Turning Point USA has seen a massive surge in inquiries for new college chapters as the organization works to advance Charlie Kirk’s vision following his assassination last week.

Andrew Kolvet, executive producer of ‘The Charlie Kirk Show,’ said that Turning Point USA (TPUSA) has received more than 37,000 inquiries from people wanting to start new campus chapters. Kolvet said that TPUSA currently has 900 official college chapters and approximately 1,200 high school chapters.

Kolvet, who is also a spokesman for TPUSA, also said the organization has seen an increase in job applications. 

‘I have personally received hundreds of offers to work for us, or to work for free, or to just help however,’ Kolvet told Fox News Digital.

‘Charlie’s vision to have a Club America chapter (our high school brand) in every high school in America (around 23,000) will come true much, much faster than he could have ever possibly imagined,’ Kolvet wrote on X on Sunday, calling the response to expand Kirk’s mission ‘truly incredible.’

In a separate post, Kolvet wrote, ‘This is the Turning Point.’

Kirk was assassinated during an outdoor event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday afternoon. The event was the first in what was supposed to be a series called ‘American Comeback Tour.’

Kirk, the charismatic 31-year-old founder of the conservative youth activist group, gained recognition for his signature political debates on college campuses. 

On Thursday evening, the second family escorted Kirk’s casket and family from Utah to their home state of Arizona on Air Force Two. A video of the moment showed his wife, Erika Kirk, visibly emotional on the tarmac as the casket passed before her. The couple have two young children.

Kirk’s celebration of life ceremony is scheduled for next Sunday at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. President Donald Trump said he will attend Kirk’s funeral. 

On Friday evening, Kirk’s widow galvanized the TPUSA movement and vowed to carry on her husband’s mission.

‘To everyone listening tonight across America, the movement my husband built will not die,’ Kirk said. ‘I refuse to let that happen. No one will ever forget my husband’s name. And I will make sure of it. It will become stronger. Bolder. Louder and greater than ever,’ Kirk said.

She also said that TPUSA’s annual ‘AmericaFest’ conference in Phoenix this December will continue as scheduled.

Judah Waxelbaum, a former campus activist at Arizona State University for Republican causes, said that the assassination likely awoke a ‘sleeping giant’ and will likely see an increase in members.

Turning Point’s not going anywhere. Turning Point, I think, will probably actually get significantly larger in the wake of what happened to Charlie,’ he told Fox News Digital in an interview on Saturday. ‘You couldn’t do youth politics in Arizona, really anywhere in the United States without coming across Charlie Kirk.

‘I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve woken up a sleeping giant.’

Fox News Digital’s Cameron Arcand contributed to this report.

The Justice Department on Monday appealed the dismissal of its criminal cases against former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, making good on its vow to revive both cases despite what appear to be significant legal and procedural hurdles.

Lawyers for the Trump administration appealed both cases Monday to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Richmond, Va. 

‘The power to appoint an interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 546 during the current vacancy lies with the district court until a U.S. Attorney is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate,’ the Justice Department said in its appeal.

Both appeals challenge a ruling handed down by U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie in November, which found that former Trump lawyer Lindsey Halligan was illegally appointed to her role as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. 

Because Halligan was unlawfully appointed — and was the sole prosecutor who secured the indictments — Currie ruled that the indictments were invalid and dismissed both cases without prejudice.

‘Ms. Halligan has been unlawfully serving in that role since September 22, 2025,’ Currie said in an opinion filed in both cases. 

‘All actions flowing from Ms. Halligan’s defective appointment’ as a result, he said, ‘constitute unlawful exercises of executive power and must be set aside.’

Attorney General Pam Bondi vowed then to ‘immediately’ appeal the decision, and FBI Director Kash Patel said the FBI and Justice Department are exploring other options to keep the case against Comey alive.

James was charged with two counts of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution during her 2020 purchase of a home in Norfolk, Virginia. 

Comey was charged with making false statements to Congress and for obstruction related to his testimony in September 2020. 

Currie dismissed Comey’s case and James’ case ‘without prejudice’ – a detail that left the door open for the government to secure new indictments.

Prosecutors ultimately attempted, without success, to re-indict both Comey and James, prompting new questions about the strength of the case.

Federal prosecutors twice tried and failed to secure a new indictment against James from grand juries in Norfolk and then in Alexandria. Neither effort was successful.

In Comey’s case, a separate judge ordered prosecutors to erase certain evidence – including emails and data – that had played a central role in the Justice Department’s case.

