Morning Joe - 'A human tragedy': Charlie Kirk killed at university event, shooter remains at large

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

'A human tragedy': Charlie Kirk killed at university event, shooter remains at large

This is a political assassination. We are celebrating 250 years of the founding of this great nation. That founding document the Declaration of Independence. That this great experiment on which we embarked together 250 years ago, that we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights. The first one of those is life. And today, the life was taken. Republican Governor Spencer Cox of Utah,

speaking about yesterday's assassination of Charlie Kirk, a manhunt is still underway this hour for the person who killed the prominent conservative activist who was fatally shot yesterday, while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University. Video from the scene shows Kirk, who co-founded the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA engaging with the crowd

when a single shot rang out and struck him in the neck. Eyewitnesses describe the moments surrounding this horrific act of violence. Did you hear the gunshot? Yeah, we did. we heard the gunshot and people just started dropping. And so my wife, my biggest concern was getting her down and laying on top of her. I looked over and saw him as he was falling out of his chair. And I saw the blood coming out of his neck.

And it was just, you know, people panicking, kind of chaos. But we were, everybody worked together. Everybody kind of came together and was, you know, what can we do to help everybody and get everyone safe. I just remember the pop and everyone looking around questioning the same question and I was questioning if that could have been a real gun. Kind of sounded like a louder version of a pop gun. And then there was like a more military stature-looking man in front of us

and he was pushing people down saying everyone get down, get down, that's a gunshot. And then the next thing you know is you're just trying to look for your exits. And he's saying to stay down, but do you run? run? Do you stay down? Do you crawl? You don't know what to do? Kirk was brought to an area hospital where he later died. President Trump formally announced Kirk's death on social media, writing in part, quote, no one understood or had the heart of the youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by all, especially me, and now he is no longer with us.

The newspapers, obviously, leading with this, Charlie Kirk on the front of the New York Post. Top of the daily news here also today, anniversary of 9-11. The Wall Street Journal headline, conservative activist, Kirk, is shot dead. And the New York Times, Charlie Kirk, killed, of course, in Utah. And, you know, I said here, I spoke with, we talked to the president from time to time. I certainly spoke with the president after Butler, Pennsylvania, calling off from my condolences, and did the same thing last night because I knew he was close to Charlie.

And he said, Charlie was a great man. And Willie, he talked about how he was a singular talent for this time, especially for the conservative movement. And President Trump even talked about how Charlie Kirk played a huge role in helping him get elected. The voter registration drives, going to college campuses. You know, before the election, we were talking about how Republicans were depending on young men. to get out to the election and you know that's that that hardly ever happened you it's usually you focus on older older voters to get out to the polls and vote and high propensity voters younger men college students were always lower propensity voters and after the election people stood

back and were shocked so why did this happen well Donald Trump explained last night one of the reasons that happened was told me it was because of Charlie Kirk. And he's right about that. I mean, Charlie Kirk started an organization called Turning Point USA for people don't know more than a dozen years ago,

focused on campuses. It has more than 800 chapters now. And he was, as a matter of fact, instrumental in Donald Trump's re-election. A very close friend, not just a political ally, but a friend of Vice President Vance. And Don Jr. called him

little brother yesterday. They're very close as well. So they do give him a large portion of the credit for that victory. And this is at first a human tragedy. This is a young man who was killed in broad daylight in front of 3,000 of his supporters and his wife and his two young children were there. They'll grow up without a father. That's the human part of this. And if there's anything to be taken from this, it is the near universal condemnation of what happened. yesterday. I have in front of me statements from every living president condemning this, offering their prayers and support for Charlie Kirk's family. Republican Democrat as well. You have flags being ordered to half staff in states run by Democratic governors, Pennsylvania, in Colorado.

There is a statement being made. The president has made it as well. And of course, there are always people on the fringe on social media who are going to be idiots and celebrate the horrible moments like this. But there is near universal condemnation from political leadership for this act of violence and all acts of violence. And this is a really important moment for our leaders to step up and say that again and again. Speaker Johnson said it yesterday. And then Minority Leader Jeffries said almost the same thing. So we're getting it from both sides of the aisle. And let's hope that holds. Well, let's hope that holds. And also from leadership of this network. Somebody came on, Matthew Dowd, yesterday came on and made a wild speculation.

that was what was obviously wrong and it extraordinarily hurtful to many people. And Rebecca Cutler said so last night, came out and condemned his words in the strongest term. So we're glad that she did that. This obviously, though, and we're going to be getting into just what he did. So those who don't understand the extraordinary impact Charlie Kirk has had on American politics will have a better understanding. that this guy that was a podcaster for two hours a day. That's a job in and of itself. He ran organizations all over college camps as the best organized person.

