The Charlie Kirk Show - Yet Another Attempted Trump Assassination

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

Once again, increasingly radical pro-violence sentiments on the left put the life of the president and thousands of others in peril, when a California teacher attempted a shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Andrew was there and recounts his personal experience, before he and Blake dissect the role that years of violent rhetoric on the left played in provoking the attempted killing Susan Crabtree reports on a crisis within the Secret Service. Auron MacIntyre and Mark Halperin join. Watch every episode ad-free on members.charliekirk.com!    Get new merch at charliekirkstore.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My name is Charlie Kirk. I run the largest pro-American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic. My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth. If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable. But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful. College is a scam, everybody. You've got to stop sending your kids to college. You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible. Go start a turning point USA college chapter. Go start a turning point you would say high school chapter.

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Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you could protect your wealth with noble gold investments at noble gold investments.com. That is noble gold investments.com. All right, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show April 27th, 26. We're here in Phoenix, Arizona at the Y-ReFi studio. How are we doing, Blake? You know, we're not having the show we thought we would have today. We're not having the show. We didn't have the show on Saturday that we thought we were going to have either. I was actually at the White House Correspondents dinner, as many of you probably know by now. I didn't say much about it

before the event. I was honored to be invited by a few different outlets, went and sitting next to Harmeet Dylan. And the night was going along. It was great, having a good time, meeting a lot of old friends, seeing high to new ones. And then, you know, while we're sitting there waiting for the food to get served, President Trump, J.D. Vance, and I others on the dais on the stage all of a sudden you start seeing everybody duck for cover did you hear anything i heard essentially what i you know i thought somebody was kind of gone like that like that that was i i clocked something in the back of my mind as you know maybe a tray fell or but i actually thought you know somebody was pounding because it was such a raucous cacophonous

room and i will i will just say you know there's been a lot of talk about the security in room but for me it was like when we were in there you couldn't navigate the tables were so close together that if people were sitting in the chairs there was zero room to navigate in between and so it was a i mean god forbid that place would have had a fire is people would not have gotten out guaranteed i mean it was a total fire hazard i will say that does sound like something trump might do they're like mr president it's gotten too full he's like nah make the event bigger i mean i don't know who made that kind of decision, but it was a tight, it was a tight squeeze. So essentially you heard this noise, but it, again, you kind of just assumed there was a lot going on, somebody dropped something or whatever.

And then little by little, starting in the back of the room, you saw people ducking underneath their tables. And so sure enough, we dove underneath our table. And you could see, the thing that, well, I will never forget was the urgency, this, I would call it like a vital. urgency of the Secret Service as everybody dives under the table because you could hear them yelling and you could see them running and they were throwing chairs to get them out of the way and you're like, whoa, something is up. And so everybody just starts, we dive under the table. We're there, again, time was sort of a blur, but I would assume maybe three to five minutes under the table, under the, you know, and you kind of, I'm peeking out. I'm trying to see if the coast is clear. Then it becomes did President Trump get shot? Because I'm look I kind of looked up. And it was probably a lot

harder for you guys to tell. No, we had no idea what happened because I look up. They're all gone off the stage and you see, you know, tactical outed, outfitted Secret Service on the stage and you see them marching down the middle and you see them. And by the way, so I was so close up to, I was, essentially House left, stage right, a couple rows back from the stage. And, the Secret Service came right by our table and walked on our chairs. So a Secret Service put his boot on the chair I was just sitting on as they were navigating in the room. Hermit's head was kind of poked up a little bit. She got stepped on.

Yeah, like, I mean, it's a poor thing, actually. She had a welt on her head from getting stepped on. I mean, in theory could be the next Attorney General of the United States. She got stepped on by a Secret Service that were working with such urgency. and they obviously had no idea who was at what table. So eventually everything kind of calms down. I get up. Everybody starts kind of rising.

I see Philip Wegman, who's with the Wall Street Journal. I said, Phil, did they get, like, is the president okay? Because at this point, I'm like, did you, did there was a shot that came from the back? And there's bad reception in that room because it's under brown. There was no reception. Nobody can make phone calls. So I asked Phil, I said, you know, did they get the president? Is JD okay?

Because in theory, I'm thinking, did a shock come from the president? back of the room and I just didn't hear it and it got President Trump. Well, Phil says that they had actually got, he watched him get off the table. Next thing I know, Brian, uh, off the stage, so he was okay. J.D., he said, I didn't see J.D. Next thing I know, Brian's stelter of CNN is up on the stage with a cell, like doing a selfie video. Like, I don't know. It was, you know, and it's a room full of journalists. And so they're all got their cameras out doing like live reporting, uh, I think just to record the videos. I was enjoying the split between journalists who filmed events around them and the ones taking selfie videos of themselves.

So I instantly run over. I was probably about 10 tables away, 12 tables away from where Erica was seated. I ran over there as quickly as I could because it was so crammed and jammed. I could only make it over there so quickly. And she had already been ushered out. I ran into Harris Faulkner and I ran into Martha McCallum. and they said that they had seen Erica get ushered out. She was okay. Harrison, Erica, I believe, you know, sort of were under the same table praying when it was all happening. And I mean, it was a terrifying moment. You know, everybody, I got a number of texts and calls. Are you okay? Poso called right away. Tyler Boyer called right away. And I just, you know, my phone was blown up. But, you know, here's the thing. I'm okay. My concern in the moment was just for Erica, for my

Mikey, others, you know, and, you know, just to see the way that the reaction has been from this moment. We're going to get into the details. We're going to get into the Secret Service, the perimeter. We have Susan Crabtree joining us next. We've got a great show in store for you. But my reaction is just a shock and horror that people are alleging that Erica's reaction was somehow, you know, performative. Up yours. Screw those people.

That's disgusting. Secondly, that this was staged to get sympathy for Trump or, Even for Eric or attorney point. Up yours. Screw you. This is actually a good test. If you are a person where it is reasonable to you that assassination attempts are faked, are staged, just stop opining on public events because your brain is too cooked by television, by movies, by memes you read on the internet to think rationally about things. Listen, period.

Yeah. I understand COVID. That was a whole like op. I get it. The Russia hoax. I get there's reasons to be distrustful and to hold elected leaders feet to the fire. I'm all on board with that. But for real, if you are going to assume that everything is the freaking Jews or everything is some stage 5D chess move and that leftists don't want you dead, I've got about 48 minutes

of clips loaded up today to prove you wrong, to prove that you are missing the big E on the I chart. And I said it before, but I'll say it again. was with us. He was not afraid of the Jews. He was afraid of purple-haired jihadists that wanted him dead. He was afraid of trannies. He was afraid of wild, violent assassination culture that's running amok on the left. And if you can't get it through your freaking head yet, I have nothing for you. To Blake's point, get off the internet. You are cooked. Your brain is toast. Wake up. We have put up with deranged leftists politicians going to no king's rallies where they're holding signs saying kill all tyrants they almost

die we have a son pikeers saying blood in the streets we have destiny saying conservatives should be terrified of being in public as people were walking out of this event they passed people with signs that said kill all of them death to tyrants death to tyrant and those people knew what had happened and they either made those signs in response to what happened or they decided to waive them anyway. That is the kind of people you are dealing with in this country. And we've been putting up with it in this country. Like it's nothing. Like this is just the new normal. It can't

be. They want you dead. I mean, not all of them, sure, but then the ones that don't, they create the permission structure by turning the other cheek, looking away, not acknowledging just how violent, disgusting the activist base of the left has gotten. And guess what? The politicians, the Democrats

aren't going to say anything because guess what? They'll get primaried if they do. They know that. So they stay quiet and they blame Trump, like cowards. So who was this guy? Cole Allen, real peach of an individual. Well, he was a teacher from California, donated to Kamala Harris. He was a member of a group called the White Awakes. Ooh, that's an interesting one.

