to eliminate a rising threat.

This leak is not just historical gossip. It is a grenade thrown into an already raging fire. Charlie Kirk was tragically assassinated in September 2025, leaving a gaping power vacuum in the “MAGA world” he once dominated. In the weeks following his death, a vicious public feud has erupted between the two other central figures in this drama: Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro. This text leak, a voice from beyond the grave, lands as a strategic, nuclear-level escalation in the war for his legacy.

To understand the weight of Kirk’s words, one must first understand the ecosystem. For years, Kirk and Shapiro represented two distinct, and often competing, pillars of the right. Kirk’s Turning Point USA was the grassroots, campus-storming, activist wing. It was loud, populist, and focused on cultural warfare and student government. Shapiro’s The Daily Wire, conversely, was the intellectual, buttoned-down media empire. It was built on fast-talking debate, policy, and a claim to intellectual and moral consistency.

While they often shared stages and a common political allegiance, the newly leaked texts confirm what many suspected: behind the scenes, a battle for influence, donors, and the very “soul” of the movement was underway. Kirk, in his messages, positions himself as the authentic “movement fighter,” telling Owens that Shapiro’s “respect amongst movement fighters is quite low.” This was a clear attempt to frame Shapiro as an out-of-touch “establishment” figure, while Kirk and Owens were the genuine grassroots champions.

Candace Owens is the critical link in this entire saga. She rose to superstardom as an employee of Kirk’s TPUSA. She later made a high-profile move to Shapiro’s The Daily Wire, becoming one of its biggest stars. However, that relationship spectacularly imploded in March 2024, when Owens was acrimoniously released from her contract following months of public clashes with Shapiro, particularly over her increasingly controversial rhetoric.

The “Jon Snow” texts, believed to be from the period when their careers were ascending, are the origin story of this bad blood. They suggest that Kirk, perhaps seeing the impending conflict, was warning Owens that Shapiro viewed them not as allies, but as threats to be “killed”—metaphorically, of course.

Fast-forward to the present. With Kirk gone, the simmering tension between Shapiro and Owens has exploded. The immediate catalyst was Shapiro’s recent appearance on “The Megyn Kelly Show.” During the interview, Shapiro accused Owens of “evil” behavior, leveling the astonishing claim that she had been insinuating Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, was somehow involved in her husband’s death.

Owens’s response was apoplectic. She took to social media, calling Shapiro “completely deranged” and an “absolute liar,” stating he had “made up” the entire accusation. This public, agonizingly personal battle between two of the movement’s most powerful voices—fought over the grave of its most charismatic founder—has left conservatives stunned and divided.

Now, into this chaos, the “Jon Snow” texts are leaked.

The timing is undeniably strategic. The leak does not come from Shapiro. It serves only one purpose: to vindicate Candace Owens and retroactively poison Ben Shapiro’s character, using Charlie Kirk’s own words.

The leak is a strategic missile designed to re-frame the entire narrative. It aims to portray Shapiro’s current, very public attacks on Owens not as a defense of a grieving widow, but as the exact same behavior Kirk warned her about years ago. It is the “incestuous brother” returning to “kill” her career, just as Kirk predicted.

The texts, if authentic, are Kirk’s ghost, whispering that he never trusted Shapiro. They are a powerful weapon for Owens, allowing her to position herself as the loyal heir to Kirk’s “true” populist movement, while painting Shapiro as the usurper and the lifelong, jealous rival. It perfectly bolsters Kirk’s own alleged words: “His respect amongst movement fighters is quite low.”

This is no longer a simple feud. It has become a complex, three-dimensional chess match for the future of the American right. The movement, which Kirk united under the TPUSA banner, is now fracturing. Its most prominent figures are not just disagreeing on policy; they are engaged in a deeply personal, scorched-earth battle for control.

The leak confirms that the cracks were always there, hidden behind stages and smiles. Charlie Kirk, in his Game of Thrones analogy, may have been more prophetic than he knew. He saw himself as the hero building a new kingdom. What he didn’t foresee was that his death would be the catalyst for the final, bloody war for the throne he left empty. The dragons are indeed flying high, but they are now turning on each other.