Democrats would have loved to have for their version of Charlie Kirk. A fundraising operation, Jonathan, where, you know, raised well over $100 million. And used so much of that to get out the vote. He organized four, the six swings. States. And again, as Donald Trump told me last night and told other people, was the difference maker in some of those states. Yeah. And we should just, it can't be said enough. Charlie Kirk was like family to the Trump brothers in particular, Donald Trump Jr. in particular, the two men vacation together, frequently traveled together for work and also for hunting or fishing trips

and the like. It was, in fact, Donald Trump Jr. and Kirk, it was their advocacy that really got J.D. Vance on the ticket to be Trump's running mate last year. And Trump himself, the president, a very fond of Kirk. Kirk with a frequent visitor to Marlago to the White House. And Kirk got a lot of credit. Indeed, I covered a number of these turning point events. You know, in all three of these elections that featured Donald Trump. And it was, it is a remarkable rise of the conservative male, white men in particular. Kirk on college campuses was a big part of that. and gets he does get a lot of credit for for what we have seen in recent years his he he that's why it was so unsettling to those in the white house when kirk occasionally would break with trump

including in the early days of the geoffrey epstein matter because and then so much though trump himself called him and said look i want to talk to you about this that that shows you just the impact he had how much they cared about what he thought and the platform that he had and willie of course this would happen yesterday horrible tragedy but becoming all too common political violence on the rise in a deeply not just depressing but dangerous way in this country we've seen a number of incidents just this year alone yeah i was struck yesterday by how young men i know teenagers were pit by this you know and again none of this is an endorsement of all of his views certainly not that but the point is it's a condemnation of using violence to settle your

disagreements with somebody over their views i think most of us at this table disagree with a lot of what Charlie Kirk would say. But this is not the answer. But this obviously is not the answer. This cannot happen. Well, there's been a rough and tumble in American politics for 240 years. If you don't believe that, read the history books. But I will say, yeah, young people specific, I mean, we're really shaken by this yesterday. And we heard about it. I mean, he was all over, even for people, even for younger Americans not involved in politics, Charlie Kirk showed up in their social media feeds every day. They knew him very well. He was, again, whether they were into politics or not, he was an influencer in their lives. He shaped debate in a way that Mika, not many young

well, not many political figures have and do. All right. Let's get the latest on the investigation. Let's bring in NBC News, National Law Enforcement and Intelligence correspondent Tom Winter. Also with us, former Secretary of Homeland Security in the Obama administration, Jay Johnson. Good to have you both. Tom, we'll start with you. What do we know?

There were a couple of people detained and then let go pertaining to this. That's right. A number of names coming in late last night. in the overnight hours, according to a joint press release by the Utah Department of Public Safety and the FBI in Salt Lake City. Both those agencies working on this investigation together. They did detain an individual, somebody who's well known to them in that area charged with obstruction of justice after the shooting, no connection whatsoever to the shooting, just somebody who they've had, according to public records, some issues with their

protests in the past. There was another person that was taken into custody, referenced by the FBI director initially saying that that was a suspect that was taken into custody. last night. And then after that, saying that that person, after interrogation, had been released. So that person has no connection to the shooting. There were several other names that law enforcement was working on and all those names. And their words have washed out, meaning that they don't believe that those individuals are responsible for this. So the investigation as it stands this morning, certainly, obviously, things can change in a hurry in these cases, as we've seen so many times before. Right now, there is not a suspect that they've told us

that they are looking for specifically. They haven't pushed out a name or an image that they're looking for. And so now the question becomes, who is this person? Why did they specifically do it? Very clearly, they were targeting Kirk. It was a single shot. They were fired from approximately 200 yards away, according to the university. Can you tell us that from 200 yards, what does that tell you about the shooter? Well, within range of somebody who had some proficiency with a rifle, semi-automatic or regular type of rifle, what sticks out to me is not so much the range, the idea that this person you're looking at an image right now, where they were able to set up, that they were able to set up without detection, had done some sort of planning.