Yeah, attended to No King's protest, rabid leftist poster on Blue Sky who liked to interact with Will Stancel there. He wrote an anti-Trump. manifesto and we can we're going to Blake's going to go through some of that. It's interesting. So I honestly I find the character of this Cole guy a little troubling just in the

sense that he doesn't have the biography you might often expect from a presidential assassin. He's not an you know a 19, 20 year old. No he's indiscernible from Anna Navarro on CNN. This is a guy he has a job, had a job. Seemed

obviously like radical. But, you know, but he's not this non-functional type who, you know, everyone said, oh, this guy was going to totally go off the deep end and kill people. He's like much more just a rabid left winger who let his brain get cooked too hard. And you can see that when you read his manifesto, as a lot of people have pointed out, it's not some, you know, 200-page Unabomber thing rambling about society. It's like he's written it as a Reddit post. It's a Reddit post.

Literally like, hello, everybody. I may have given a lot of people a surprise today. Let me start off by apologizing to everyone who's, trust I abused. Goes on a bit. It's like, why did I do any of this? I am a citizen of the United States. What my representatives do reflects on me.

And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes. And he goes on, talks about who's a target, who isn't. At the end, he responds to rebuttals. So, including one, let's see, objection four, as a half black, half white person, you shouldn't be the one doing this. Rebuttal. I don't see anyone else picking up the slack. So he's marinating in weird race politics stuff.

He's totally cooked by basically Epstein-style stuff. Oh, the presidents are pedophile. Like completely ludicrous. He's really, really upset about Ukraine. That's another thing that we saw through some of the social media posts. He's very upset at JD being proud that we've stopped just giving a Blake check to Ukraine. Yeah, and he signs off cold force, like it's a username. or a video game name, your friendly federal assassin Alan.

Check this out. Rob Henderson put out a tweet. Rob's been a guest on the show a couple times. He basically says, relative to Americans with a high school education, Americans with graduate degrees are twice as likely to support political violence. Throw that up, please. And you see, more education equals more support for political violence. It couldn't be otherwise.

You guys have that graphic. and here let's just make sure the visual gets up. So the point is, you know, this guy was a Caltech grad. He was, some people call him a genius. I'm not convinced he was a genius. But he was a sick person, as Trump said. He's an absolute sick person who was highly educated beyond his intelligence, beyond his wisdom. He was a Christian.

Now he's very anti-Christian. So that's probably, you know, you think of the Bible verse. It's like, you know, when the house is cleared, the demons go scouring, looking for another host, and they come back with more friends. this guy might have been demonized. We are in a spiritual battle. So I don't know what his story is, but that's, you know,

it was amazing that he just ran through the security perimeter and was ultimately subdued right there. Somehow came out alive. He was running like a bat out of hell. And so, you know, there's the video right there. But this is, I think one of the more troubling aspects of this whole story is how indiscernible this person is from Will Stancel, who he interacts with online.

from Anna Navarro on CNN from the you know the Lincoln project guys I mean this guy is indiscernible from mainstream platformed Democrats I mean and this is the other thing I'd say we're going to play these clips because they're absolutely obscene but you let's not forget what they how they reacted when Charlie was killed this is do not forget how vile this has become this is It's gloating, gleeful, sick bile that they spew when somebody's life is taken, robbed. Sot 25. We got Charlie and the neck in the neck. We got Charlie Kirk just got shot in the neck.

Hey, ooh, pah, ooh. Charlie Kirk got shot and he's He only had himself to play Charlie Kirk got shot and he's dead Finally Thank you can we keep this shot Right in the voice box I might be 1% less atheist today

I don't care that he was a person He wasn't to me He was a not Do you get it yet Do you get what we've been putting up with This is if you're on a certain brand of the political left, that is what you can marinate in every day. There's endless stuff after this where people are saying, oh, you know, too bad they didn't get Trump. They've said

that after every single attempt on Trump. And if that assassin had succeeded and killed the president, what we saw with Charlie, 100 times over, a thousand times over, around the entire world. And I don't think knowing that that would happen, it's very difficult to walk back and have some of these people who are justifying the rhetoric of assassinations all the time say, actually we oppose political violence. Very often, the left does not oppose political violence. We know that because within the past few years, they have openly embraced political violence at times. That's what 2020 was. Look at this. This is Hassan Piker, who we talked about recently on the show, talking about somebody's got to do it.

SOT 19. And you actually wrote about this and it was a great video where you talked about, you know, someone has to do it. See, when I say that, everyone knows exactly what I mean. Which is, I think

that shows that there is a lot of anger, a lot of resentment, and untapped potential, untapped revolutionary potential as a matter of fact. Okay, untap revolutionary. Okay, so just to be clear what Hassan Piker is, this is a guy that the New York Times just did a whole podcast with,

like it's nothing. Not even just a podcast with. There's extensive discourse on the left. Like, should we embrace Hassan Piker? And a lot of them are saying, yes, this is how we get our left-wing Joe Rogan, is we have to embrace Hassan Piker. We have to embrace this guy who's going to say, you know, sometimes, sometimes murder. They were socially murdering.

It's really self-defense to assassinate somebody. Sometimes robbery, looting. you know, I can defend that too. But never mind. It's probably just the Jews. It's probably just the Jews. That's who did it. Like, if you go online, that's probably who did it.

It's just a big Mossad up, just to get sympathy. Pretty sick stuff. I don't even know where to begin with some of you. It's that obscene now. We're going to turn our attention to the security situation around the event. There's been a lot of discussion about was it secure enough. Should, you know, this was a, this Colin guy, he was a guest at the hotel. I've stayed at that hotel a number of times. You all have stayed at hotels, I'm sure. You do not get your bag, swept, checked, you know,

dog sniffer. None of that. There's no magnetometers when you enter a hotel room. Should there have been, should the perimeter have gone outside and beyond where it was? But there's a, you know, Charlie actually had tweeted about the Secret Service having a massive, moral morale problem during the Biden years that a lot of people were retiring, fleeing, and how big of an issue that was when you had so much violence aimed and directed at President Trump. We saw that at Butler. We saw it at the golf course in Florida. Now we see it at the White House Correspondents dinner. And we see it in other places candidly. There was a guy that we forget who tried to attack Mar-a-Lago, right? So there's been multiple instances of this and then multiple other

instances of political violence, you need the Secret Service to be absolutely on point. And Blake, I'd be curious about your perspective, just not having been there. I have my own from being in the room. It is interesting. As you said, so for those who don't know, a lot of the debate is, as he said, was the security strong enough? Because in some sense, it was. The Secret Service can't prevent someone from attempting to break through. And in this case, he did fail within seconds. And that's a good thing. The debate was, was he too close? Was the president and too much danger. And a lot of people have said, well, the whole hotel should have been within this secret service perimeter. But I think what we saw might have vindicated their strategy, because

think about if their perimeter was the entire hotel. Then they do have to search every single guest who checks in that hotel in advance. They have to search every single room to make sure it's secure in a place with hundreds of rooms. He wrote about it. That's difficult. Yeah, he wrote about it in his manifesto. He was mocking how easy it was for him to get into the hotel, assemble the weapon there, He basically said, I could have brought a bomb in there, and, you know, it would have been, they didn't even check me. Precisely. But the thing is, he wasn't inside the perimeter. And so he attempted to reach the ballroom and immediately failed and didn't even get on my understanding.

