The Ben Mulroney Show - Inside a Charlie Kirk event -- a first hand account

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

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The whole way. This show is sponsored by Better Help. Let's be honest. We've all shared our problems in some pretty funny places. the group chat, your barber, maybe even a stranger on a plane. And, hey, sometimes that helps. But when it comes to stuff like stress, anxiety, or relationships, it makes a big difference to talk to somebody who's actually trained to help.

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with a network of counselors who have expertise in a wide range of specialties. With a 4.9 out of 5 rating based on over 1.7 million client reviews, BetterHelp makes counseling affordable and convenient, and you can switch counselors at any time for no cost. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash Mulrooney. That's BetterHelp. g-l-p.com slash Mulroney. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. It is Thursday, September 11th. Thank you so much for joining me on my Manitoba experience.

I have been in Winnipeg, Manitoba, since Tuesday, actually since Monday night, but the show on Tuesday was my first from here. I've had a wonderful time. It has been a really a reintroduction to this city. I've met some wonderful people. I've had some great conversations. I've walked the streets. I've eaten the food. I've experienced

some of the best that the city has to offer. And I want to thank everybody for making me feel most welcome. And really, kudos. And thank you to the people here at C.J.O.B. Our sister station on the chorus radio network, who've

given me my own studio and allowed me to do this show from Winnipeg. The reason I came here was because I'm a national ambassador for Benabreth, Canada. It is Canada's oldest independent human rights organization. Emphasis on human rights. It is not an organization focused exclusively on anti-Semitism, but on hate of all kinds. I know that as soon as people hear Hebrew, there's a certain type of person that defaults to their anti-Semitism, all the more reason for Benabrith to exist. And so we are celebrating 150 years of this organization.

And as part of that, I engaged in a 45-minute fireside chat with, I think, the staunchest supporter, living supporter of the state of Israel and the Jewish people of Canada. And that is the 22nd Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper. We sat, we had a wide-ranging conversation. That conversation will appear on our YouTube page. a little bit later today, but I wanted to give you a little taste of that conversation last night. We talked about sort of the nuance between criticizing Israel and anti-Semitism. And I was often accused. People would say, well, Harper says that any statement against the Israeli government or Israeli government policy is anti-Semitism. I never said any such thing.

You can oppose the government or the individual policies of the government of the state of Israel. In fact, they actually do so in Israel. It's called the democracy. Lots of people are opposed to the current government. Lots of people are opposed to the current war effort. You're going to ask me about that later. So, no, that's not anti-Semitic. But most of these criticisms come from people.

who are opposed the existence of the state of Israel. And to oppose the existence of a state, because it is the only Jewish state in the world, is the essence of anti-Semitism. Prove them wrong. Prove them wrong. The floor is yours. Find me on Twitter and let me know how he is wrong.

Because he's not. At the top of the conversation, we explored where we are as a society in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. I asked him, is this who we are? Is this how we debate ideas in the public square? And he has some very interesting things to say. We will talk. You'll be able to hear that on our YouTube channel a little bit later.

So let's get to Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk assassinated yesterday at the age of 31. Right-wing firebrand started an organization. I believe at the age of 18. Not a big believer in college education. He did not go to university, but I struggle to find somebody who was more well-read than him

in every interaction that I've seen of him on social media or on YouTube. He was able to quote chapter and verse, books and Bibles and the Quran. And this was a man who was very effective at debating. That's what he did. He believed that the best way for us to get to a better version of ourselves

was through debate. And there is a person out there. I'm just going to ascribe motivation to them. And if I'm proven wrong, I'll apologize later. I believe it's somebody who was intellectually lazy, intellectually dishonest and decided that rather than have that debate, let's just kill the debater. I think that's what happened.

Here is what he was talking about moments before an assassin's bullet ended his life. Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last? 10 years. Counting or not counting gang violence? Great. There you go. There you go. So that was the last argument he was having. One of the positions that he had is being hailed by his critics and those who are dancing on his grave was his position on the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms. And this is what he said about gun deaths in the United States. You will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won't have a

single gun death. That is nonsense. It's dribble. But I am, I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational. Nobody talks like this. They live in a complete alternate universe. Yeah, so there are people out there saying, he got what he deserved. He said some people deserve to die.

