After Party with Emily Jashinsky - Honoring the Legacy of Charlie Kirk, Shameful Media Reaction, and Where America Goes from Here

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

Emily Jashinsky opens a somber broadcast reacting to the assassination of Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University. She plays part of President Trump’s remarks from the Oval Office and highlights the chilling fact that Kirk had spoken just a day earlier on “Next Up with Mark Halperin” about America’s rising violence and the need for stronger law enforcement. Emily provides updates on the search for Charlie’s killer, the shock of it happening in front of thousands, and reflects on Kirk’s influence on young people, his personal growth as a family man and Christian, and how his death will impact those who loved and followed him.  Then Emily is joined by friends and journalists Christopher Bedford, Senior politics editor for Blaze News and author of The Beltway Brief, and Sarah Bedford, Investigations editor for the Washington Examiner.  They discuss the shameful media reaction to Kirk’s assassination, and share personal stories about him, including one poignant visit he made to a church. They also discuss how close Charlie Kirk was to the Trump Family and what his death will mean to them.  Finally, Emily wraps up the show with a look at the spiritual battles at work and reflects on a faith-filled post Charlie’s wife shared just hours before his death. PreBorn: Help save a baby go to https://PreBorn.com/Emily or call 855-601-2229. Aware House: Visit https://awarehouseshop.com/discount/PARTY & use code PARTY for 15% off your first order.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome, everyone, to a somber and sad edition of After Party. Thank you for tuning in. If you're like me, you have been consuming an endless deluge of bad news since what, if I'm remembering correctly, would be about 2.30 p.m. When videos started to come in from Utah Valley University showing what appeared to be the shooting of Charlie Kirk in the neck. He was assassinated on broad daylight on a college campus this afternoon in front of droves of students and now in front of the entire world. Forne of the entire world, Megan did truly the Lord's work and held down the fort with an incredible live broadcast where she and Glenn Beck and others learned on air details as they were coming in about what happened to Charlie.

there was enormous hope throughout the afternoon that maybe a miracle was in store because at one point it appeared Charlie had been brought to a local hospital and stabilized. There were reports of a blood transfusion, but unfortunately, within a few hours, we learned that he did not make it. There are not many details right now on the suspected shooter. Nobody as of right now is in custody. We will get into that in a moment. And we will be joined this evening by friends of mine, which I am so grateful for Chris and Sarah Bedford, a wonderful, wonderful married couple whose work I'm sure many of you are familiar with will be with us in just a few moments. We will bring you some ghastly media coverage from this afternoon. So you're aware of how this is being treated. Now the New York Times did just publish an editorial. I'm going to talk about that as well, condemning what happened to Charlie.

And then we'll get into some deep discussion about history where we've been and, and we're going to. where we might be going. But first, let's just start with the news. In the last hour, President Trump published a roughly four-minute video from the Oval Office addressing the nation about what happened to Charlie Kirk this afternoon. Let's go ahead and roll the video. This is a dark moment for America. Charlie Kirk traveled the nation, joyfully engaging with everyone interested in good faith debate. His mission was, was to bring young people into the political process, which he did better than anybody ever,

to share his love of country and to spread the simple words of common sense. On campuses nationwide, he championed his ideas with courage, logic, humor, and grace. It's a long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most hateful

and despicable way possible. Well, we're on that subject. I don't think anyone would be surprised to learn this video is already proving to be controversial. That statement from Donald Trump is already proving to be controversial, but in a very, very chilling update to this, we learned that Charlie had just been on Mark Halperin's next-up show yesterday talking about violence in the United States of America. Let's roll that clip. And I think we need to have the moral clarity and courage to push back against this propaganda that, you know, we have too many people in prison. We do not have enough people in prison, period,

hard stop. We're a violent country. It's not a good thing. It's something that Japan is not, and South Korea is not to kind of tie this all together. And since we are a violent country, we need more prisoners and we need more prisons. And until we're willing to swallow that pill and say that, we're going to keep on having situations like this happen, and our inner cities are going to be chaotic places of crime where you don't know if you're going to be getting on a subway and if you'll get home or whether something's going to happen to you. Now, obviously, what happened today was not an example of inner city violence. It wasn't on a subway. But it is so, so very chilling to see someone within roughly 24 hours of their own death talking about violence in the United States of America. Many more details to come, actually, as this has been playing out, the manhunt is on for the assassin in this case. So I think we have Cash Patel's reaction, FBI director Cash Patel's reaction originally. It looked as though there was a suspect that the FBI had apprehended.

So three hours ago, 6.21 p.m., Cash Patel posted, the subject for the horrific shooting today that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody. Thank you to the local and state authorities in Utah for your partnership with the FBI. We will provide updates when able. Now, 759 p.m. Cash Patel posted the subject in custody has been released after an interrogation by law enforcement. Our investigation continues and we will continue to release information in the interest of transparency. So you can imagine why people would be frustrated at this moment. myself included. It's hard to know what's happening behind the scenes, but with a situation where a college campus, thousands of people turn out to see a person outdoors, there are cell phones,

smartphones all pointed in the direction of Charlie Kirk. There are videos from so many different angles, as again, you can imagine. People are filming Charlie Kirk for social media at a Charlie Kirk event. And so we have lots of video of what happened at, as it happened and some very awful, awful graphic video. I hope you haven't seen it. But many people have. That is a point that I wanted to make. A generation grew up with Charlie Kirk on their screens,

whether they were on the left, the right, or the middle, whether they were political or apolitical. If you're not on TikTok, Instagram, social media, maybe you're older and this is not your primary, These social media channels aren't the primary way you interact with your friends. For Gen Z it is. And it doesn't matter if you were seeking out politics or not. It doesn't matter if you were seeking out conservative arguments or not. Charlie Kirk was infiltrating your algorithm at some point over the last 10 years and probably