It didn't even get to the same floor. Yeah. The president was on. We do have, excuse me, we do have Susan Crabtree ready now. Susan, welcome back to the show. There's a lot of debate about the success or, I don't know, the failure of the Secret Service. There was a sense of, in retrospect, that it was a lack of security in that perimeter. I will say, it did seem a little bit lax.

But to Blake's point, the guy didn't get, he didn't really breach the perimeter per se. It was on the floor above. He breached it momentarily before they subdued him. He ran right through it. What are people saying that you're interviewing? I know you're talking to all the sources right now. Yes, they're flooding me with information. But yes, honestly, I always say that this.

These agents acted heroically. They subdued and they interdicted this terrible madman guy. And so they deserve praise for that. But the larger plan, I don't, I think it's similar to Butler. These secret service agents rank and files, secret service agents and officers were set up to fail. They didn't fail. It was lucky. Honestly, to me, from my sources,

that are many of them that inundate me after things like this happen. And they are saying that this is just an epic failure. They were using the 2023 Biden model on President Trump. It's similar to what happened during Butler that they treated Donald Trump like a former president, like President Obama or Jimmy Carter, not someone who broke the mold when it comes to threats against him. and having outdoor rallies with tens of thousands of people. In this case, they did not treat, the Secret Service did not treat this as a special national security event

like the State of the Union or inauguration, despite the fact that there were so many cabinet members there. And, you know, I have covered the Secret Service's problems. I've been warning about this for months and months. It seems like it takes one of these events for Washington to focus on what's going on with the Secret Service. I don't believe that Sean Kern is the change agent. Dan Bongino also warned about that when he was chosen and before he was chosen,

that the Secret Service needs to reform what the mess it was under the Biden administration and for many, many years before that. So, Susan, what are the specific shortcomings they're pointing to in terms of design? Is it just the perimeter was too small? Is it that the agents, there weren't enough agents there in general? What are the sort of changes that we might expect as a result of this? This is one of the last lines of defense, you know, that magnometer checkpoint. That should not have been where you put the, where you're interdicting somebody like this.

The stairwell was completely unsecured that he ran down. The hotel is probably not a proper venue anymore for someone. one like Donald Trump and his cabinet. You cannot, unless you are willing to have the hotel only accept vetted guests who are affiliated with the event and the Secret Service has a chance to look at their backgrounds. Or you could have in other countries they do this. You have checks days prior to people checking into the hotel. Their luggage got checked.

There were reports that reporters were. checking into the hotel at 3 p.m. that day, and their luggage never were checked whatsoever. They weren't even checked for their ID versus their ticket and their ticket. Tickets were being flashed. I don't know. You've been at this event many times. I've been to this event dating back to the 90s. It's always a soft target in my estimation, and so why did not that not get hardened? They used the old model, and that's not appropriate right now. It's the same problem that happened at Butler. Yeah, I think I think you're right You know, it's interesting

There was a bunch of accusations going around on social media And I was one of the people that were accused I tweeted immediately after like this is why we need the White House ballroom Because and there was, you know, accusations that it was a coordinator Or something. No, it's just an obvious thought that popped in my head When you have President Trump You talk about the old model versus the new model I don't know that there will be a president that is

It fits into the old model ever again I don't know if we're living in a brave new world And this is just a new reality So my thought was, at least at the White House, you don't have guests staying in the hotel that could have, you know, packed in a bomb or packed in a long rifle or shotgun or knives like they did. And I think at the very least, if you know that somebody's going to be staying in that hotel when President Trump is going to be there, not to mention all the cabinets, the line of succession, I mean, there was J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, Scott Bessent. There was, I mean, Speaker Johnson. I mean, the room was packed with the who's who. And so, yeah, it is a huge vulnerable target. And I would say the security, you didn't get checked until you got really close in to that ballroom.

So, yeah, obviously the model has to change. You reported, Susan, that Susie Wiles has been overseeing the Secret Service kind of as part of her portfolio. And they're standing by the work of the Secret Service, but they did call a meeting of some sorts. What can you report on that? Yes, they called a meeting. to go review protocols, exactly what we're talking about. They have to say that the Secret Service did a great job. I know there were men and women that acted heroically, and I applaud them. They prevented a greater tragedy, but it should have never got to this point. They had cabinet secretaries and

dignitaries and Erica under the tables fearing for their lives. This is an embarrassment. for the United States, and the Secret Service could have prevented this. It was highly preventable. And moving the security outside would have been one step, all the steps that I just outlined. Even the magnometers, that checkpoint was being broken down, and they were acting very idly. They were not in a robust posture when that came in. And I don't necessarily blame the agents, the rank and file agents and officers. I blame the supervisors.

And it's the same thing at Butler. There were two supervisors that signed off on that security report, that plan, without anyone covering the AGR building. And those supervisors got promotions. And one of them is in charge of the Office of Professional Responsibility, which is in charge of disciplining other agents. That is ridiculous when they did not notify and tell the, tell the, the, the, officer, this woman who was inexperienced, Congress found that she was inexperienced. Her name is

Mio Perez, who was in charge of Butler. Now we're having a similar problem take place. Why were those agents and officers sitting idly there? They reacted quickly. Thank goodness because of their training and the training they go through is so extensive and they put their lives on the line. And they did so that night. Thank them. I'm so thankful to them. them. Our continuity of government thanks them. We am just, but it should have never got to that point. It's the planning. It's the planning. You're right. Because I mean, I was in the room and I felt the urgency of those Secret Service agents. I remember thinking, don't do it. Don't move quickly. I don't want them to think I'm a threat or something like that. I remember being, that was one of the biggest points of fear for me is like just stay low. Don't make any sudden movements because you could feel the intensity that those men were climbing over the chairs. and climbing up onto the stage. I mean, it was a very, there was a lot of just energy coming from them.

And I call it like violent urgency. You could feel that they meant business in that moment. So I totally, I'm grateful for them. Blake brought up an interesting point here, Susan. So, you know, a lot of people think, oh, Secret Service is guarding the event. We're all safe. Well, when we all exited that venue, what's to say there wasn't, if he wasn't a lone wolf, lone gunman, what's to say we wouldn't have exited that venue?

And all of a sudden, there's, you know, somebody perched out. up high and it just takes out all the elites. Yeah. So, yeah, so President Trump, the cabinet, they entered and left through a different way, secured by the Secret Service. But everyone else was sort of just funneling out in a narrow line. That's where they were passing those people with the signs that said, kill them all, death to tyrants. Imagine if one of those people had an AR-15 instead and started spraying into that crowd, they could have killed a huge number of people. And I think that's a lot of the security discourse is sort of all the normal people, still noteworthy, individuals, all of them, realizing that they were basically unprotected at this.

Yeah. And it's a good point because if you go to Blue Sky, which this shooter was very active on Blue Sky, which is basically a breeding ground for domestic terrorists at this point, they hate elites. So you got Taylor Lorenz, who's kind of a despicable person herself and was, you know, fangirling over Luigi Mangione. She's getting canceled on Blue Sky because she's an elite. She was going to a fascist party and they don't care. Once they castigate you as the elite as part of the class that is, you know, totally fair game, she's getting canceled on Blue Sky. So what's to say that, you know, Nora O'Donnell and all these people that I saw walking around weren't fair game as we were funneling out of the venue?

I mean, this is the assassination culture that they're creating, that they can be this martyr for the cause and affect change. You know, the point is, I mean, you have a lot of thoughts on the security situation here, Susan, I know. But the point is we have a deeper problem, which is why the model needs to get updated, because things are simply less safe. Absolutely. I don't think that you can have a situation. Trump broke the mold. Okay. He is, he just is facing so many more threats. And it's, It's ridiculous to use the Biden model from 2023 at the White House Correspondence Dinner and think that that is going to not be permeated. This is a porous security system that was put in place last night. It's been the same model that I've gone to since the 90s at the White House Correspondence Dinner said, I'm going to date myself.