Comey’s case also raises statute-of-limitations concerns, as both charges carried five-year limits that expired Sept. 30 – just three days after Bondi installed Halligan at the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

It is unclear whether the judge’s order ‘resets the clock’ on the statute of limitations under a federal law, as Trump’s allies have argued it should. 

Under the same law, a dismissal by the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals would trigger a 60-day window for the Trump administration to re-indict Comey.

The Justice Department notified the lower court Monday that it had filed both requests to the Richmond-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. 

The Department of War announced Monday that the Pentagon is partnering with Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem to deploy Grok across its government systems.

The agency said the ‘frontier‑grade’ capabilities of xAI’s Grok family of models will be integrated into the department’s recently launched AI platform, GenAI.mil. 

As soon as early 2026, the partnership will allow the Department’s 3 million military and civilian personnel to safely access more advanced AI tools for everyday tasks, including handling sensitive government information.

According to xAI, its tools can support administrative tasks at the federal, state and local levels, as well as ‘critical mission use cases’ at the front line of military operations.

‘Today, the War Department officially entered into an agreement with xAI, paving the way for the deployment of its advanced capabilities on GenAI.mil,’ the department said. ‘This move builds on the rapid deployment of cutting‑edge AI across the Department’s 3 million military and civilian personnel.’

The tools will allow employees to use xAI safely on secure government systems for routine work, including tasks involving sensitive but unclassified information, without violating security protocols.

With xAI designed to analyze real-time data, the War Department said the partnership would give personnel ‘a decisive information advantage.’ 

Grok will give personnel access to live information from X, providing the War Department with faster situational awareness around the globe, the department said.

xAI added that the partnership could lead to potential future classified workloads. 

‘Through an ongoing, long-term partnership with the DoW and other mission partners, xAI will make available a family of government-optimized foundation models to support classified operational workloads,’ the company said.

The War Department said that it will continue to scale its AI ecosystem for speed, security and decision superiority.

‘This announcement marks another milestone in America’s AI revolution, and the War Department is driving that momentum forward,’ the department said. 

‘These two new partnerships are part of our longstanding support of the United States Government and xAI’s mission to bring the best tools and technologies available in industry to benefit our nation,’ xAI added.

The collaboration marks another chapter in Elon Musk’s long-running relationship with government initiatives.  

Musk previously helped lead the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, where he briefly reformed operations and cut excess spending within the federal government. 

The Social Security Administration’s (SSA) internal watchdog has confirmed that the agency’s publicly reported phone service data was accurate and that performance improved during fiscal year 2025, according to a new audit completed after Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., questioned whether the figures could be trusted.

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) reviewed the SSA’s national 800-number telephone metrics and found that the data the agency released to the public was correct, and that overall service improved during fiscal year 2025, according to a draft audit report provided to agency leadership ahead of public release. The report did not issue any recommendations to the agency.

The review was initiated after Warren expressed concerns in June about long wait times and the reliability of SSA’s phone performance data. She formally requested an audit on July 24, prompting SSA Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano, who serves under President Donald Trump, to agree to an independent review by the watchdog.

The audit found that SSA served 68 million callers during fiscal year 2025, either through live agents or automated systems, a 65% increase from the prior year. Average wait times fluctuated early in the year but improved steadily, according to the audit, ending the fiscal year at roughly seven minutes in September after peaking at about 30 minutes in January.

The metric cited by the agency, known as Average Speed of Answer, measures only the time callers actively wait on hold before speaking to an employee and does not include time spent waiting for callbacks.

‘Last year, people waited 40 minutes on the phone, and now they’re in single digits. We’re doing twice as many calls,’ Bisignano said.

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Bisignano said the audit confirmed what agency leadership had been reporting publicly about improvements in service levels.

‘Senator Warren was completely wrong in everything that she was saying, and it’s now been proven out,’ Bisignano said, citing the watchdog’s finding that SSA’s publicly reported telephone metrics were calculated accurately.

Bisignano said he welcomed the audit and was confident the data would withstand independent scrutiny.

The inspector general’s report concluded that SSA’s telephone performance improved during fiscal year 2025 largely because of operational changes, including the rollout of a new cloud-based telecommunications platform, expanded automation and staffing realignments. The platform, implemented in August 2024, allowed SSA to increase call capacity, expand self-service options and monitor performance in real time, according to the report.

The watchdog also confirmed that SSA’s internal data-verification process ensured accuracy by comparing raw data with reported metrics and working with vendors to resolve any discrepancies. The audit found no evidence that the agency misrepresented its national 800-number performance.