at many, many, many points of the last 10 years if you're the average social media user. And that's to his credit. Charlie also, we have FAA. This is a post of his from April when Fox News reported on a survey or study from the network contagion research institute, which found that, and I'm reading straight from the Fox News article here, quote, a growing number of people are willing to justify and even applaud killing in the name of politics and a warped sense of social justice. The chilling change appears to have accelerated in recent months, quote, what was formerly

taboo, culturally has been acceptable, has become acceptable, Jill Finkenstein. the lead author of the report told Fox News Digital, we are seeing a clear shift, glorification, increased attempts, and changing norms all converging into what we define as, quote, assassination culture. The NCR study traces the cultural shift back to the assassination of United Healthcare CEO, Brian Thompson,

by Luigi Mangione in December 2024. What followed researchers say was a viral wave of memes that turned Mangione into a folk hero. According to the study, these memes have sparked copycat behavior targeting other figures associated with wealth and conservative politics. Kirk himself posted about that study in April. You can see that up in your screen.

If you're watching this now, he posted the graphs. Now, a point that was made by the author of that survey is we often see this culture of violence, assassination culture, as the author calls it, crop up when people feel out of control. It can be traced back to a feeling of lacking of control. And one of the reasons people were irked by, people on the left mostly were irked by Trump's statement tonight about radical violence from what he describes as the radical left, is that, you know, they say, well, you know, what about what just happened in Minnesota? What about just what just happened in Minneapolis, which we still don't really fully understand. And to that, you know, I actually share those frustrations and echo what Joel Finkelstein said in this Fox News Digital article about. people feeling out of control. There's something very destabilizing about having this illusion of

control through smartphones, which force you to make a million different decisions every single second. And in ways that, you know, could potentially broadcast or publish the entire world on social media, the most consequential moment of your life could be in your pocket at any given time. Sadly, I hope that wasn't the case for Charlie's wife today, but I think it probably was in Charlie's mom, Charlie's family, Charlie's friends who looked at their phone and an average day was disrupted with news, maybe even with video of someone close to them being shot and killed in broad daylight. We're in a very destabilizing time. We've been through very destabilizing times before. We're going to talk in a bit about the 1960s. Robert F. Kennedy,

Jr. has already seemingly alluded to his own family's tragic history on the other end of assassins' bullets. I'm paraphrasing him, but he said something to the extent of another truth-teller has been silenced by an assassin. We've been through these periods before. We've been through technological destabilization, but none of the periods have been exactly like this one. And we're going to get into some of the reasons why in a moment. But, you know, I just do want to say, you know, Charlie and I came up together in the conservative movement. We did not often see eye to eye, and maybe sometime there will be, someday there will be a time for all of that backstory. But we came up together. We were the same age. And my first job out of college was working at a conservative

group with students on college campuses. And actually, some of the insight I have into today's media comes from that experience, which was helping kids organize these events on their college campuses with Ben Shapiro, who at the time was very much in demand. And Ben, as he was reflecting live on what happened to Charlie today in a conversation with Michael Knowles, talked about how his security told him to wear a bulletproof vest when he spoke at Berkeley in recent years. And he thought that was overkill. But I'm telling you, if you've ever been behind the scenes of putting together some of these events, you know it's really not overkill, especially when there are outdoor elements, as there were today.

There were reports that there was some security up by Charlie. We're going to find out more about this. One of the most disappointing things, as we've just mentioned, is how little we know at this hour, given how many people watched this happen and in such close proximity on a college campus in broad daylight. But he, you know, faced a lot of threats. It was legitimately brave for him to do what he did. And I saw him mature, like many of you did, if you've been following his career. Hopefully I've matured as well. But I think with him, it was fascinating to watch him mature into a man of God and into a father and into a husband and somebody who integrated that, who integrated his faith

into his worldview and his politics so proudly. That seemed to me happened after he met his wife. I think they got married in 2021. And it seems to me he matured. And you can see a picture of them up on your screen. there's a beautiful couple with two kids, I believe. He matured, it was like rocket fuel after that, and just came to be so open about his faith, about the sort of truths that Christians believe in and that Christians apply to their lives and to public policy. And, you know, I saw him became, this is the word that come to mind,

came to mind today, I saw him became wise. And I respected that enormously, even when we disagreed, as by the way, we just did a couple of weeks ago over Taylor Swift. I saw him become wise. And I think he's as close to monoculture as Gen Z knows. Hassan Piker, who was set to debate him, if you don't know who Hassan Piker is. He's a leftist Twitch streamer. And he was about to debate Charlie Kirk in September at Dartmouth. He was streaming on Twitch live while the news broke. Let's play his reaction. There is a closer footage of Charlie Kirk getting shot in the neck here as well where you can

oh he's dead. Oh my God. He's definitely dead. Oh my God. I can't believe I just saw that. Oh my God. Oh my God. That was fucking devastating.

Holy shit. I really. I don't know what to say. Oh, my Lord. Oh, Jesus Christ. Holy fuck, America is so absolutely fucked. Yeah, Hassan went on to say that, you sort of chiding some of the people on the stream who were celebrating this. We're going to get to the media coverage in a moment. But he sort of chided the people on his stream celebrating it, saying this is a threat to, this is clearly a threat to more than just Charlie Kirk. This is a threat to many people.

and it is not a good thing for the country. The New York Times editorial board, just within very recent, I mean, I think probably within the last hour or two, published an editorial that said, quote, this is a moment to turn down the volume and reflect in our political culture. It is a moment for restraint rather than cycles of vengeance or the suspension of civil liberties

that some urged on Wednesday. It is also a moment to engage with people who have different views from our own. When societies lose the ability to argue peacefully and resort to violence resolve their political debates, it usually ends very bad. And I have seen some reflections on Charlie's life to that point, and I think they are accurate. I want to just, I'm going to read a post from a woman named, Rachel, I don't quite know how to pronounce her last name, Bit Kofer.