Speaker Livingston, I remember going back there have been, I've gone so many times. I remember talking about this with my husband, who is a former Navy officer, and he has set this. We are soft targets at this. You're sitting there with, you know, celebrities, I remember sitting there with the homeland, the celebrity from homeland. She said, I can't believe we're exposed like this. We're just standing in line. And they didn't do anything different. And I'll tell you one thing, the senior executive service, that is the, so that's top.

upper management of the Secret Service. Sean Curran is not, did not actually use someone who had that kind of accreditation to head to be the special agent in charge of the protective division, the presidential protective division. That's a change. And that one of my sources brought that to my attention in last 24 hours. He too, Sean Curran didn't have that accreditation because he, He was a former.

They treated him as working for a former president, even though this is an unusual situation where, you know, President Trump was a former president running for president again. This is just, I mean, honestly, I have some exclusive reporting to share with you. Susie Wiles, I'm told, was overseeing the Secret Service, the Chief of Staff, the White House Chief of Staff.

And she was pushing back. there were several incidents that I reported on. The chief counsel was handpicked by Sean Curran. He got into a road rage incident and was impersonating a Secret Service officer. So he was forced to resign. The D.H. Christy Noam wanted to put a political chief counsel in place to sort of initiate some of these reforms. I'm told the White House would not approve of that. Susie Wiles would not approve of that.

They had a deputy chief of staff from DHS go over to the Secret Service to share recommendations for reform. And I'm told that Sean Curran called over to Susie Wiles. And Susie Wiles said no and had him walked out of the building. Now I went to the White House today and shared these findings with her, these from these sources. And they gave me a statement and I'll read it to you. Let me be clear. This is from Caroline Levitt. Let me be clear, nobody cares more or has pushed harder or has asked more hard questions about

President Trump's safety than Susie Wiles. The insinuation that Susie would object to anything that would help strengthen protection for her boss and friend is absolutely absurd. But they did not address my questions about whether she had this jeopardy chief of staff at DHS walked out of the building for trying to share reforms with the Secret Service and oversee some reforms. That's troubling. Yeah.

I mean, you know, both things can be true, right? That Susie Wiles does care deeply about his safety and protection and that ultimately something else could be going on behind the scenes, you know, that we're unaware of what would explain those actions. It's great reporting, Susan. Thank you for sharing that. You said a brand new exclusive reporting that you just got. Okay.

Well, that's fascinating. Yeah, I don't know what to make of that, actually. I don't know if Blake, you have thoughts here, but it's troubling because there are obviously reforms that need to be implemented, wider perimeter checks, multi-levels of security. And you made a good point earlier, Susan, where you said, they have to say that the security was stood up and that they did their job, heroically and all that stuff.

And they did. But from a planning perspective and from a leadership, and from a leadership perspective, you know, like I said, Charlie was tweeting about the morale issues. I'm curious if we're still experiencing those, if that's still part of the storyline of the U.S. Secret Service now, well into Trump's second year here, are you still, is the Secret Service morale been cleared up? Is some of the hiring issues been cleared up? I see you shaking your head. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. That is a critical issue. Andrew, you just nailed it. The Secret Service is having severe hiring issues.

Rich Tarapoli, who was a former Secret Service agent, covered four presidents. He wrote an op-ed. He's a source of mine. He wrote an op-ed in the Fox News just last week about this very issue that the hiring standards have been severely lowered because there's a brain drain. There's a talent drain in the Secret Service that's been going on for quite some time because morale issues has been plaguing the Secret Service for years. But they were exacerbated during the Biden administration when Biden had a DEI. mandate in place saying that you will hire more women and you will hire more minorities. And that hasn't been fixed yet, huh?

Absolutely not. That's one thing I've been reported on repeatedly. There was so many different people. Yeah, we got to wrap up this hour, but that's troubling. As you learn more, I want to have you back on to give us updates here because the eyes of the nation and the world are on this now. Susan Crabtree, real clear politics. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Charlie had an absolutely relentless passion for learning. I saw it up close and personal. In every waking moment, every spare moment that he could, he had a book open, he had a podcast open, he had a Hillsdale online course open. He was always diving into new ideas, absorbing information, studying up, and sharpening his skills. That's why I love Dr. Arne at Hillsdale

College. They shared a deep understanding that learning is the key to shaping your care. character, creating courage, and changing lives. Charlie never stopped learning, and neither should you. Through Hillsdale's online courses, he spent time studying the classics, the American founding, and the enduring truths of the Bible. Now it is your turn. With Hillsdale's free online courses, you can follow in his footsteps, learning from real professors and challenging yourself with rigorous coursework that's free and accessible to anybody who's willing to learn. A great place to start is their brand new course on logic and rhetoric. Learn from Hillsdale professors how to speak masterfully.

Make a powerful point and see how clear thinking leads to better decision-making and more effective speech. Don't wait. Go to Charlie for Hillsdale.com to enroll today. It's completely free. This is a real good one, by the way, logic and rhetoric. Pick up the mic, carry it forward, learn like Charlie. Start right now at Charlie for Hillsdale.com. We have Oren McIntyre on standby.

Oren, welcome back to the show, my friend. We just, this Caroline Levitt press conference has just started. We're going to throw to it just to see what her statement is at the top. We'll bring you back. Hang right there, okay, Oren. One second. Let's hear what Caroline has to say. As I told many of you on Friday afternoon,

I thought that would be my last time taking your questions until after my maternity leave. But given the attempted assassination of the president and, quote, Trump administration officials, as the depraved shooter noted in his manifesto at the White House Correspondents Association dinner on Saturday evening. I felt it was prudent to be here today to answer your questions and inform the American people about how the administration is responding to yet another attempt on President Trump's life. Saturday was supposed to be a joyful evening celebrating free speech in the First Amendment with all of you, members of the press. Instead, Instead, the night was hijacked by a crazed anti-Trump individual who traveled across the country

to assassinate the president and as many administration officials as possible. This is the third major assassination attempt against President Trump in two years. No other president in history has faced such repeated, serious attempts on his life. First and foremost, the President, the First Lady, and everyone in this White House are extraordinarily great to the brave law enforcement professionals who sprang into action to apprehend the would-be assassin and keep all of us safe. The President would especially like to express his gratitude to the men and women of the United States Secret Service, who acted with the utmost professionalism, courage, and sense of duty. This includes the heroic agent who took a bullet to the chest. Thankfully, he was saved by his bulletproof vest.

Minutes after returning here to the White House to the Oval Office, despite for the fighting Secret Service to try to stay and keep the dinner going on Saturday ahead of addressing you here in the briefing room, President Trump was intent on speaking to this brave agent to ensure he was okay, and the agent assured the president that he was. As you know, I was seated next to President Trump and the First Lady when the shots were fired before Secret Service swiftly moved us to safety backstage. The president's calm in the face of chaos, while yet another individual was trying to take his life was really remarkable to witness, and it's something I will never forget.