Bisignano said improvements were driven by a combination of technology, process changes and workforce adjustments.

The report explains that SSA experienced especially high call volumes between January and March 2025 due to Medicare and tax-related questions, as well as the implementation of the Social Security Fairness Act of 2023, which affected more than 3.2 million beneficiaries. 

Despite the surge, the agency reduced average wait times over the course of the year.

The audit also found that about 25 million calls during fiscal year 2025 ended without callers receiving service, either because callers disconnected, did not answer callback attempts or encountered busy signals. Those calls were not included in the agency’s wait-time metrics.

Automation played a growing role in absorbing the surge. According to the audit, automated systems handled an average of nearly 2.9 million calls per month in fiscal year 2025, up from about 300,000 per month the year before. Automated services allowed callers to complete common tasks without speaking to a live agent, reducing pressure on phone lines.

The inspector general also reviewed how SSA calculates its Average Speed of Answer metric, which measures the time callers actively wait on hold before speaking to an employee. The audit clarified that callers who accept a callback are counted as having zero active wait time, a methodology that reduces the average but does not include the time callers wait to receive callbacks.

Bisignano said transparency about how the numbers are calculated is essential.

‘We figured out how to leverage technology, process engineering, and human capital,’ he said.

Staffing changes also contributed to the turnaround. Early in fiscal year 2025, the number of employees available to answer national 800-number calls declined by about 13%. By July, SSA began assigning roughly 1,000 field office employees each day to help handle national call volume. The audit found that this coincided with sharp improvements in wait times, with Average Speed of Answer dropping from about 13 minutes in June to roughly 7.5 minutes in July.

The audit did not evaluate service levels or wait times at local Social Security field offices.

Beyond wait times, the audit found that service quality remained high. About 87% of callers who responded to post-call surveys said their issue was resolved on the first contact. The survey results reflect feedback from callers who reached an SSA employee and do not include callers who only used automated services.

Bisignano said the improvements matter most for seniors and beneficiaries who rely on Social Security services.

‘We’re investing in Social Security and servicing the American public at a level they’ve never been serviced before,’ he said. ‘We’ll meet you where you want to be met: on the phone, in the field offices or on the web.’

He added that people who haven’t called the agency recently may be surprised by how much has changed.

‘What would surprise them the most is how quickly they can get their phone call answered,’ he said.

Looking ahead, Bisignano said the agency plans to continue expanding digital services and reducing backlogs, including in disability claims, while maintaining accountability through ongoing oversight.

‘Expect us to always have double-digit improvements in every metric we have,’ he said. ‘This is just the beginning.’

The OIG report in full can be read here.

‘The bottom line is that Donald Trump’s Social Security chief lied about call wait times to cover up his customer service mess,’ Sen. Warren said in an email to Fox News Digital. ‘This new watchdog report reveals that true wait times were more than three times higher than what Commissioner Bisignano claimed, and tens of millions of callers were simply unable to get help on the phone at all.’

When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, it took more than a decade before Americans saw the infamous Zapruder film.

Today, the killing of conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk can be replayed in dozens of high-definition clips across social media, reshaping how the nation confronts political violence in real time.

‘You’ll never have an assassination again that we don’t have footage of,’ presidential historian and former Secretary of Health and Human Services under the Bush administration, Tevi Troy, told Fox News Digital. 

‘I have an image in my head of what Lincoln’s assassination might have looked like, but every assassination since the Kennedy era, or even assassination attempts, there’s generally going to be footage about it now, and that’s just a very difficult thing,’ he said.

The Zapruder footage of Kennedy’s assassination remained largely unseen by the public until 1975, when it aired on national television more than a decade after his death. Its grainy frames shocked viewers. Americans, at the time, were ‘much more dependent on what the caretakers of the culture would put on TV,’ Troy said, and if a broadcast was missed, there was often no second chance to see it. 

Troy added, ‘The gatekeepers controlled what you saw.’

In the minutes after Kirk was shot in the neck on his ‘American Comeback Tour’ at the Utah Valley University on Wednesday, graphic video clips captured by bystanders using phones flooded social platforms like X, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. 

Traditional outlets held back from airing the moment of impact, but social media users shared multiple angles—including real-time replays and slowed-down segments—many without content warnings or editing.

‘Desensitizing is the right word… It’s not good for you,’ Troy said when asked what the impact of such high-speed graphic footage could do to the public. 

‘It’s not good for your soul. It’s not a question of not being available — it is available. Then you have to make an effort not to see it,’ he said.