You can go there. It is an intellectually dishonest argument, but you can go there if you want. I would have preferred that people go there in debate with him rather than say, oh, here are your just desserts. Here's a bullet to the throat. That would be like me coming on this

station and saying, that adults have the right to consume alcohol. And then if I were killed in a head-on collision by a drunk driver, oh, well, that's what you get, Mulroney. You should have seen that coming. You should have seen that coming. You talk about people drinking alcohol, well, they're going to get behind the wheel and you're going to die.

And that is justice. That is intellectually dishonest. And it is BS. And it speaks to how afraid certain people, are to have conversation that may make them uncomfortable. But we've chronicled that on this show for months, we've chronicled people's willingness to take intellectual shortcuts and short-circuit debate to live in a world of intellectual comfort.

That's, that's, that's, I've called that before. This, I believe, is a violent outcrop of that laziness. I want to go back to Charlie Kirk knowing he was a target. He knew he was a target. And I don't think that there is a more fitting clip about this man and what he believed. And keep in mind, I've said before.

I didn't believe in most of what this man believed. But I certainly respected his ability and his right to say what he wanted to say. Here is him talking about how he considered being that camera. were his best defense against violence. Well, considering I've been assaulted, followed, stalked, and had things thrown at me, the greatest protection I have is cameras.

We record all of it so that we put on the internet so people can see these ideas collide. When people stop talking, that's when you get violence. That's when civil war hangs, because you start to think the other side is so evil and they lose their humanity. Marriagees break apart when you stop talking, churches fall apart. And I think what makes this country on the verge of going to a place we don't want it to go right now, is we're afraid to go to places like this and have these conversations. I'm not. Nobody should be afraid of conversation. Nobody. And if you are, then your arguments are shite. If you are afraid to have a conversation, if your default setting is to hurl slurs at anybody to your right,

calling them a fascist, calling them a Nazi, calling them a racist, without even knowing what those terms mean, without even knowing what your opponent stands for, you are an intellectually lazy waste of space. You have been coddled by society. You have co-opted language. You have twisted the meaning of words. And you have tried to create a reality that will collapse under the weight of its own hypocrisy. That is coming. It absolutely is coming. And for those same people who are cheering the death of Charlie Kirk, some of those people are also saying, oh my God, well, Donald Trump is going to use this as an excuse to crack down and take away our rights. You shouldn't be worried about him cracking down and taking your rights in any legal way.

You should be worried of him using the legal full force of the presidency to come after those who did this. And you should remember that Charlie Kirk was friends with the director of the FBI. Stuff is going to get real. I guarantee you it'll happen in illegal means. Actually, I hope it happens in legal means, I should say. But stuff's going to get real. and it's not going to be because Donald Trump decided to wake up and be a bad guy. It's because somebody picked up arms against somebody whose weapon of choice was words.

All right. We're going to leave it there right now. Coming up, what a young journalist saw when he attended a Charlie Kirk event. That's coming up. This show is sponsored by Better Help. Let's be honest. We've all shared our problems in some pretty funny places, the group chat, your barber, maybe even a stranger on a plane. Hey, sometimes that helps.

But when it comes to stuff like stress, anxiety, or relationships, it makes a big difference to talk to somebody who's actually trained to help. That's what BetterHelp is all about. They connect you with credentialed professional therapists online. And what makes them stand out is their therapist match commitment. After a quick questionnaire, BetterHelp does the hard work of finding someone who fits your needs. Most people get it right the first time. But if it's not a match, you can switch counselors anytime at no extra cost.

It's flexible, totally online. and you can hit pause whenever you need to. With over 5 million people supported to date globally, BetterHelp is now available in Canada with a network of counselors who have expertise in a wide range of specialties. With a 4.9 out of 5 rating based on over 1.7 million client reviews, BetterHelp makes counseling affordable and convenient,

and you can switch counselors at any time for no cost. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash Mulruni. That's betterhelp.com slash Mulruni. With Amex Platinum, $400 in annual credits for travel and dining means you not only satisfy your travel bug, but your taste buds too. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show.