Where Kirk is, he's kind of down in a bowl with a tent. So this person was able to set up far enough away where they knew that they could be, and yet at a low enough of an angle where they could fire a single shot, high center mass, and then have the discipline to leave immediately after they knew that that shot was successful. This will remind too many of us. It's certainly reminds me too much of Butler, Pennsylvania. Sure. Yeah. And in that instance, that person who was responsible for that, Thomas Matthew Crooks, they were fired upon by Secret Service, and they also missed from a range that, you know,

arguably would be closer. This is a situation now where you have somebody, I mean, you know, you're not going to have secret service protection. This Charlie Kirk was not an elected official. We can't secure every single public event that we have to the standards of a secret service protectee. And so, yes, it does remind you of that. This person appears to have been far more proficient, had done some planning, and was able to leave and had the discipline to leave. Now, I'll say this, typically in these targeted violence attacks, particularly when there's

a political nature, the person does want us to know who they are and what they were about. Having said that, we still don't have a definitive motive for Thomas Matthew Crooks. yet, Ryan Ruth, who's charged in the second attempted assassination of Donald Trump, that individual is going to trial. That trial starts this week, and they've been, I think, fairly clear in their statements as to why they wanted to do that. So, yes, I think at some point we'll hear about this case. There'll be a resolution to it.

This person clearly wanted to get out of there and flee yesterday, and so it certainly raises some questions. It's going to be a challenge for law enforcement here. Jay Johnson, you obviously ran Homeland Security, What are your thoughts on, first of all, on the investigation, but secondly, where we are as a country when it comes to political violence? First of all, thanks for having me on, Joe and Mika. I came here originally to talk about 9-11 and to talk about a report that Judge Michael Ludig and I just completed, was released yesterday for the American Bar Association where we talk about what's going on in our democracy these days. why is it that the American electorate chose such an extreme administration, not once but twice?

And in our report, one of the things we noted was the rise of political violence in this country. What most alarms me, I turn 68 years old today. I'm old enough to remember that in the 1960s we lost John F. Kennedy, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, in five years, within five years. Political violence, political assassinations come in in bunches. What is even more alarming now in the wake of what happened to Charlie Kirk yesterday are the outbreak of political finger pointing and iPhone cameras. The Abraham Subruder film of John F. Kennedy's murder was carefully closeted for years. The video of the murder of Charlie Kirk has now been seen less than 24 hours after the event by probably millions of people, including a lot of young

people in this country, which I'm convinced has the effect of desensitizing murder, callous murder like this. And so we have to be on guard. I happen to believe that the the murderer here will probably be apprehended before the weekend is over. Because of the advent of the camera, the sophistication of law enforcement, we're looking for one individual, and I suspect he's going to be captured, in part because political assassins very often want people to know who they are and why they did it. So we've been talking about political violence, and will he talk? You know, we've been talking about, unfortunately, this past year, past several years.

We've had one incident after another, and John Padouris was one person yesterday that was warning about the showing of this graphic video. And I can say, you know, it was deeply disturbing, especially a younger people that that saw that in their feed repeatedly, and as Pador had said, the algorithms actually churned that gruesome image up over and over and over again. And he and many others were warning about the impact of that. Again, the desensitizing of too many Americans to that horrific, horrific violence. And now sometimes you don't even have a choice to see it. It just comes up in your feed. And yeah, a lot of young people, as you say, Mr. Secretary, are seeing that and being

desensitized to it. And we should, they're drawn to it. They're drawn to it. Right. And the algorithm is pushing it to it. But we should say, John, that this is a pattern that we're seeing on both sides of the political extremes. Obviously, the attempt on the life of the president, most notable, you can go back to 2017 when Steve Scalise was shot. January 6th, of course, More recently, the Minnesota state legislator and her husband who were shot and killed as an act of political violence. You had the fire that was set to the governor's mansion of Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, the attack at Nancy Pelosi's home where her husband was hit. We're seeing this from extremists on both sides of this. So it's not, despite what some people would suggest last night and probably today, it's not just coming from one side.

Now, then that's clear. And there were some to rush to say this is only left-wing violence. We know that's not the case. It is both sides of the aisle. It is terrible, and it is all too common. The video, I mean, I spoke to a couple people, friends of Charlie Kirks, who work in the White House, and that's how they learned he died. Because that video was going around social media, and there's one that's particularly terrible that people should not watch. And there is a real concern that young people, we have young children that they might see it.