Troy noted that in the immediate aftermath of Kirk’s killing, some voices on the left appeared to rationalize or downplay the violence, while others rushed to frame the suspect’s background in ways that minimized political fallout for their side. He called the reaction ‘a ghoulish exercise.’

‘There’s a horrible tragedy where this person who just wants to have political conversations was murdered with three young kids,’ Troy said. ‘But this is where we are today. If there is political violence, they want to make sure it’s framed in such a way that it doesn’t bring their side down.’

Turning Point Founder and commentator, Kirk, 31, was killed on Wednesday by suspected shooter Tyler Robinson while answering a question at Utah Valley University. He leaves behind his wife and two children, ages one and three. 

For Americans wondering about the future of China and its relationship with the West, the latest verdict in the Jimmy Lai case proves an ominous harbinger of Hong Kong’s continued slide towards authoritarianism. Lai, the self-made billionaire, media entrepreneur and pro-democracy activist, has been held prisoner of the Chinese Communist Party for five years under Hong Kong’s National Security Law. He was finally convicted Dec. 14 on trumped-up charges of sedition.    

This verdict, handed down in 855 pages of meaningless gobbledygook, is Lai’s second conviction during his state-sponsored persecution since Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy protests. Lai was previously found guilty of lease violations in connection with Apple Daily, his popular former newspaper that was closed by the Chinese government in 2021, and sentenced to 69 months in prison. The latest charges, for which Lai will be sentenced in early January, carry a penalty of 10 years to life in prison.   

Of course, these nuances and timelines are meaningless; Lai has been imprisoned since December 2020, with his case delayed, extended, postponed, appealed and otherwise stage-managed in accordance with the wishes of the CCP. Lai was also denied the lawyers of his choice. Hong Kong will likely throw the book at him in January, and Lai – already in failing health due to the apparently inhumane conditions of his solitary confinement – will face eventual death in prison. It’s a grim birthday present for Lai, who turned 78 recently.  

How did we get here? Lai knows why, describing himself as a ‘troublemaker, but one with a good conscience.’ ‘The establishment hates my guts,’ Lai says, and you’d have to say he’s earned that hatred from a leadership in Beijing and now Hong Kong that doesn’t tolerate dissent. Having participated in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests in 2019, supported the Umbrella Movement in 2014, and expressed public concern in the aftermath of 1989’s Tiananmen Square massacre, Lai has long been a thorn in the side of the CCP.   

Lai’s irreverent, pro-free-speech publications, Apple Daily and Next Magazine, frequently reported unwelcome facts, challenged the status quo and asked hard questions of Chinese officialdom amid growing state censorship. It was Lai’s courageous, decades-long commitment to democratic values that led my organization, The Fund for American Studies, to honor him in 2022 with the Kenneth Y. Tomlinson Award for Courageous Journalism.

Among all his causes, Lai’s most dear was the protection of his adopted city, Hong Kong. Having escaped there as a child after growing up in 1950s mainland China, Lai knew firsthand that Communist regimes deprive their people of fundamental freedoms. Despite China’s treaty agreement with the U.K. and the CCP’s ‘one country, two systems’ commitment, which guaranteed Hong Kong’s autonomy until at least 2047, Lai foresaw that the CCP would accelerate its ultimate takeover of Hong Kong.   

The mainland’s creeping authoritarianism is why my organization ended its program at the University of Hong Kong after 2019. We foresaw the coming crackdown in Hong Kong, and this week’s verdict is one more nail in the coffin of Hong Kong’s once internationally respected legal system. In a chilling coincidence, Hong Kong’s Democratic Party, the city’s largest opposition group, also voted to disband on the eve of the verdict. Unfortunately, our worries (and Lai’s) about Hong Kong’s future have been proven true.

Where do we go from here? First, Western leaders must continue to seek Lai’s release on humanitarian grounds. U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer plans to visit China next month, and his government has said that freeing Lai (who is a British citizen) is a priority. This week, President Donald Trump also asked Chinese leader Xi Jinping to free Lai. With Lai’s formal conviction now public, it may open up space for a diplomatic resolution. Now is the time to ramp up the pressure for his release.  

Second, the West must remain vigilant in the face of China’s continued belligerence toward its neighbors and its suppression of values such as freedom of speech, religious liberty and press freedom. These are values under siege worldwide. Journalists, religious figures and democracy advocates have been killed or imprisoned for exercising these rights. Jimmy Lai is an example of incredible bravery and commitment to democratic values, but his imprisonment is also a sobering warning of the dangers of authoritarianism.