President Trump is fearless because he loves this country, and he is willing to put his own life on the line to deliver on the promises that he made to the American public who elected him here into the highest office in the land. And while we are blessed to have a fearless president, we should not live in a country where such constant fear of political violence permeates, our society every single day. We can and we should have fierce disagreement in this country. As you all know, we disagree often, myself in this role, and all of you in the news media, but those disagreements must remain peaceful. Debating, peaceful protesting,

protesting, and voting are how we need to settle disagreements, not bullets. Nobody in recent years has faced more bullets and more violence than President Trump. This political violence stems from a systemic demonization of him and his supporters, by commentators, yes, by elected members of the Democrat Party and even some in the media. This hateful and constant and violent rhetoric directed at President Trump day after day after day for 11 years has helped legitimize this violence and bring us to this dark moment. Those who constantly falsely label and slander the president as a fascist, as a threat to democracy, and compare him to Hitler to score political points, are fueling this kind of violence. The left-wing cults of hatred against the president,

and all of those who support him and work for him, has gotten multiple people hurt and killed, and it almost did so again this weekend. When you read the manifesto of this shooter, ask yourselves, how different is the rhetoric from this almost assassin than what you read on social media, and hear in various forums every single day. The answer, if you're being honest with yourself, is that there is no difference at all. Much of the manifesto of the would-be assassin is indistinguishable from the words that we hear daily from so many. For example, as the First Lady of the United States pointed out this morning, just two days prior to the shooting, ABC's late-night host Jimmy Kemmel disgustingly called First Lady Melania Trump an expectant widow.

Who in their right minds says a wife would be glowing over the potential murder of her beloved husband? And having experienced what I did with the First Lady on Saturday night, I can tell you that she was anything but that. This kind of rhetoric about the President, the First Lady, and his supporters is completely deranged, and it's unbelievable that the American people are consuming it night after night after night. As President Trump said on Saturday night at this podium, we as Americans must recommit ourselves to resolving our different and uniting around the shared values that make our country great. The deranged lies and smears against the president, his family, his supporters have led crazy people to believe crazy things, and they are inspired to commit violence because of those

words. It has to stop. And one more point. Saturday night served as yet another reminder of how important it is to fund the Department of Homeland Security. It is shameful that the United States Congress has kept. kept this vital agency defunded for 73 days, the longest shutdown of a federal agency in U.S. history. The Secret Service is a vital component of DHS. It has been directly impacted by this

reckless political gamesmanship. Everyone in this room who was there on Saturday night witnessed the heroes of Secret Service and federal law enforcement jump into action in the face of grave danger and uncertainty. Agents put their own lives in harm's way to protect the President the first lady, the vice president, and members of the cabinet. One agent can be seen in video footage literally jumping onto the stage, not knowing where the attacker was or where the bullets were coming from at that point to place his body in front of the president of the United States. These men and women are heroes. They perform their duties daily, and they have children and families too, and they do it despite the political turmoil surrounding their agency. Make no mistake,

this defunding of DHS should be a national scandal. If Republicans defunded DHS and we saw in another attempted assassination on a Democrat president, I would hope that the media coverage would be relentless and unforgiving and I hope that it continues to be now. With the World Cup, America 250, the 2028 Olympics and a presidential election all ahead, the Democrats' obstruction is placing an enormous and totally pointless burden on the Secret Service that can get more people killed. Enough is enough. There should be no further debate about this. Democrats need to do what President Trump has been calling on them to do for 73 days in a row and fund the Department of Homeland Security, period. This is a national emergency, and every member of Congress needs to

put their country over party and get the Department of Homeland Security funded. With that, I will take a few of your questions today. So, powerful statements from Caroline Levitt, but I'm still kind of left wondering, like, action. If this is urgent in a national emergency, then where's the action? Orrin McIntyre joins us. He's from Blaze TV. He's got a great show, great follow on X, great thinker. Orrin, you and I were texting.

I mean, it just feels like this problem is something we've kicked down the road. As a can we keep kicking down the road. And we're not dealing with an underlying issue of what we've allowed to be normalized. And the longer we put it off, the more radical the solution becomes. Your thoughts, Orin? Yeah, I think this is. obviously correct. Donald Trump has received many different death threats and assassination attempts from very early on. And of course, these have only accelerated with a level of permissiveness

that we've seen. Obviously, I don't need to tell anybody on the Charlie Kirk show about the horrific nature of left-wing violence and the incredible cost that the right is incurring that America is incurring because of what's going on. It's great to talk about the need to fund, you know, the Department of Homeland Security. It's good to say that we need to finish the ball, room to make sure that everyone is secure. But as you say, all of this feels like we are not addressing an underlying issue. Now, I will say, obviously, we just saw the Trump administration take its first big blow, I think, against the leftist NGO violence machine, the one that pushes the rhetoric that encourages attacks on people like Donald Trump or Charlie Kirk

when they went after the SPLC. I can't help but notice that just a few days after they take this definitive action for the first time, we see in a sad. assassination attempt. I don't know if there's a direct connection, but it's very clear that the left is pretty used to having a free hand with the encouraging of violence and covering up that violence. And so the fact that the Trump administration is finally putting pressure on organizations like the SPLC, making them pay some kind of real cost for this is critical. And I think we need to see a lot more of that as soon as possible. Well, I mean, listen, you're talking about the mainstreaming of this stuff. What Caroline said is absolutely right. It is indistinguishable from the type of rhetoric.

this guy used on Blue Sky from Anna Navarro from any number, Hassan Piker, Destiny, all these people when they talk about, you know, Trump, J.B. Pritzker just doubled down, Oren, talking about how it's actually just Trump, who's the one who's been calling for political violence. How many times, more times, do we need to be like the ones on the other side of an assassin's bullet or an assassination attempt before they own up to the fact that they're encouraging this amongst their own fault and whitewashing it, going to no king's rallies where the signs are, held up saying let's kill all tyrants somebody's got to do it and acting like it's totally normal and they're just oh well they're justified to be so upset or they're just they had it coming

they shouldn't be such bad people if they don't want to get shot they have been normalizing this and yet they keep saying it's both sides both sides issue you got obama going you know we got tone down the you know no more political violence while we don't know what his motive was it's like read the manifesto it's like he was watching msnbcc like ms now what whatever you want to call it. That's the motivation. Like what more do we need? In this both sidesism, I'm so sick of it. I don't want to hear another word about it. Orrin, your reaction. No, it's absolutely insane. But of course, the left can't admit any of this. They've been using violence, unadulterated violence for years. Like this is how

the left operated in the 60s and the 70s. If you look back at the anti-war civil rights movement, we have the whole days of rage with the weather underground and the bombings that the left continuously used. They were so violent that eventually Richard Nixon ran one of the most famous campaign as in history promising to tamp down on the rampant left-wing terrorism that was running across the nation. So this is a longstanding leftist tradition. The left rely on this open ability to do violence on one side and expect no repercussions. And if the right even hints at the possibility that they might in some way get kinetic, obviously we see what happened to protesters in January 6th. The right has to start taking this seriously.

They have to crack down. They have to destroy the lives of people who want to murder the president, who encourage the murder of conservatives who are out there peddling violence as a solution to political problems. Violence is an incredibly und the destabilizing element in any political system. If you look at something like the Spanish Civil War and the lead up to that Spanish Civil War, it was a assassination after assassination of right-wing figures that ultimately. drove people like Francisco Franco into power. People tell me that they're concerned about the possible rise of authoritarianism or the right wing starting to use power in some terrible way. Well, the best way to head that off is to address issues like this now. Because if you don't, if you allow the violence to build, if you allow things to continue to stabilize, people will

look for someone who can return order and they will look for whoever will do it, however they will get it done. It's a powerful insight, Orr, and I think you're right. The, the, Fix becomes increasingly drastic and draconian if the left does not get their people into order. If they don't stop this incendiary rhetoric and whitewashing the people that are using it, supporting them, the fix gets more and more intense and less enjoyable. I can tell you that. Orrin, I want to read this tweet, or at least part of it from John Favreau, former speechwriter for Obama, one of the, what is it? What's the podcast called? Pod Save America. Sincere question. Do Trump supporters who genuinely want to reduce political violence actually think that lobbying transparently hypocritical accusations about the left's rhetoric is in any way effective? Are we really going to go through another cycle where MAGA folks point out incendiary rhetoric on the left without ever acknowledging that some of the most violent and incendiary rhetoric in America comes from the president and his supporters? Do you not think that the rest of the country has eyes and ears? I genuinely don't know what the hell he's talking about.