But this is something where there are so many that I hope there were many last night who were saying, oh, it's a call to arms. We have to avenge. That's exactly the wrong tone. nation needs right now, that instead you would hope that our leaders from both sides of the aisle, both sides of the aisle would step forward and say, and we did see some of it. You mentioned Speaker Johnson and Leader Jeffries. I think it was the state of Connecticut, that the state Republican Party and the state Democratic Party put out a joint statement saying, look, this is now the time for peace for come together. And Charlie Kirk himself at times would say those things. Like, look,

we have to be able to have a conversation, step away from the anger that you could put on your social media feed and actually talk to someone face to face. All right. Still ahead on Morning Joe, our coverage of the death of Charlie Kirk continues. We're going to dig into the major influence the conservative activist had on the MAGA movement and his close ties to the president. Plus today marks 24 years since the 9-11 terror attacks. We'll take a look back at the tragedy and the lives lost.

You're watching Morning, Joe. We'll be right back. All right. Some witnesses at yesterday's event say they were surprised by the lack of security at the venue. Kirk was speaking in an outdoor amphitheater on the Utah campus. Attendees tell NBC News that there was no security checkpoints or metal detectors posted outside, adding that although the event required a ticket, it was not scanned to get in. Investigators believe the gunman who shot Charlie Kirk was positioned atop a building surrounding the amphitheater about 200 yards away from where the political activist was sitting. Law enforcement agencies say two people who were taken into custody yesterday were later found to have no ties to the shooting.

Well, and Tom, as you said before, he's not a political figure, so you wouldn't initially think, oh, well, we need to scan everybody that comes in. And as far as not even scanning the tickets, well, he's a political organizer. His job is to get as many people out as he can get to that event and make it as easy as he can make it so they can hear his message, so he can organize, so he can, you know, get them to be part of the team. And so yeah, so I don't think this is one of these things where you sit back and think ahead of time that he's going to have the same security as a president of the United States or vice rights, but certainly moving forward, now sadly, I think tragically for American democracy, there'll be a lot of people

who will think that even aren't politicians that are political organizers. They need to have more protection. So according to authorities in Utah, there were six uniformed police officers that that school sent and had there at that event yesterday. Charlie Kirk also had private security. They confirmed that as well. So we know that. So it's not as if there were no precautions that were taking place. This was an enclosed area. They mentioned about 3,000 students that were there, but six police officers, 3,000 students. To your point, you know, this is somebody who wants a large attendance, is there to engage with the crowd, taking questions from the crowd when the shot was fired. And so where do we move to from there? I don't want to have to calculate the cost.

of having secret service level protection for every time people want to get together and talk about politics in this country, whether you agree with Kirk in his background or you don't, there'll be somebody that has an opposing viewpoint that will want to speak on a college campus again soon. So even if you had people scanning tickets, even if you had magnetometers for the people that were there at the event, we now know, according to authorities, this shooter was set up far away from that stage and far away from the event would not have been subject to that security screening. Look for law enforcement, this is an enormous challenge right now. And it is being talked about. It was being talked about yesterday and the day before at a conference that I was attending.

Everybody is acutely aware. We have a rapid increase here in the frequency of targeted violence subset of that political violence talking about the Molotov cocktail incident in Colorado earlier this year. Willie mentioned the arson attack against Josh Shapiro, obviously the killing of a state representative, Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in Minnesota earlier this summer. And so you're seeing a frequency here. The two young people gunned down at the Jewish embassy, that happening, the firebombing out in California. Exactly. Of peaceful protesters trying to protest to get the hostages back from Hamas. Yeah, it just continues. And you can talk. And you can talk. into it, by the way, because we've seen now a rapid increase. We were criticized. We talked about

this on this show. I was criticized at the time picking out one line from an NYPD intelligence bulletin saying, you know, there could be a contagion of targeted violence following the shooting death of Brian Thompson, just a couple of blocks up the street by Luigi Mangione, allegedly. That has proved to be quite true here in the last six to nine months. And so the frequency of this presents a very serious challenge to law enforcement. Oh, by the way, it still has to to target ISIS, a reconstituted al-Qaeda, terrorism in Africa, which is growing, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Iranian threat, state-sponsored terrorism, which is on the rise. You've got to deal with all of that. And then how do you protect these type of events with a lot of people, just based on

what we know about all the events that we've ticked off here this morning, were not and could not have been on law enforcement's radar with the laws that we currently have? Joe, it takes a lot to mag 3,000 people for an event like that. And as I think, think you pointed out, you want to encourage people, young people in particular, to come to events like this. But at the least, Butler teaches that somebody ought to be looking at rooftops, direct line of fire. We have drugs. I think I counted four rooftops yesterday, five rooftops. Yeah, somebody just circling around the area. At the minimum, an open air event, somebody should be focused on rooftops, balconies, open windows, whether

the direct line of fire toward the speaker. That doesn't take that much effort. Yeah. I just want to close. We talked off camera about the, and we've talked on camera, but just again, the shocking, the impact this has had on young Americans. Young Americans, we know that, again, some not even involved in politics, but I think there may be a blind spot.