I want to thank you for finding us on all the platforms at any of the platforms where the Ben Mulroney Show exists as we try to grow this community. We're on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, the Iheart radio app, the course. Horace Radio Network. We're on Twitter. We're on Instagram. We're in a lot of places. And we are so happy with the reaction that we are getting from the community that we're building. I promise you, it is not lost on me. And I thank you. I also thank my next guest for joining us. He's the youngest political journalist I know. He's also probably one of the most effective. And somebody who takes his job very seriously, please welcome to the show. Wyatt's Sharp. Thanks so much.

Wyatt, first of all, right off the jump, I got to tell you, I know that I owe you a couple of responses to two emails that you've said, but I promise, that's coming, my friend. I promise, promise, I'm sorry, I've been a bad friend. No worries, thank you. You're very busy. So listen, I'm really glad you could join us because condemning the assassination of Charlie Kirk is not an endorsement of Charlie Kirk's perspective. And talking about who he was, reminding people that he was a human being is not. the same thing as championing his causes that is lost on a on a certain type of person who doesn't understand nuance or refuses to understand nuance but that's the world i live in i know that's the world you live in and that's the conversation we're going to have yeah honestly like i can't even

imagine that it needs to said but i think the most disappointing thing is just immediately after it happened you got word that his kids were there that his wife was there and just the simple fact that people immediately turned to politics and tried to say that just because they disagreed with his politics that, you know, in some way he deserves this. Of course, nobody deserves this. And, you know, I posted to social media last night just saying that if you think to even his wife, for example, going home to, you know, seeing his socks on the floor, seeing his coffee cup and this thing, seeing his toothbrush on, you know, the bathroom counter. Those are all things he's not going to be able to get to do again.

And it's all just because whether or not you agreed with him, he was speaking out for what he believed in. And I think it's a sad kind of state of our political climate now where, you know, people are choosing violence over dialogue. You said it perfectly, my friend. Now, one of the reasons we want to have you here beyond your insight and your wisdom is that you were at a Charlie Kirk event in July of this year in Tampa. Yeah, yeah. So really, take me back to even before the event. How did you come into contact with, I'm assuming it was a turning point event? Yeah, so basically, like just for context, like there's obviously attendees who go to these events and then there's members of the media and a couple of my friends who I know who were going as attendees said, oh, knowing that, you know, I like to go to these types of things as a member of the press and cover it, they said, oh, you know, apply for the credentials.

And then after I applied, it was actually one of the turning point staffers who reached out to me personally and offered me, you know, basically a free spot like that usually would have cost thousands of dollars to do interviews. event. So I talked to Jillian Michaels and a bunch of other people who are involved with his organization and whether or not you agree with him again, I'll say that again and again. But I think for his work, certainly, a collection of him, the fact that they're just all happy to be working in politics. And, you know, I tested some of them yesterday even just who weren't there and they were just super stressed out, obviously trying to figure out what was happening. His organization is based in Phoenix, and then obviously the event was in Utah. So a lot of people were just kind of trying to figure out what it was that was happening.

But yeah, I mean, going to that type of an event and covering it is kind of evident, and you get to see pretty clearly how much of an impact he's had. And it was interesting, too, like I got some responses on social media yesterday after I just posted and said this type of violence shouldn't be celebrated in any way, something that you would think is like a pretty basic statement to be made. And just some of the responses that I got, you know, people trying to dismiss him. And I think dismissing people like Charlie Kirk, that's really dismissing half of the United States. and I think it's how, you know, more of these types of things are going to be happening if we don't continue to try and bring people into the dialogue. You know, we need to talk with people instead of talking at people, and hopefully this can be a bit of a wake-up call. Well, you know, I'm surmising, based on the clips that I've seen of Charlie Kirk when he came into contact with, you know, a younger person at the microphone, he always seemed to enjoy those interactions. the fact that there were young engaged people, regardless of whether they were MAGA or not,

there was something about the idea of young people engaged in the political process, having their own independent thoughts and wanting to go out there and have them tested in the public square, was something I think that gave him joy. So I wouldn't be surprised Wyatt if, you know, as part of that organization, when they found out that you were a young, involved member of the media, that was probably something that resonated with them, which might have motivated them to then give you greater access than you otherwise would have gotten. Yeah, I think so. And honestly, like, I think even if you just look back to what actually was happening at that event,