She said, I went on Charlie Kirk's debate show back in 2022. He plays a character. The real man was exceedingly polite and completely engaged with the young people in Turning Point. That character spread hate and poison, but there is a character. a human behind it, I'm praying for that human. You could have just said I'm praying for that human, of course, in this case, but Charlie Kirk was not playing a character. Charlie Kirk was not playing a character, and that is an incredible misconception that I think speaks to an ignorance. Going on Charlie Kirk's show doesn't make you an expert in Charlie Kirk in the same way that many of the

followers of Charlie Kirk, even people on the left would have told you this man was not playing a nor was he anything other than mostly polite, even when he was debating people. He disagreed with bitterly who were accusing him of being all kinds of awful, awful names. Just in recent years, I think that became especially clear. Charlie Kirk was not playing the role of some angry, misogynistic, conservative debate, bro. He was playing the role of a sincerely committed Christian husband and father who genuinely believed in Donald Trump. and genuinely believed the country was veering in an unsafe direction. Kyle Kalinsky also pointed out a thread from someone named Robert Downen,

who posted, I'm not in any way speculating, but I'm actually shocked how few people know that Charlie Kirk has for years been among the most reviled people on the planet by white supremacists, many of whom were radicalized by sustained campaigns, painting him as an anti-white fraud. Kyle posted, it's astonishing to me how many supposedly political people seemingly don't know about this. And that's true. You can go back to the beginning.

of Charlie Kirk's assent in conservative world. And he was pretty vocal. He's always pretty vocal to the point where he attracted bitter, bitter critics, animated critics who called him anti-white in all kinds of weird names and relentlessly hounded him. This is not a man who was playing a character of a bitter, angry person, and only someone who doesn't truly understand what he was doing would say something to that extent. And finally, before we get to our guests, I mean, But the New York Times is getting at there is this is a man who was engaging in civil discourse on a college campus.

It's a little rowdier than it might have been in 1955. It's a little rowdier. It's for social media. We all live for the algorithm now, and I think that's tragic. I don't know what he thought about that, but I think it's tragic. But he was in that arena, and he was making his case the best way that he knew how, and he was doing it civilly. That's civic discourse. And now people who grew up consuming his content, watching him grow and evolve into this larger-than-life person, just watch the life drain out of him, literally watch the life drain out of him as he was attempting to do that.

People may be underestimating or just not fully appreciating what a radicalizing effect this will have on Gen Z because they thought that they knew him. And I think Hassan Piker's reaction speaks to that. In Hassan's case, he was actually going to debate him. But he was larger than life. And people really, really had that type of relationship with him. And not in a creepy social way, for the most part. Of course, there's some people who end up in that position. But in a way that was challenging all of us, challenging, would challenge him, would challenge them.

And it's the kind of discourse that makes us better. So before I bring Chris and Sarah in, I want to talk here actually about pre-born, as we often do. And as Charlie did, I looked this up before the show. Charlie spoke for pre-born. So this ad, this is a special one. It's always a special one when I talk about pre-born, and I imagine the same was true of Charlie. Over the years, I have been clear about this. I'm not just pro-birth.

I'm pro-life. and being pro-life means standing with mothers not only before their baby is born, but long after. That is exactly why I partner with pre-born. Pre-born doesn't just say babies. They make motherhood abundantly possible. They provide free ultrasounds and share the truth of the gospel with women in crisis, and then they stay, with real practical help, including financial support for up to two years after the baby is born. This is what true Christ-centered compassion looks like, not just for the baby, but for the mother, too.

And here's where you can make a difference. Just $28 provides a free, life-saving ultrasound. One chance for a mother to see her baby. And when she does, she's twice as likely to choose life. Preborn is trying to save 70,000 babies this year. So don't just say your pro-life. Live it. Help save babies and support mothers today.

Go to preborn.com slash Emily or call 855-601-229. That's pre-born.com slash Emily. I said it earlier, but I'm especially grateful to be joined tonight by friends. They were scheduled to be on the show tonight for a long time. And it turned out to be an opportune moment because, I'm just grateful that we can sort of share this grief and mourn with one another. Chris Bedford is the senior politics editor for Blaze News. He's the author of The Beltway Brief, which you should absolutely sign up for.

Sarah Bedford, one of the best journalists I know. She's the investigations editor for the Washington Examiner. Guys, I wish you were here under better circumstances. But thank you for joining. And if I could just get your quick reactions off the top, tell me how you're adjusting to this new world. Yeah, it's hard. This is sad. This is a sad day. It's hard. We had a, we had it back to school night today for our nine-year-old. I was driving back to see my 10-month-old daughter and thinking that Charlie's widow has to have that conversation with like a toddler. And thinking about, you know, Sarah and I were talking about this earlier that even though it's always shone,

when you see it happen. It happens once a generation. It's not completely unexpected that people try to kill presidents. I remember exactly, we all of us remember exactly where we were when we heard that Donald Trump had been shot. And it was a shocking moment. But people also understand you step into the line of fire when you do that. What makes this so different? It's not just that we all knew them and loved them, liked them, friends with them, acquaintances,

pals, barring partners, whatever. It said it was so unexpected. What's his wife going to tell the kids that Dad went to college and never came back? It's devastating. And it's people are afraid. I mean, the difference, I mean, what is the bar? He's a public figure.

He largely has Republican ideals and Christian ideals. He's not radical. It could have been anyone, except for the assassin knew, Charlie's name because of what he's done. And, you know, I was watching here in the way you've been reacting and the way my co-host and I reacting, the way my wife has reacted so far tonight, watching everyone on Fox the way that they've reacted.