That is certainly for older, older Americans, just how significant Charlie Kirk was in the life of young Americans. Again, whether they agreed with him or disagreed with him, he helped shape the political debate that was going on in their classrooms, in their friend groups, in football locker rooms, and how traumatized they all are right now. Yeah, and how traumatized they all are, regardless of their politics. Spread like wildfire immediately yesterday among teenage boys. And as you say, for people who agree with him, he was a hero. For people who disagree with many of his views, he challenged them to think about what they believe and how to debate that in a civil way, hopefully. And so, yeah, young boys, I think, like you said, you don't have to agree with him

to have him show up in your feed. So however you felt about Charlie Kirk, this rocked a certain generation that does not, We're sad to say, get up at 6 o'clock in the morning and watch us talk about politics. They look at Instagram, and that's where they get their clips. Yeah, and it comes on the heels of another graphic display of violence that the world saw, the stabbing death in Charlotte. These are two moments in a week's time or so that are inescapable on your phone. For children, for children.

And, of course, worries, Tom, one worries about just the impact on those people going forward. It's a huge impact we know from studying political violence and targeted violence in foreign countries that once it gets into the ecosystem of the way that we live our lives, once people start to believe clearly what they are starting to believe, that the only way I can solve my problem and the only way I can make other people hurt the way that I'm hurting is to be able to go out and shoot and engage in these acts of targeted violence. Once that gets into a society, it becomes very difficult to get out of a society. So, you know, Willie, you talk about the videos that we're being seen yesterday.

now the algorithm, some of the algorithms and social media platforms are going to say, oh, well, you like that video, we'll show you something similar that occurred before. We'll show you that horrific stabbing attack. You go down the road. Go down and down the list, yes. Yeah, and a society that has pervaded with guns. NBC's Tom

Winter, thank you very much for your reporting this morning. We have more now on Charlie Kirk's major influence in the conservative movement. NBC's Kristen Welker reports. Charlie Kirk's influence in the MAGA movement and the Trump administration was monumental. His power and influence extending from

college campuses all the way to the White House. Visiting it yesterday was very moving. Kirk was a guest at the White House back in May, sharing his experience on YouTube. I got to see the original copy of the Declaration of Independence. A close champion of the president, Kirk was a constant presence at rallies, earning a speaking spot at the Republican convention. Donald Trump refuses to accept this fake, pathetic, mutilated version of the American dream. Kirk had built a following of millions of online supporters, energizing young people, helping President Trump's re-election. And I want to express my tremendous gratitude to Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk helped fund the conservative organization Turning Point USA in 2012, within years turning it into a major political force, raising hundreds of millions of dollars.

His support of President Trump goes all the way back to Mr. Trump's campaign in 2016 when he helped him win the White House for the first time. Kirk then devoted his focus to getting more Republicans elected to office. Kirk built his own political empire by trying to win over liberal audiences on college campuses and his own podcast where he interviewed politicians from both parties. But it was President Trump who Kirk focused his energy on. loyalty the president has always valued. I truly believe that President Trump, throughout these last couple of years,

overcoming all these odds is one of the greatest stories ever told. And let's just say thank you, God, for giving us Donald Trump and giving our country back. And as Kristen said there, he was combative, but he wanted to challenge other people also. So he would often debate a progressive on the college campus, and they would go back and forth. And Gavin Newsom, of course, we heard Gavin speak out against this horrific violence. He had talked with Charlie and interviewed him. And yeah, as we move forward, that's the key. You've got to talk with people you disagree with.

Well, no matter how hard it is or frustrating it is to try and make your point or, be heard, this is not the answer. This is taking us in a terrible direction. And at some point, the question will be, can we turn it around? Let's bring it right now senior writer for the dispassion columnist for Bloomberg opinion, David Drucker. David, you know, we talked before about how there's a blind spot among maybe older Americans about the massive impact of Charlie Kirk with younger Americans, with people on college campuses, this is both pro and con.

But also, I think, a blind spot for a lot of Democrats that may have seen a clip here, a clip there. But there was not, and we certainly heard this yesterday, there was not a blind spot among Democratic activists and politicians and organizers who often would say, we wish we had one of those on our side. We wish we had a Charlie Kirk on our side. that could go around to college campuses, tell our story, and pull people out to the polls the way he did.