like it's people who are college students, who are university students. And many of them were probably there for the first time, right? Like for their first political event, they probably heard Charlie Kirk was coming on their campus. And then they thought, oh, let's go and try and see what he had to say. Even if you think to some of his biggest rivals, right, there's someone on TikTok and Instagram named Dean Withers, who's basically the Democrat equivalent of Charlie Kirk. He's been doing a counter tour to the American comeback tour, which is the name of Charlie Kirk's tour. But even he yesterday was on a live stream as it was happening and literally started, like, weeping in his chair just because he said, if they can do it to someone on the right, they can do it to people like me on the left as well. And so I'm hoping that it can be a bit of a wake-up call, like, you know, people being involved in politics if we can get back to, like, the 2012, 2008 style of politics where Mitt Romney and Barack Obama were on the debate space with one another, and they were joking about each other's anniversaries, like just things like that, whereas now you've been back to the last presidential debate and the conversation was about adult film stars and whether or not someone needs a handicap in golf.

Like, I think we definitely need to start to pass that a little bit and just go back to the part of politics that people actually. care about and that is how it's affecting them and then the policymakers and how they need to actually start remembering that they're there to serve people and they need to kind of bring people into the dialogue and not choose the you know ultimate extreme which is what we saw yesterday well also like if you and I that my next question is going to be about like the the mood the tone that the tenor of the conversation that you witnessed at one of these events you know there would be people who would push back and say oh but these people are Nazis to which I discount that person's intellectual

have to immediately because that's clearly not true, right? I don't care about what their perspectives are. They are working within the system that exists. They are exercising their democratic rights. In those moments, it doesn't appear to me. They are infringing

on anyone's rights. I'm sure that there are outliers, the bigger the organization, the more chance you have of crackpots and wing nuts. But tell me about his supporters. Tell me about the tone that you witnessed. It's interesting. And I said this right after that event, if people look back to some of the interviews that I did after then. And it was just like one of the things I was most amazed by is one of the biggest criticisms that you hear about Donald Trump and some of his supporters is that they kind of just blindfully follow him and do whatever he wants to do. But some of the people who were there, some of the youngest kind of Republicans as part of their base, they were speaking out at the time the Epstein stuff was pretty prevalent. And they were talking out and speaking out about it. Donald Trump needs to release the files. They were criticized. and the attorney general. And to me, I think it's an example that a lot of the people who are involved in that organization, even if you disagree with them. And I think this can be said about Charlie Kirk as well. He is someone who's still thought critically and kind of encouraged dialogue. And he would, you know, he was willing to let anybody up to that microphone. And, you know, there's one guy that I know who's a Democrat TikToker. And he told me yesterday that at one point he was invited to go and debate with Charlie Kirk at one of those events. And I think, you know, whether it be the Jubilee videos even that people might have seen of Charlie.

where he literally surrounded himself with 20 people who had an opposing perspective and then would invite them up to the microphone to talk about whatever they wanted to talk about any issue. And that was something, too, even, that was at that Turning Point conference that I covered back in July, they had literally banners saying, prove me wrong. And Charlie Kirk would let people go up to that microphone and, you know, debate him, say whatever they want to say. And I think that's kind of what's missing right now. And I'll say, like, I was in Washington on Tuesday doing interviews with members of Congress asking them, How do we get more young people involved in politics?

And now I think back to that, and I think, you know, it's a little bit hypocritical to try and say we need to get more young people involved in politics when that's exactly what the thousands of students on that university campus were trying to do yesterday. And now we see the result of this. I know we talk about it a lot, but I think whatever we can do to try and bring down the temperature, I'm just fascinated that after what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania in July of last year, the fact that it didn't get talked about for really any longer than a week after. after. I hopefully, you know, this will get talking about a little bit more and encourage people to really do some more reflection. Wyatt Sharp, host of the Wyatt Sharp show, good friend of the show, good friend of mine. You're going to get emails from me before the end of the weekend, my friend, and you are still my plus one at the monk debate coming up. Thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate you adding your voice to the conversation. I dare you to pay attention.

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