Everyone has tears in their eyes because they all knew them. They all knew that this was a good man, a kind man and a sweet man, the thumpel man, which is like one of the things that shocked me when I first met him were hunting. And I assume that he would be very different because of how famous he was and how successful he was and how young he was. A lot of people get that famous, that young. I think that actually humbled him, Chris. I don't know if you saw that, but I actually think he was humbled enormously by fame and success. It was incredible how gracious and kind and soft-spoken he was.

And how much he listened to people around him and how much he cared about people around him. It was just, I did not expect to enjoy his company as much as I very quickly did. and enjoy his person. And, you know, my wife met him in college, and she had some really interesting thoughts on this, too. Sarah, I was going to say you and I are the same age as Charlie. Charlie didn't go to college, but you and I graduated college around the same time. He went to colleges. Went to college around the same time.

You're a mom, your wife. Give us what your reaction is. I think I'm not alone in being surprised the degree to which I felt personally, emotionally affected. An emotional reaction is if this was someone very close to me, even though we weren't close IRL. I mean, we've encountered each other around. But you posted this, Emily, and I think it summed it up perfectly, is that there are

so many people who felt that they knew him because he, he spent so much of his professional life speaking publicly about everything that was important to him. I mean, he was very open about his values and beliefs. And that created a sort of sense of closeness with someone that even if you didn't know him personally, he was a very, very familiar figure and the loss feels personal in a way that another politician or someone being assassinated wouldn't affect people that deeply. And I think because there's this sense of that he is in a lot of ways one of us. He's our same age. He's our ideological peer. We all have run in the same professional circles. That if that can happen to Charlie Kirk, who, you know,

as Chris said, was not a radical in any way, it can happen to any one of us. And that is a really unsettling feeling that not really any other tragedy I think could replicate. Let's talk briefly because I don't want to dwell too deeply on this ugliness, but let's talk briefly about the ugliness we've seen in some corners of the media. Now, I shared what I think was a pretty decent New York Times editorial on the assassination of Charlie Kirk within the last couple of moments that was posted this evening. I have seen some very classy memories shared by people across the political spectrum in media. Just over the last several hours, this one from Dave Weigel, he said, I pulled this quote from my last in-person interview with Kirk. His pitch wasn't just, join the GOP, you'll get lower taxes. It was that you could give yourself to Jesus Christ and have a life worth living.

This was the quote from Charlie. Younger audiences love this contrarian heterodox approach. The mantra is not that if you're a man, you're an oppressor. It's not that having children is a plague on this planet. We're here to say, actually, no, having children is a gift from God. And it's a wonderful thing. We're saying getting married is awesome, and you can reject hookup culture. I'll have some more thoughts towards the end of the episode on just how that reflects what Donald Trump said about Charlie Kirk, understanding this generation better than many other people, if not most other people.

But, you know, aside from some of these warm memories shared by, I think, John Carl of ABC was another person. And I encountered a memory of Charlie being shared by, let's roll the disgraceful coverage that Katie Turr anchored on MSNBC this afternoon and just a flavor of it, because I couldn't even capture in this hour long show, how bad it was, S6. Looks like we might be having some issues with this video, but let me recap it. Media, I wrote an editorial actually already

on how horrible the coverage was. So MSNBC failed the moment. That was the headline. Quote, within seconds of reporting, Kirk had been shot. Anchor Katie Terse speculated aloud about whether President Donald Trump might, quote, used the Charlie Kirk shooting

as a justification for something bad. Her guest, MSNBC contributor Matthew Dowd, suggested Kirk, Kirk's own rhetoric bore responsibility. Quote, hateful thoughts lead to hateful actions is something he shared immediately. Continuing from this mediaite article, quote, MSNBC politics reporter Alan Smith, wondered if conservatives might now do something similar to the quote,

takeover Washington as it did in response to a Doge staffer getting mugged. All of this, as viewers were just learning that Kirk had been assassinated. I will add the speculation at one point wildly that we don't know what's happening. So maybe it was one of Kirk's own supporters. Chris, you first. What did you make of this? Well, Matthew Dowd just got fired. Here's some good news for today.

And MSNBC, we should say responded. We have the statement. we can put up on the screen saying that what he basically saying what he said was wrong. But Katie Ture's entire breaking news coverage was disgraceful. I mean, it's more than enough to venture MSNBC's president said during our breaking news coverage of the shooting of Charlie Kirk Matthew Dodd made comments that were inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable. We apologize for statements as has he. There's no place for violence in America, political or otherwise. Continue, Chris.

I mean, listen, you'll hear this kind of talk right now on the first. fringes the American right in places that have been pushed outside of what is acceptable. But you hear it in the mainstream of the American left every day. Every single day we hear this. It's not shocking. People like Katie Turr think that all they could think about is themselves. I mean, it's hard. One thing I thought when President Trump said, let's not demonize each other,

I said Jezebel was calling in witch curses on Charlie Kirk two days ago and having to delete the tweet. F3. We can put that up on the screen. Editor's note, the story was published on September 8th. Jezebel condemns the shooting of Charlie Kirk in the strongest possible terms. We do not endorse and courage or excuse political violence of any kind. And because it's the year 2025, I actually probably have to explain to the audience what Jezebel is. A sad feminist blog that its heyday was 15 years ago.

But yes, they were seeking out the headlines. The headline was we paid some Etsy witches to curse Charlie Kirk September 8th. Cool. I mean, it's just not surprising. This is big, it's well beyond out of control. It's so far beyond out of control. The memory holds trying to shoot the president twice and one time hitting him. People talked about how he may have framed that, how it may have been a hoax.