I mean, he was, that's right, the president last night talking to him, he suggested that he was, he was a singular force. And I have heard Democratic organizers and activists say the same thing over the past 24 hours. Yeah, he really was, he really had really become such a central figure in Republican politics. in American politics in that he wasn't just an organizer, he was a commentator, he wasn't just a commentator, he was a fundraiser, he wasn't just a fundraiser, he stood up and grew an organization that was not just involved in youth politics and in trying to create more conservatives

out of younger voters, but of turning out voters of all ages and all stripes. And his organization was very involved in that in the 2024 campaign. I have to say it was, it was eerie yesterday. I was watching a focus group led by Charlie Kirk and a deputy of his with younger voters for a story I'm working on as the news broke. And you could see in that focus group the connection that he has with college students in the way he was able to talk to them. You could tell that he understood them, that they understood him.

And it was a very enlightening focus group for the story I happened to be working on. But what I noticed then after, as the news broke and beyond, was that he touched people across the spectrum on the right, not just people you would associate with Trump or the MAGA movement, but Republican politicians of all stripes. And it wasn't just the perfunctory outpouring of sympathy and the like, which you would expect to see in which is appropriate to do, but just how much his passing impacted them. And again, beyond the sort of Republican you would associate with Trump and the MAGA movement. And that just tells you how deep his connections in the Republican Party went and what a loss this is. And it's just so jarring because I think what many people forget,

and I'd like to think I don't forget this because I spend so much time on the road talking to voters. People who's only involved in politics is showing up at a rally or some other political event. At the end of the day, the people that we cover, the people that we like or get angry at or disagree with, are people with families and children and spouses and friends and people that they've touched. And I think all too often, especially in the era of social media, people look at politicians and those politically involved as caricatures rather than people. And it's important not to do that. He was, Charlie Kirk was on Mark Halperin's two-way just a couple of days ago. And Mark tried to draw out of him all the things that he was involved in.

because as Charlie told Mark, he didn't mind sort of flying under the radar on the organizational side of things. So here's actually an interview where Mark Alperin was drawing out from Charlie Kirk all the things, the many hats that he wore in the movement. As an entrepreneur, I try to find problems and fix them. people try to put me in boxes and that's fine that's that's normal human beings tend to do that but i definitely wear several hats i do a two-hour program every single day that you're nice enough to join quite frequently our audience loves you by the way mark it's phenomenal which gets turned to a podcast it's on hundreds of radio stations across the country it's simulcast on multiple television stations just to be clear for some people that would be a full-time job

two-hour daily show with that level of distribution so that's one thing you do incredible keep going. Yeah, and then on my day job, as I joke around, is CEO of Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action and Turning Point Pack, but that one only really gets deployed in short-term election cycles, but really Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action, which I started will be 13 years ago in June, and well over 1,000 full-time people on staff now all across the country, working in several different departments from our high school department, our college department, our faith department, We have Blexit, we have Turning Point Academy. We have our entire Turning Point Action side that is divided from our grassroots team, our ballot chasing team.

We have a whole student government project. We have a, I would say, a pretty sophisticated digital operation on top of all of that. So I have to raise money and manage all of that. We have a great team that manages it. I actually don't manage very well. I would say I set a good vision and I'm able to set the pace, but I'm really good managers that are able to make sure those goals are actually delivered upon. So that's not a skill set. And that's over 1,000 people, right?

Correct. And how much money annually was coursing through those various things? Over 100 million. It's about 100 to 120 million a year. So, so think about this. That was actually, that interview from April. He interviewed, he interviewed Charlie a couple days ago. But just think about that, John.

you have a guy who has a two-hour podcast every day that's one of the most popular podcasts. And he's also an organizer, a political organizer, goes around to campuses, builds this extraordinary political army that the president of the United States has helped get him elected. A fundraiser raises over $100 million. I mean, all of these things, one person doing all of these things, again, it's something that Democrats have said, well, be good to have somebody like that on our side as well. I mean, it was, yeah, again, pretty extraordinary. Yeah, he was a force.

He founded the organization, I believe the day after he graduated high school, he built it from very small, as a handful of people into this, as you just, as he just described, into a significant presence in a lot of different venues. He became, he did become a star. He did. And he was a rare star that, I mean, we know President Trump doesn't always like. like it when others, you sort of gain fame in his orbit. But he liked Kirk and his family liked Kirk. And he was particularly close to the, as we know to the top of the show, the Trump

brother, Donald Trump Jr., in particular. And he wielded real influence in terms of who worked for the White House, what issues they took on. He occasionally disagreed with the president, rarely. But Willie, he was someone who, you know, I covered a number of Trump campaigns at this point. And there was always, whether it was a turning point of that himself, and Trump spoke at a number of them, including one right after he got elected again this past November. But there was always a turning point presence at other Trump events. They were always registering voters. They were reaching out.