because when I play the clips, Orrin, let's, I'll just pick, I have a grab bag here. The team gave me so many here. Here's destiny talking about how close he came to drive into some guy's house and shooting him. Sot 21. I was so, you have known, like, it's actually kind of scary, like how close I was to getting people together to go down to his house and kill him and his family. I was so close to his, dress. I had some streets mapped out and every, you have no idea. That's when I first started to get an interest in like owning a way.

weapon. I got a permit to own a gun and everything. Okay, how about this? This is a Sond Piker, the New York Times Golden Boy, uh, Sot 20. Burt poor people that they can, they, they can afford housing in Berkeley. I don't know how my, my, well, my understanding is that the property owners who have properties there choose just not to rent it at all. Yeah, kill them. Kill those. Kill those murders and murder those in the street. Let the streets, let the streets soak in their red capitalist bloods, dude. So I don't know what John Favreau's talking. I don't know a single concern. I don't know a single conservative that talks like this, I don't, I don't know, maybe they are and maybe they're

fringy. I condemn you if you are that person. I don't know a single, these are mainstream figures on the left. Senators, candidates for Senate in Michigan. What's that guy, L. Saeed or whatever. He's campaigning with that guy. So I don't understand what this, you know, both sidesism is, Oren. I don't see it. And I'm sick of being called like I'm some fascist Nazi that want blood in the ship. I've never called for that. I don't know anybody respectable that has called for that. Yeah. And when, for example, when the president said that stuff about Rob Reiner, we said we didn't care for it. No. We didn't like it. And even then, even if it was kind of gross, it was far short of I'm going to go to somebody's house and shoot them. Oh, kill those MF. Like, no. The president doesn't say anything like that. We got the Steve Scalese shooting.

We've got Charlie's assassination. We've got multiple assassination attempts against Trump. Like, what's it going to take? before they put this away or they're just never going to do it i reflect on it orrin the floor is yours both sides both sides need to calm down well like you're saying even if you could find a bunch of clips of right wing or saying something comparable which i don't think you can the proof is in the pudding we've seen what's actually happened the truth is that joe biden wasn't dodging bullets on a regular basis that you didn't see left-wing political activists taking bullets when they're at speeches on college campuses, the truth is that we can see what is actually causing violence in the United States, who's really getting it done. And that's obviously the left. And they're never going to stop.

They're never going to dial this back. They're never going to take ownership for this. They're never going to stop and reflect on what they're doing to the body politic. Because like I said, this has been a key feature of leftist politics for decades now. And they expect to get away with unchecked. And so what we need is consequences. There have to be real. That's right. serious consequences directly from the government on what's going on here. If every one of these platforms can shut down something like Parlor because that was supposed to be the way that January 6 was coordinated, then certainly you can shut down something like Blue Sky that is currently pumping this rhetoric out routinely. All right, but Orrin, and I saw you tweet about that and I thought it was a great point. Because Parlor was singled out, targeted for inciting violence.

And we cried that that was anti-free speech, okay? So what's the argument? So if we actually got some backbone and we pressured Tim Cook and Google to take down Blue Sky from the app store, you know, what's what's the counter to that? I don't understand at this point people who think that going out and encouraging the murder of conservatives is going to somehow be permissible under any understanding of free speech, right? Like there's one thing where we're complaining about how other political parties act. It's another thing to openly and regularly call for violence, which is something we see on blue sky a lot. It's not some theoretical thing that's going on over there. And we also know that these groups are coordinating on places like Discord on a regular basis to do violence.

Discord knows this coordination is happening. They regularly ban right-wing chats where none of this is happening, but they will allow left-wing chats where violence is actually. actively being coordinated. So these tech platforms are just allowing for the expression of alternative political views. They're not here saying we have to shut down all discussion on the efficacy of communism or even open borders immigration. What I'm saying is we have to stop people from openly and repeatedly calling for the murder of conservatives for planning the murder of conservatives on their platform. I totally agree. I think there needs to be drastic measures taken. And the fact that this is not even covered by incitement, like this apparently doesn't meet the, you know, Hassan Piker calling for blood in the streets of capitalist or whatever doesn't even meet the, because it's not a specific imminent threat. It's just like a broad idea. So you can't get them on that. There's got to be protections for this stuff, openly calling for political murder and assassination. We played another clip in hour one of Hassan Piker saying somebody's got to do it and everybody laughs. And he's like, you all know what I'm talking about. Yeah.

because they're all on the Discord chats. They're all on Blue Sky. They're all on Reddit. They know exactly what they're talking about. And this guy, this Minacqua, you know, brewing company, he said, oh, we got so close to giving you free beer. Somebody's got to get better at marksmanship. We got so close today.

This is so prevalent and so mainstreamed on the left that you have, there has to be a law. There has, and if we don't have one, make a damn law that can actually convict and prosecute these people that are, are, throwing our political system in disarray by, you know, promoting violence. I mean, Blake, you're the one who always, course. Well, I'm going to be a skeptic here because I think by this point, we're pretty aware of how this plays out, because we've seen it play out online.

Every time we're going to pass a law to tamp down on extreme rhetoric online or this or, like, the latest new threat, it always will end up being used vastly more against the right than the left. So if we pass a law that says, you can't advocate violence online, it'll just be. they'll continue to advocate violence online, but they'll have another tool to ban the parlors of the future for, they don't need to play fair. Yeah, I mean, that's true, but go ahead, Oran. Yeah. Sorry, I think less than new laws, what we need is aggressive enforcement. What we need is the willingness to go after these organizations to find existing violations to apply pressure and let the left know that there's a true social cost for what they're doing. Would additional laws be helpful in that? Yes. And if they are, okay, great, but I don't think the key is passing new legislation. I think the key is taking hold of the enforcement mechanism and using those aggressively.

We've already seen the left do things like really thoroughly punish anti-abortion protesters because they disagree with their politics. We know that they didn't need to write a whole bunch of new laws to make that happen. We can see similar actions from the Trump administration without having to go out there and pass a bunch of draconian laws. We just need to use what's on the books to apply pressure on a regular basis. Yeah, well, and I hope you're right. SPLC, is it the first of many indictments to come down the pike?

I certainly hope so. And I, you know, it wasn't lost on me, Orrin, that there was a connection just a couple days after that story broke. I can't say that, you know, it was the spark, but it was certainly noteworthy. Charlie's last text to Stephen Miller was calling for the need and the urgent need to defund these networks that finance these groups, that fund them, that, that, that, But, you know, it's gotten, the virus has spread so far that it's like, you know, I don't know how you tackle it all, but I think you're right. You have to start with accountability with some and start sending the message that this isn't okay.

But the question then becomes how. You don't like new laws. Okay. You can enforce what we already have. I get that. I guess what I'm struggling with here, Orrin, is the problem seems so widespread. It's difficult to know where to start. No, it's obviously a huge problem because, as we both have already acknowledged,

we waited this, waited to do this too long. We let it fester. We let it grow. We let it get well beyond what we should have. And now, if we want to get root and branch, it's grown so far that we're going to have to go pretty deep to get it out. Now, like I said, I think the beginning of this, the dominoes that need to fall as we're talking about are hitting groups like the SPLC, the ADL, groups that we know are regularly going after conservatives that are keeping basically hitless databases that allow you to fundraise off of exposing where conservatives live and how to most easily harass them, get them fired, you know, get them docs, all of these things. There are entire basically underground leftist militias doing this 24-7.

