US Vice President JD Vance on Monday hosted The Charlie Kirk Show, telling listeners that the best way he knows to honour his slain friend is to strive to be a better husband and father.

The programme, streamed from Vance’s ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, was broadcast live in the White House press briefing room, according to the Associated Press.

Vance, 41, said he was “filling in for somebody who cannot be filled in for, but I’ll do my best.” The vice president had transported Kirk’s body to Arizona aboard Air Force Two last week after the 31-year-old conservative activist was fatally shot at Utah Valley University.

The two men shared a close friendship. Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, had urged Donald Trump to select Vance as his running mate. On the programme, Vance recalled sitting with Kirk’s widow, Erika, who told him her husband had never raised his voice or spoken harshly to her.

“I took from that moment that I needed to be a better husband and I needed to be a better father,” Vance told listeners. “That is the way I’m going to honour my friend.”

The vice president described Kirk as “a joyful warrior for our country” and urged Americans to reject extremism. “Something has gone very wrong with a lunatic fringe — a minority, but a growing and powerful minority on the far left,” Vance said. “We can come together in this country. I believe we must. But unity, real unity, can only be found after climbing the mountain of truth.”

Vance’s tribute capped a deeply personal stretch since Kirk’s assassination. He cancelled his September 11 observance plans to accompany Erika Kirk and the casket to Arizona, underscoring the loss not only to the conservative movement but also to his own life.

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with inputs from Associated Press