And no question, Kirk deserves some of the credit, a significant portion of the credit, for Trump's inroads with young voters, young white men in particular. And the president would be the first to say that, as Joe pointed out. So David Drucker, thinking about now the response, as I said at the top of the show, and we've been discussing, you've had some extreme voices suggesting escalation here. but by and large, if you look at the political leadership in the country, I just said we had political statements put out, statements put out by every living president, Democrat and Republican, offering their thoughts and prayers and condolences and saying we can't live like this.

We can't have political violence. So what are you seeing in the MAGA movement? What are you seeing among Republicans in terms of how obviously they are gutted by this? They are angry by this, understandably so. But in terms of a response and where we go from here? Well, I think that's still unclear. I mean, I think Republican, I think for people who knew Charlie Kirk or felt a particular, you know, political connection to him, they're still digesting all of this. Obviously, people are grief-stricken. They're angry. I think that 99% of what we have seen from public officials, if not 100%, has been responsible and understandable in the sort of response that you would want to see after something like this.

but it's just one of those cases where I'm supposed to have a quick answer and some quick analysis, but you have to let people go through their grief and process this before you can really get a hold of how it is they're going to respond and the impact that this is going to have. But I do think because he was so well known, because he was so beloved on the right in Republican circles broadly, but again, just well known in the United States as a major political figure, doing things that we all have done in some form or another, speak before people, debate people, share views. It's going, I think, to touch a number of people and make a lot of people think. How it is we react to all of this as a country, as people in the political process,

as people who cover politics. It's just simply way. way too early to tell. But I think the, I think the, I think it's going to be something, though, that that lasts rather than is ephemeral. Yeah, it is a, there is grieving, as you said, going on right now for so many across America, across college campuses, younger Americans. But we especially think of Charlie's wife and. children right now, a very young family going through this. So the grieving, yeah, the grieving will continue for some time. Senior writer for the dispatch, David Drucker, thank you very much for being on this morning. And coming up, we're going to go through today's remembrances to mark 24 years

since the 9-11 terror attacks. Morning Joe will be right back. 48 past the hour, and today marks 24 years since the 9-11 terrorist attacks, 2,977 people died, and thousands more were injured on September 11, 2001. After 19, Al-Qaeda hijackers seized control of four commercial airplanes. The first two planes were flown into the World Trade Center in New York City, killing 2,753 people. At 8.46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower. At 9.03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175 was flown into the South Tower. Both towers would later collapse. At 937 a.m., American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the western side of the Pentagon, killing 184 people. Then at 10.03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into an empty

field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after crew members and passengers tried to storm the cockpit after learning of the attacks on the ground. You know, Mika, will you, usually go to the guests. I do on 9-11 want to hear your thoughts briefly in your remembrances about that day. I covered it and was there. And it's every time we talk about it, I go right back there to that beautiful blue sky, to that beautiful September morning. When I remember my daughters were starting school everybody had kids starting school everybody was going to work all those people in the towers were just going to work many showing up early and um everything changed there's life before 9-11 and life after for those who had any close part to seeing what happened there

Yeah. And, you know, Mika was downtown reporting on it when the towers fell. Towers fell. And while it's had such a significant impact on everybody's life, everybody's American life, Willie, it is 24 years now. There are children who have graduated from college who were not alive on the morning of September 11, 2001. And it's still, as Mika said, even for those of us not there, so vivid still to us today. It's hard to believe it's been that long. I was thinking about that this morning. It's 24 years on. It's not with you every day the way it was for so long, not just because of what happened that day and the stories from the people we know that day,

but because of the wars that came after it all tied to that day. But then you get to this morning, and like you say, boom, you're right back. It just floods back in. Yeah. I grew up in a town. Right over the bridge in New Jersey, we lost 12 people that day. And 9-11, my next-door neighbor, Gina Steinberg, died. Our good friend, family friend, John Van Dievinder, died.

My sister-in-law was in one of the buildings. She was pregnant. Thank God. She ran down 70 flights of stairs, pregnant, and survived. Her son, Drew, is now 23 years old, who was that baby that day. So it is, it's here again. John, it hits you every year. I was a 21-year-old intern at the New York Daily News.