And they do that because they have the structure, the encouragement, the funding of these major organizations. If we can go out and root that out, will that clean everything out of the system? No. But it will get us some of the key funding mechanisms, the key organizational tools. And I am someone who's a big believer in what we call elite theory. I think that leadership and organization drive political. action when the money dries up when the leadership dries up when the rhetoric dries up when the

free pass on violence dries up i think you'll see a lot of this leftist uh progressive machine blow away not everything we won't magically solve the problem but i think it does a lot to kind of cut this hydra off not at each little head but at the trunk where this thing is really flowing from i think i think that's right i think the the second you disrupt their networks and their ease of of being, their ease of talking, you really do sort of make things very difficult on them. I think you would at least see much less. People would be much less inclined to speak openly the way that they are. Listen, the First Amendment is sacrosynct. I get that. But I'm starting to get really fed up with people celebrating assassination culture and getting away with it. There's got to be something that

you can do to take these people on and to make their lives a living hell, to be honest. And again, I go back to this Monaco guy. You know, he's doubling down. Fox reached out to him for a comment and then basically said Fox is guilty of inspiring all this political violence. Again, this both sides of them. They just, they use Trump

as the catch-all for, oh, we're justified in what we do because Trump. We're justified in the violence that we encourage because Trump. He's the fascist. He's the Nazi. They are so dug into this position that it's difficult to know what to do with it. Orrin McIntyre, columnist and blaze TV hosts,

the Orrin McIntyre show, I recommend everybody check it out. Orrin is a dissident thinker, and he's at the front lines of a lot of the, I would say, emergent thought on the right. He's a Protestant guy who kind of bridges those worlds too, which is really interesting. Oren, thank you for making the time. You can check him out at Oren McIntyre on X as well. Great follow. Thank you, Oren.

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So Mark, welcome back to the show. Give us your impression of the evening as you saw it from your vantage point and kind of everything that's ensued since. Mark Halper. Well, you saw me there because I'm a lingerer. There was reporting to be done. And I'm surprised how quickly everybody left. So I stayed around and I was with some nice people. I think the camera is probably showing them not me.

I think there's three main things I'm focused on about tonight. And I'm happy to talk about them in depth. But one is the security was inadequate. I know the president and others are saying what a great job the service did. And in some level they did. But I was a guest in the hotel. I was in and around the hotel for three days. And I'm stunned at how lax the security was from all three floors that are germane to that.

So I really hope they learn the lessons of what happened. And I know Cash Patel said this morning that they were making changes. I hope they do. Second is the level of liberal media bias just continues. Caroline Leavitt just talked about it at the briefing. But if someone who'd written. the mirror image of what this guy has written who's been accused of the shooting about Barack Obama, say. And Barack Obama, this is a third time the country, somebody tried to kill him.

It'd be covered much differently by the media than it's being covered. And I really wish my colleagues would think through that. I know they don't like Donald Trump. I know they like to pretend he didn't win the popular vote in the electoral college. But it's really unfortunate how divisive that is. And then lastly, I'd say for those on the right, including the president, who say, you know, we need to lower. our voices and changed rhetoric, the president and others on the right who have used inflammatory

rhetoric also need to consider their role in all this. And if they wanted to change, they can help contribute to it by not just criticizing the left, but also by lowering the level of the rhetoric on the right as well. I'll be honest with you, Mark. You are, you're unbiased and I, appreciate that. But I'm just, you know, I don't see the both sidesism. You know, I don't, I really don't buy that argument. I understand that that's what the left is saying. I just read John Fervro's tweet who said, you know, are you guys really going to just, you know, be so hypocritical as to not own your own side? And it's like, well, I don't know about you, Mark, but I don't know how many assassination attempts it's going to take or, or successful ones in Charlie's

case before we dropped that and the left actually owns their side of the aisle here. I mean, this is just, this just happened. This is J. B. Pritzker on CNN, Sot 33. Remember that it's been Donald Trump and the Republicans that have called for political violence. You know, Donald Trump from the very beginning, remember when he talked about a protester at one of his rallies that they should just beat him up, punch him? You know, he's talked about the death penalty for General Mark Millie. He has called for jailing his political opponents, me included. it. So this is a president who unfortunately slips into that mode so easily. But I think we should get away from all of that. I'm sure that we can find examples across both sides of the aisle.

I'm sure we could. We've been playing him on the show all day. I so I understand what you're saying, you know, but it's like one side mark. You know, even when Trump says what he says, he's not saying some vigilante go out and take him out. But we have multiple examples on the, the left where that's being essentially vocalized, right? And I can play you montage. I'll play you a montage that's stripped down. This isn't even the bad one. This is just from elected leaders, from Democrats. Sat 8. I'll play this and get your reaction. Sot 8. People need to start taking to the streets. This is a dictator. You know, there needs to be unrest in the streets for as long as there's unrest in our lives. Enemies of the state. Show me where it says that protests are supposed to be

polite and peaceful. Do something about your dad's immigration practices, you feckless. If they go low, we kid. How do you resist the temptation to run up and bring her neck? The biggest terror threat in this country is white men, most of them radicalized right up to the right.

I thought he should have punched him in the face. I'd like to punch him in the face. I said, if we're in high school, I'd take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him. Punch some people in the face. When was the last time an actor assassinated the president. They're still going to have to go out and put a bullet in Donald Trump, and that's a fact. I mean, listen, these are montage to other people put together. I could agree with some of those

clips, others not so much. But the point is, like, this fascist, tyrant stuff, this Nazi stuff, it is totally saturated certain quarters of Reddit and certain quarters of blue sky. I just don't see it both ways. And I'm open to your arguments here. You and I agree about two things and maybe disagree about one. The two we agree about is the comments you just played, you could, you could play comments like that for five hours from top elected officials and people in the blue media. And, and, and there's no, there's almost no accountability for it. And we agree that the press is completely biased about all this stuff and don't treat the two sides equally. So those are two asymmetries that are super important. And you and I, I don't think disagree a shred about those things.

And I've said that a lot. But I think the thing, it seems we disagree about is you can't say that the rhetoric on the right, you'd have to say it's equal if you don't want to. But you have to say the president has engaged in course rhetoric also. He, you know, he celebrated the death of Rob Reiner, someone who was very important to people on the left. I could give you a hundred examples, if you'd like, that are comparable. We actually, just so you know what, we can, we condemn that on this show. Actually, and I wrote something very nice about Rob Reiner when he was killed by his son. I'm glad, but, but not everybody in the right does. I would say the mass pardon of, the January 6th, the people convicted for crimes connected to January 6th. Same thing. You can say,

you don't condemn it, but it really does divide the country. So it doesn't mean, I'm saying everything's equal. It's not both sidesism, but the president, if you agree with me about the Rob Reiner one, I could probably get you to agree to 100 others. The president, if he really wants to bring the country together, doesn't mean he has to turn the other cheek for the outrages of the first two categories. But he can't say there's no third category, because you've acknowledged there's at least one and there's a lot more. I mean, I would acknowledge that there are certain things that the president has said that are rough and gruff. I certainly agree with that. But I would say that, you know, when you're looking

at it from a perspective of what he's been up against, I actually understand that he wants to fight back and push back. But again, there is a distinction between vigilanteism and assassination culture, what you hear from Hassan Piker and the glorification of Luigi Mangione, compared to saying somebody should get the death penalty, meaning like through the system, he should be prosecuted, held accountable. There should be, you know, one side is using this, when you hear that rhetoric from one side,

it's very distinct. It's one side saying, use the system to hold people accountable. The other side is saying blood in the streets. And I just, it's not equivalent in my mind. To kind of tie them together here, I think the best point for what Mark is arguing is, Donald Trump is the president of the United States. There is a certain weight that comes to everything a president does.