Right. publicly there's not repercussions I mean restaurant owners that I passed by their place and the way to bring my kid to school or talking about play stupid games, win stupid prizes. What was the game? Open debate. By the way, Charlie Kirk is one of the nice guys

on the American right. He's like one of the sweet ones. Think mean thoughts. There are mean thoughts out there. So what did he do? He went, what was a stupid game he played? Right. Going to debate openly, college kids. As a conservative. As a more respectful way than I could.

As a Christian conservative, right? Yeah, as a Christian conservative. And, you know, Sarah had a lot more intelligent put together thoughts on this. Sorry to put you on the spot there. No. Sarah, I was going to put you on the spot anyway, even if your husband didn't, because I wanted to ask you. I wanted to ask you about F2.

This is the New Republic's headline. I don't know if you guys had a chance to see this New Republic headline quote maga troll charlie kirk shot during speaking event at a university what do you make of it sarah i i can only imagine the reaction if some sort of right-wing blog were to attack uh the target of right-wing violence um in the heat of the moment but today in the media coverage now was flipping back and forth between um all three of the cable news networks as as we were waiting more information about what happened. And it really struck me how immediately the media tried to both sides this. It's not an issue that is easily both sides. I think if you're going to have an honest conversation about

where we're seeing extremism and violence, it's concentrated really on one side of the political aisle right now. It is on the left. And, you know, Chris was sort of getting at this. But on the right, I think a lot of the, the, the, the, the, the, violent extremist language is really confined to the fringes. And figures on the conservative writer often held accountable for things that are set on the fringes, even when they have no connection to it. But on the left, you see some of this encouragement of radicalism in the mainstream of, the party. And when you're having, you know, a Border Patrol agent in Vermont was killed this

year. You had Antifa militants shooting up an ice center in Texas. To Jewish people, blocks from where I am right now, who were shot. Two Israeli embassy workers killed. I mean, you were seeing this tide of violence. And, you know, we don't know who killed Charlie Kirk, but he was very clearly targeted for his political beliefs. And so an honest conversation about the problem that we're actually facing right now would not try to immediately sort of smooth over the edges of the conversation and make it a both sides problem. If you can't fight an evil that you can't name and the media was very quickly trying to turn this into a totally different conversation. We can name the evil here because

this question of both sides and it is very relevant. F4. Let's put this up on the screen. I gave a shout to the New York Times editorial, which does both sides. I'm grading on a curve, just to be clear. I should have made that clear earlier, but this is from their obituary of Charlie Kirk. Mr. Kirk was so vocal in his willingness to spread unsupported claims and outright lies. By the way, I had to verify. This quote was real before we used it on the show. I couldn't believe it. He said that the drug hydroxychloroquine was 100% effective in treating the virus, which it is not, that Twitter temporarily barred him in early March 2020. But the move only added to his notoriety and seemed to support his claim that he was being muzzled by a liberal elite,

seemed to support his claim? It fully supported his claim that he was being muzzled by a liberal elite. What the hell are you talking about in an obituary to invoke a tweet about hydroxychloroquine? Are you kidding me? If they did that to someone on the left, go ahead, sir. I was just going to say, keep in mind that right now, the immediate aftermath is the most. most respectful they'll ever be. It is only going to get worse in the days that follow after the shock wears off. I mean, this is the best treatment from the media that he's going to get is these hours after his death. And Chris, on this question of both sidesing it, it's frustrating because like I was just saying in the New York Times editorial, there is some both sidesing, but I graded it on a

curve as relatively decent because I was glad to see the New York Times not acting like Jezebel, which, you know, a few years ago seemed like a real possibility. And on that note, though, this is, you know, that's what's tough. It's like there is something to this idea that we are declining, spiraling into nihilism. That, you know, there are people actually on the right, as I mentioned earlier in the show, who detested Charlie Kirk for like fully racist reasons who thought that he was anti-white, whatever the hell that means. He did face a lot of anger and vitriol from people who claim to be part of the right.

There are a lot of people who are untethered from any moral foundation right now and swimming in this muck of moral relativism. And I actually don't think that's what's frustrating about this. It is not an appropriate time to both sides things. It does reflect double standards. But at the same time, nobody is immune to falling into these traps. Am I wrong? I think there's, I mean, no, of course everyone can fall into these traps.

I don't know if I would count the weird closet cases that call themselves Gryper's as part of the right. They're an interesting guy. Aren't they like pushing Gavin Newsom for president right now because he's got a handsome white family or something? I don't know how to tether these guys are to anything other than the internet and probably pornography subscriptions. But there's, I mean, I stopped both ciderism as a long time. I mean, I think the thing that snapped me away from, untethered me from both siderism was President Barack Obama in the middle of ISIS literally crucifying Christian priests and running over churches and faithful going to the prayer practice and saying that we should get off

a high horse Christians over something about gay rights or something. And it made me realize for the first time something that the left had long professed in America, which is complete and total hatred and contempt for me and everyone I believe. Everyone who believes what I believe. You know, Michael Brennan Doherty, I think, has had a really thoughtful tweet earlier today, as he often does. He said, if you think what's going on on Twitter is disconcerting, unsettling, try logging on to other social media networks where you'll see people who you know and people who you love. People are in your family or people who are your friends. Saying that Charlie Kirk deserved this, presumably for sharing beliefs that they full well know.

but you share. You believe. And this is something different. I don't think Katie Turner and these other people have any idea what they're talking about right now.

Sarah was really touching on it earlier when she was, we were sitting here and she was talking about how, and you were talking about how Charlie Kirk had an impact at one point in your life. I know we were more yafers,

you and I, but Charlie Kirk helped shape some of Sarah's political ideas when she was in college, you're exposed to her to things that she hadn't been exposed to. You'd see his face when you're walking down a plane aisle on people's laptops. By the way, I've seen yours as well. I'm like, my seatmates.