That was primary day in New York City, so I was supposed to work a late shift, called in early, obviously, after the plane hit, I spent, I just remember the streets, you couldn't get, the subways were shut, people were flooding the streets, had to walk from uptown, ended uptown, ended up at the hospital, and then the image that I always come back to is that the waiting line of ambulances at hospital beds where they thought there'd be survivors. Nothing. And there weren't. And I was later at the morgue that night, I got down to ground zero the next day, Mika, on the 12th. And what is also we should keep in mind is the death toll continues to grow. Even now, more and more people are still dealing with ailments they contract it because of their time, including firefighters, their time at ground zero. We're still feeling its impact today.

Richard is here. Richard Haas, who's the president of the council in foreign relations. Richard, your thoughts and also, obviously, the impact that this has had, not only on our foreign policy, but on our world. over the past 24 years. Just one thing. You were talking about how many Americans weren't alive then? It's a reminder that we've got to teach history.

That you're not born knowing this. For a lot of Americans, this could be the Peloponnesian wars. And the lessons of that day, we've got to remember them. The 9-11 report talked about it being a shock, but it should not have been a surprise. That there was these forces in the world that obviously distorted American foreign policy had a lot to do with the war in Iraq and the extension of the war ultimately in Afghanistan. And a lot of the alienation we're seeing in our country today, Joe,

I think, can be traced to it. Those challenges haven't gone away. I'd say two other things. People always say that crises in America are necessary to bring us together. And yeah, it brought us together, but only for a time. Crises aren't fixes. Crises aren't cures. And to me, it reminds me that. And that brings us to today. 9-11 brought us together, but only for a bit. And in some ways, we're more divided than ever now, 24 years later. And the sobering thing of yesterday's news brings that out. I wrote a book years ago about the Bill of Obligations,

about what American citizens owe one another. The fifth obligation is to reject political violence. And what we've got to see now, are people in America who have influenced, people who help the pulpit have got to use that pulpit to delegitimize political violence. Because as Jay and others pointed out, there's a contagion here. Once political violence takes hold, it opens up the floodgates. And people feel you better do it before it's done to you. We need those in position, not just political leaders, we need the spiritual leaders, the religious leaders, the teachers, the parents of America

to step up and step into this conversation to delegitimize it. They need to do it fast. They need to do it now. James. I'm a trustee of the 9-11 Memorial Museum. I'm going to the observance right after I leave here. As everyone here has pointed out, no one under the age of 24 was alive then. And for a 16 or 15-year-old,

it's probably a distant historical relic like Pearl Harbor, for example. And when I go to these observances every year, I'm struck by the fact that you have first responders, elected officials of today, and then you have those who are in office, first responders on 9-11, who are becoming increasingly gray. So it is becoming a distant memory. The thing we like to say at the memorial is never forget. Right. And Richard points out that it takes a crisis very often to bring us together, and 9-11 did, but only for a little while. I worry that given the state of our democracy today, if we had a similar crisis, I'm not sure the nation could rally in the same way. There'd be an argument about who did it, whether there was some conspiracy behind it, whether it's some

kind of government cover-up. Congress couldn't get together to authorize military force against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. And so I look at it. 9-11 as something that we need to remember. Our democracy has to be able to function in response to a crisis, and I worry today that it could not. Well, I will say, unfortunately, after the tragic news of Charlie Kirk, you almost had a fight breakout on the floor of the House of Representatives. We tell you, we're so far from even where I was when I was there 25 years ago. It just wouldn't not have happened and it is happening now and we as a nation have to figure out a way to pull ourselves back from from the brink but the past 24 years for this country for our foreign policy

sadly have been 24 years of in most cases failure and and and bad moves and overreactions and and overreactions to overreactions. It's just one mistake after another that has put us in a place where we still remain the strongest, most powerful country on the face of the earth, but oftentimes it seems post-9-11 that we are that country in spite of ourselves, in spite of our leaders. You think of that day 24 years ago, and again, I spoke about the promise and the hope of the beginning of the day that you could see visualizing,

in the air. And then quickly everything changing, everything changing to devastation and buildings collapsing and before that people jumping and running and being covered in debris and the loss that was so severe and so fast. And on a day like today, I just hope that people look back on this and realize how much we need each other. We need each other, despite our differences. Whether we're competing politically or in the media sphere or on Twitter or in politics, we need each other. We need to disagree peacefully.

We're going to lose ourselves. This is not a war. We're not at war with each other. We disagree. Former Homeland Security Secretary Jay Johnson, thank you so much. We'll be certainly following the memorial events later this morning. Richard Haas, thank you as well.