He certainly has vastly more power to make sure anyone hears what he says. It affects people a lot more what he says. And he said some stuff that you and I have both said, it's not very presidential. It's not good, frankly. It's not even good politically. Well, but it also, I think I agree with what you just said, it also divides the country. You just can't deny that it also divides the country. It doesn't erase the first two categories that I said,

but it's a reality that it divides the country. And as you guys know, there are many Republicans who you're friends with who feel even more strongly than you do, who support the president but feel more strongly than you do even, and express it sometimes about how to visit the president can be in their view unnecessarily. And Blake, as you said, sometimes not in this political interest. Yes, but at the same time, I think in terms of really trying to lay out specific

cases where they seem dead serious that political violence is justified. I do think we see that more on the left. And we've seen it a decade at this point. And it's coming to in the polling. When he took office, when he took, yeah, it comes through in the polling where they say more explicitly, sometimes violence is good. We've seen, for example, at the start of the president's first term, so well before he said a lot of the thing, before January 6th, before anything he said about Rob Reiner, we had the whole, you know, when is it okay to punch a Nazi? That was a big talking point that went around on the left to justify why Antifa might assault people at the inauguration or at other events. There is a history to this to the left that I think we see it bubbling up more and more. We even see it in other countries.

In Italy, I believe, they elected a member of Antifa to the European Parliament or their own parliament just so that they wouldn't get arrested for literally assaulting someone with a hammer. I think there is something to be said that the left has street violence and occasionally assassination more baked into its political rhetoric and its political practice. Yeah. And if my colleagues in the press covered it fairly and equally and equitably, I think everybody would be better off because there wouldn't be so much resentment on the right. And the president wouldn't feel satisfied as he often does and saying, I'm a counterpuncher. I'm just going after people like Rob Reiner who went after me. That's the people who are at fault as much as anybody else is people in the press who cover one side tough and the other side barely at all. Yeah, I mean, I agree with that completely.

Mark, stay right there. I want to talk about, you know, the issue of live events of gathering together in public. There's a whole move of people that are saying, we just can't do it anymore. I think that would be a tragedy for the country. All right. So the Jimmy Kimmel incident, I'm going to talk about this first. So we'll play the clip. He did a mock, I guess, White House correspondent speech.

And we'll play the clip, Sot 13. Our first lady, Melania, is here. Look at, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow. So Melania now has tweeted and said, Kimmel's hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn't comedy. his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America.

And then she eventually says enough is enough. It's time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC's leadership enable Kimmel's atrocious behavior at the expense of our community? Trump is just truth social, basically saying he's no way in funny, terrible television ratings. He was there for very obvious. He's talking about the shooter. Basically, they're all taking shots at Kimmel. Sorry, I'm just reading this because it just broke right as,

we as we brought this up and he says jimmy kimmel should be immediately fired by disney and a bc thank you for attention to this matter um i i happen to i think jimmy kimmel is a is a scumbag i tweeted i tweeted as much over the weekend um i still am not over the fact that he called charlie's assassin part of maga and then had a chance to apologize take it back he didn't correct the record i think he's a coward um but he this is america there is free speech how do you square that circle Look, on the one hand, as you said, free speech, on the other, 50% of America has had to deal with the reality that these broadcast networks think it's fine to have all liberals and anti-Trump people host these shows. It's not equitable. It's not symmetrical. It's not fair. I think it's fine, even though the president oversees the FCC. I think it's fine for the Trumps to have free speech and reaction to Jimmy Kimmel's offensive humor to them and say he should be fired. And it's fine if ABC doesn't want to fire him. They're a private company. The market should decide if his ratings are good and ABC wants to keep him on.

And if people want to accept that, that's fine. I just, as always, I say, if Jimmy Kimmel had made that joke about Barack Obama and to Michelle Obama, imagine what the coverage would be like. And the dominant media covers this story to the extent they cover it. And I've been watching cable. I've not seen it on cable yet all day since the first lady first went on Twitter. But they cover it barely at all. And they covered kind of like an interesting media story.

rather than the way they would cover it if a comedian had said it about Michelle Obama, that they'd be covering it as an outrage and demanding the guy be fired. So, you know, that's part of what drives this is. It's people on the right who feel just not fair that Jimmy Kimmel and ABC act like he's just a comedian when, in fact, he's a partisan. I want to play, I want to show you a tweet from Charlie. He said assassination culture is spreading on the left. 48% of liberals say it would be at least somewhat justified to, murder Elon Musk. Fifty-five percent said the same about Donald Trump. In California, activists are

naming ballot measures after Luigi Mangione. The left is being whipped into a violent frenzy. Any setback, whether losing an election or losing a court case, justifies maximally violent response. This is the natural outgrowth of left-wing protest culture, tolerating violence and mayhams for years on end. The cowardice of local prosecutors and school officials have turned the left into a ticking time bomb. And then there's the graphs, you know, justifying that it was a poll that was taken. Is it safe to hold events, Mark, in this climate? Well, I'm very disappointed, as I said in an earlier segment about the level of lack of security at the dinner. I think there's a way to secure almost any venue if you spend enough money on it and give the professionals enough time.

So we have to have events. And I couldn't agree with the president more. You can't let people exercise a veto, a terrorist, heck veto over holding public events. So, yeah, we just need to plan and we need to secure and we need to spend the money to do it. But it's vitally important. And I mean, the reality is, this has been a reality since 9-11, now, you know, quarter century. We have an incredibly open society. You know, you know, Charlie knew full well.

You guys know better than I do. Charlie knew full well that there were dangers to going out. and he had security, but our society's open. And if somebody's determined, even with the President of the United States, they can get a shot. So it's imperative to have good people in public life. There will be people who don't run for president in 2028, who otherwise would have run because their families say no, too dangerous. And if you're not Donald Trump with your own plane and your own ability to afford security,

it's a risk no matter who you are. So we got to spend enough money to keep people safe so the National Town Square is available to everybody. Yeah, I think you're right. I think we have to acknowledge the risk, but we can't allow ourselves to live as a society under siege. I think we need to rebuild the moral consensus against this. Yes. One of the things we've talked about, frankly, I just, I think this would be useful as if we just said, if you attempt to assassinate a public figure, even if you fail, it should be capital crime. It should be like this person. He should face the death penalty for what he did. Because that is one of the ways you send the message, this is not acceptable. In this society, we debate things,

we vote on things, we argue about things, we do not try to shoot people for what their views are, period. And I think we need to build that consensus. I think it's hard to get a conviction on that, but you're right. And I think that's what we're arguing about here, because right now we're stuck at this like both sides thing and the left is saying the right started it. The right is saying the left started it. Frankly, I think the argument's stronger in our favor, but we're just or arguing about, you know, it's a he said, she said. It's a circular argument. I don't know where we're going to get anywhere.

But at some point, I think that my inclination is there has to be real consequences, rooting out some of the support structures and permission structures that enable this. Because if you look at the polling mark, there's a lot more liberals that think this is okay than conservatives. As a matter of fact, the more conservative are, the less you agree that this is justifiable. So final 10, 15 seconds to you, Mark. I just, the left should not be passive or complacent because the media favors them on this. They should really look at themselves.

Everybody in public life should look at themselves and say, are they contributing to this or not? Mark Halperin, it was good to see you on TV. I'm sorry I didn't see you in the room. Yes, sir. I'll see it the next one. I'll see it the next one. I know.

We'll see you later. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust. Charliekirk.com.