Sorry about that. He's like you said, he's part of a bit of a monoculture. He's someone who's everywhere, people feel like they know him, even if they didn't. And the people who did know him, even just as acquaintances from a couple trips and some meet and greets and podcasts, or as real legitimate friends or as employees, all of us are grieving and tearful. They've shot someone who millions of Americans either know or feel like they know.

Somebody who you just saw from today, from the crowd gathered at this event that no one was even paying attention. If you weren't on Utah paper like Deserata or something, you weren't covering this event. It was going on to thousands of young people were coming out to see this. Young people don't come out to see much of anything these days at all.

Movie premieres try getting them out to sports events, essentially. Charlie Kirk, a couple other things, maybe Donald Trump, but even then it's an older crowd. And every one of those people, let's say you did a photo line. How many hundreds of people did he share a moment with? It's a warm moment or something. They've shot someone that people love. And this is the nicest they're going to be to him. Sarah's right.

But I don't think they understand that it's ironic. and I've heard it used before today. This is really a turning point in our country. It's not like a president. It's not like a soldier. This is one of us. This is someone from our friend group. You know, I was thinking actually about that today.

I've always sort of found that I've always been sort of like, I don't even know what the right word is, like unsure if the word or if the phrase turning point USA is a good name for a group because it's so generic, right? Like Terry Point USA, but I realized today that it was providential. that was providential, that maybe all of these years when I was like, oh, is that the best name? I'm looking back at it and I'm thinking it was always, of course, the best name. This was the best possible name because this is now, their leader is truly the turning point. And Sarah, I was wondering, based on what Chris just said, if you could maybe share some of your personal experiences with Charlie,

I know you weren't particularly close friend of him, but you did know him. And I know you had some interactions with him over the years. when I came to the George Washington University of which you are an actual graduate of that institution, I was, you know, a liberal. I guess I didn't really have, you know, formed political beliefs, but I went to college to get a degree in international relation so that I could be a UN peacekeepers that kind of points to where my head was at. And some of my first exposures to conservatism was through Turning Point USA, which at that time, you know, 10, 12 years ago was a very new organization, but was growing very quickly. It was cool.

Some of the first writings that I ever did, actually, I think the first writings that I ever did, was for the Turning Point USA blog. You know, they would take contributions from members throughout their chapters. and I remember the first time Charlie Kirk tweeted one of my little blog posts and was like, this is really good, was the best day of my, you know, sophomore college life. And I imagine there are probably millions of people who have similar stories of their current worldviews and value systems being shaped by Charlie Kirk because his intervention was at such a formative time for these young people. And that was sort of a new thing, right, that he

pioneered is that to get to them young as they are really out on their own for the first time and starting to form what will become eventually their worldview and their value system. And, you know, let's get to them then through persuasion. It's not something that people on the right were doing. and he's an irreplaceable force in that way. And do you know what else to add on to what Sarah said? It's not only did he persuade people, but he was super open to persuasion. I mean, I was fortunate and really...

He changed a lot. Yeah. I mean, I was fortunate and kind of tickled where he told me some things that I'd said over the past that had had an impact on him. But we saw him change on stage. When he fought Tucker Carlson about the government's rightful role

in protecting his citizenry at his own event, and Tucker went at him, And they argued back and forth, and Tucker did his laugh. And then Charlie came up to him later and he saw an evolution right in real time. And you're pointing out, and I'm not sure when it was. Maybe it was when he met his wife that he started to talk more and more about God. He went from a libertarian, socially liberal, fiscally conservative, internet guy with a Tea Party background to a voice of MAGA. And someone who was, and he wasn't out there just raising his fist and yelling at people.

He was out there having heartfelt conversations. My friend of mine had him over to his church maybe a year ago. And they were, he was talking out and he got heckled. And he responded. But he said afterwards, my friend told him, he was really concerned. He said, was I too harsh to that woman in response? He was not. But that was something that was he was in his head.

Was I rude to that person in my response? That was the kind of person he was. And someone who was open to change, not just some soapbox ideologue. And that's why I agree with you earlier in the show and your monologue. when he said he wasn't playing a character. No. We were watching an authentic person. Now he was good at what he did.

He was incredibly intelligent. He literally started his turning point organization with money from our mutual friend who introduced us. Now, the recently passed Foster Freeze with an elevator pitch. He used to him into an elevator and made the pitch for his idea and got Foster thinking.

But he was very good on his feet and he knew how the right things to say, but he was someone who was open to change. That's human. I think that's right. And I think the humility hit him, unlike many people, sort of the inverse of many people, it hit him with fame and with success. He was enormously humbled by that. And I wanted to share this post from our mutual friend Nathan Brand, who said the first time I met Charlie Kirk about 12 years ago, I was a dumb college kid at CPAC that replied to a friend's tweet of a picture of her and Charlie. She was excited to meet him. I replied and tagged Charlie saying, quote, that guy seems like a schmuck. Charlie was the big. your guy. Rather than reply, he sought me out in person at CPAC. He came up to me with a smile and asked, are you Nathan? He proceeded to introduce himself and said he wanted me to know who he was as a person. And Nathan ended that post by saying, oh, how I felt like a schmock. Chris, I was thinking this

often sticks in my head, a conversation. I was thinking about a conversation that often sticks in my head earlier today because we talked to your friend Lee Edwards back in June of 2020 as the nation was roiling. And we were very interested to talk to Lee because this is a man who had been Barry Goldwater's communications director. He had been at the March on Washington. He had been involved in a lot of the political activism of the 1960s, of course on the right with Young Americans for Freedom. And Lee, who's also recently deceased, when we asked, how does this compare with 1968, he told us it's much worse. And I don't remember if, I don't know if you remember that conversation, but that one really rattled me, Chris.

And I've been reflecting on it a lot. Yeah, he's right. I do remember that conversation. It's hard to fail conversations with Lee or Foster and now with Charlie. But he was right. The radicals were outside the tent in the 60s. Radicals were in the streets and there on campuses, but the campus presidents had no toleration for it. The university leaders had no toleration for it. The police had no toleration for it.

The Democrats and Republican mayors and presidents and senators had no toleration for it. Absolutely not, they said. The systems and the communities and the structures of society, the commanding heights stood against violent radicals, which was everywhere. I mean, most of my original understanding of the 60s came from completely propaganda VH1 documentaries

about the Summer of Love. I had no idea until I joined young Americans for Freedom how incredibly violent they were, the student radicals, how young, your yaffirs were shot and killed by radical snipers when they were trying to help firemen put out fires when laboratories and other school buildings were exploded with bombs. I had no idea that this was kind of going on, but the center held in the 1960s, even though it tore apart, even though the Vietnam War really tore things apart.

Civil rights really put it in the early 60s, some damage on people and our psyche as a country. But those radicals grew up and now they're in charge. They're in charge of the Democratic Party. You see Nancy Pelosi cheer in 2020. We were talking about the radicals tore down the Christopher Columbus statue in Baltimore that her brother and father had erected. you saw them the statue is torn down at the time i was re-listening to that podcast in your recommendation today on the way to back to school break and what haunted me is that we were talking about how it's just in your face uh smashing of symbols threatening of people screaming at cops soon it might turn to violence

and here we are and here we are sarah let's let's close with this question to you on uh sort of journalistic note about how you expect this to affect the president and the first family. I don't know if you saw Donald Trump's message to the nation tonight, but my takeaway from that is he seemed furious in a way that we don't often get. I mean, it was restrained, obviously. He was reading off of a script, but I don't know if you shared that interpretation of his message, but if you have any thoughts on what he said tonight and how J.D. Vance, for example, who is somebody who's very, very close with Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk reportedly convinced Donald Trump to put J.D. Evans on the ticket. Donald Trump Jr. The friendship between Donald Trump Jr.

and Charlie Kirk is what first really catapulted Charlie Kirk into Trump's orbit and really to ultra-success. I mean, there are a lot of, you know, at the time, a lot of random millennials like us haunting the halls of the conservative movement. But when Charlie became close with Donald Trump Jr. that catapulted him to new heights. So how do you think this is going to affect the, the, the, leadership of the country. It's hugely significant. I mean, if you read Donald Trump Jr.'s response on X, it was very emotional. He described Charlie repeatedly as like a little brother to him.

I mean, Charlie Kirk was very close personally to the Trumps in a way that not a lot of activists or figures in the movement were. And so I do think this could be really animating for Donald Trump. This is probably also giving his family PTSD from what they just went through a year ago when they were a light breeze away from this being Donald Trump murdered on live television in front of millions of people. They still carry the scars of that. We also know shockingly little about what happened in that event. I hope that we are able to learn more in the coming days about the motivations and the identity of the person who killed. Charlie Kirk answers that we, by the way, never really got in the Donald Trump assassination attempt, the one in Butler, Pennsylvania.

And we know that Donald Trump was already focusing on the idea of a left that had become tolerant to crime disorder and extremism and all of that. I can only imagine that this would crystallize the president's resolve to do something really maybe even drastic about it. We'll see. Conservatives pounce. Conservatives pounce. Yeah, right. I'm sure we'll see more examples of that from the media in the hours and days to come as his. I hope we see some examples of that from the right. I don't want to take this sitting down like we did when they opened fire on a softball game on the, on the, Republican delegation or like apparently we kind of did when they didn't he tried to kill our president I'm not going to take it sitting down bounce or go right ahead and some of the early I imagine what you're alluding to graces some of the early calls have been to investigate well not investigate to actually take the reins of funding that goes to certain left wing groups responsible for for flirting with violence and in ways that are unprecedented

yeah we got lieutenant governor showing up in T-shirts with machine guns on them. With automatic weapons on them. You have people making apologies for this sort of stuff. Take a look at it. I'm sick of this. I'm absolutely sick of it. It's a turning point.

Providential name. Christopher Bedford of the Blaze. Subscribe to the Beltway Brief to be one of the best informed people in Washington. I highly recommend it. Sarah Bedford and the Washington Examiner, as I said earlier, one of the best journalists that I know. I love you guys. And I just so appreciate you being here tonight.

Thanks for having us. See you guys. All right. I'm going to have some more thoughts in just one moment. First, are you looking to support made in the USA manufacturing this year? Whether it's home decor, clothing, or furniture, it's become extremely difficult to find high-quality products that aren't made overseas. A recent Forbes report revealed that annual earnings for small businesses across the U.S. have dropped by over 75% since 2023.

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has focused on Charlie's evolution, which you know, I don't know that he ever really talked about so much as it was obvious in everything he said. We all saw it sort of happening in real time, but Jezebel on September 8th said, we paid some Etsy witches to curse Charlie Kirk. And now they have an editor's note attached to the story that said, the story was published on September 8th. Jezebel condemns the shooting of Charlie Kirk in the strongest possible terms. We do not endorse, encourage, or excuse political violence of any kind. But you know what's fascinating to me about that post is they say, we do not, quote, encourage political violence of any kind.

Fascinating because they published a story on the internet that said, we paid some Etsy witches to curse Charlie Kirk. That can mean one of two things. It's a joke or it's real. And if you are actually paying witches to curse Charlie Kirk, you were engaged in something that is very real. And it's something we've talked about on the show in the context of the quote, re-enchantment discourse. Charlie talked about this, by the way, the supernatural, spiritual world is real. Christians should be honest about how real it is, because if we are not honest about how real it is, people end up thinking that it's just a funny joke to say, we paid some people who believe they are witches and engaged in witchcraft to put a curse on a young husband,

father, and son. Don't mess with that stuff. Because it's real. I have no idea what happened in this case. I'm eager to learn more details. But this stuff is real. And it's really poignant to think about how, you know, I mentioned this earlier in the show. My first job out of college was helping organize some of the campus lectures, especially from guys like Ben Shapiro at the time, who were starting to go mega viral on platforms like X and platforms like YouTube. And what was abundantly clear to me, as somebody at the time who was 22, Charlie and I were both born in 1993, both born pre-internet, pre-W-Fi, I should say, like on your smartphone, pre-W-Fi, pre-social media, and pre-9-11.

And at the time, if you were in the conservative world, the conservative movement, you all remember the, quote, libertarian moment is all everybody was talking about at CPAC. And there was this consensus in the Republican Party that actually the Tea Party had nudged Republicans too far into the culture war. And people needed to pull back. The 2012 Republican autopsy focused on making exactly that argument. And what younger people like us brought into the movement and literally nobody more than Charlie Kirk over, I would say, the last five years, is that actually the center was not holding. We did not feel the center was holding. This is a generation of people, 9-11, great recession. And then, especially after the rise of Donald Trump, it became clear the center was not holding

and that we had been destabilized in ways that nobody had anticipated. And this whole idea of just returning, that we could just return to 1985, when technology was still moving quickly, but perhaps not so quickly that it was accelerating. psychological destabilization, pushing people into desperate positions, and I think potentially entering a new, pushing us into all of us into a new era of political violence. That wasn't clear to older people in the conservative movement. And I think one of the reasons that Ben and then Charlie came to be so successful in this debate format is these are the two words. When I still talk to students, I mentioned these two words and just to gauge the emotional

response that they have when I say them. Moral clarity, the sense of moral clarity was enormously seductive and powerful. First I really saw it up close and personal from Ben, but then Charlie, who spoke in this cadence of utter confidence and conviction in what he said brought an enormous moral clarity to the table. And first, some of the most high-profile examples were about taxation or Obamacare, I imagine, maybe the sort of policy debates of the day. But in recent years, he spoke with great conviction and with great moral clarity about faith. about Jesus Christ, about freedom, what it means, what it is, what it isn't.

And I know that that's why he was successful because he was willing to make those arguments with utmost confidence. You knew when he was talking that he believed what he was saying. It was coming from a very, very real place. And like I said earlier, you know, for all of the times that I was, you know, found myself at odds with with Charlie in private that I came to respect so, so enormously. Because in some sense, I think he was reacting like I've reacted in over the last decade to changes in the culture, changes in politics, changes thrust on all of us by these technologies and the

trends that come downstream of those technologies, the havoc that they wreak on our connections, the havoc that moral relativism reeks on our personal lives and relationships, that is very real. And he was willing to debate it with total conviction. And even when people disagreed with him, they felt like they were getting a clear, coherent and authentic version of the conservative viewpoint that they could then contrast. You know, Hassan Piger, who was set to debate him at Dartmouth in just a few weeks,

they could contrast the left with Charlie. He became that sort of beacon of conservative moral clarity in the age of social media. And he picked up and was brave enough to do it, which I never would have been, he picked up on the idea that what people wanted to see was those two things.

that social media would reward because it was a real desire in the marketplace of, like, people's longing for truth. What the algorithms would reward was debate and moral clarity. He picked up on that. And that was clever, genuinely very clever. And then the skill to execute on a strategy based around this very brave, this very brave task of going to go. going into uncomfortable places and having uncomfortable conversations, but doing it without shame and without hesitation and without, you know, feeling like you're just muddled. That's incredible. That's incredible.

And I cannot believe right now I'm sitting here talking about Charlie Kirk in the past tense. I truly can't. I mean, in retrospect, it seems so obvious that we were heading for darker times. I think, unfortunately, it seems like that's the truth right now as well. When I joined Megan earlier today, I have no idea how she kept it together. She knew Charlie very well during her broadcast and just was doing the Lord's work earlier today. It's starting to feel. We talked about how there's a new, I think, chapter opening up.

And it's going to take more bravery on behalf of people who are particularly Christians. Generally, that means you're conservative. Not always, but generally it means you're conservative. And we should sort of accept that mission as other Christians throughout human history have, which is with great joy because our kingdom is not of this world. we can set our minds on things above. And we know, thanks to Paul in Romans 828, that all things happen for the good of those

who are called according to his purpose. We can put on the screen a eerie but comforting post that Charlie's wife made earlier today, Charlie's wife Erica, put on X earlier today. 12.45 p.m. Psalm 461. God is our refuge in strength, a very present help in trouble. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. 12.45 p.m. surreal to be talking about Charlie Kirk in the past tense.

It is surreal for millions of people around the country and around the world. Whether they like Charlie, didn't like Charlie, didn't like Charlie. Charlie, he mastered a format that was incredibly intimate. People grew up with Charlie. So I'm praying for his mom, for his wife, for his children, who I'm now looking at on the screen, who will grow up without this man who was alive just 12 hours ago facing the last few hours of his life, doing truly what he loved. doing truly what he loved.

And I'm praying for all of us that we digest the senseless act of political violence that played out on our iPhone screens, and our laptop screens. I'm praying that we can digest it constructively and in a way that honors God and in a way that blesses the memory of Charlie Kirk. So I appreciate everyone tuning in on this very, very dark night. I appreciate you watching and being here. And may God bless Charlie Kirk.