The Daily - The Assassination of Charlie Kirk

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

Charlie Kirk, the conservative organizer, activist and media mogul, died on Wednesday after being shot during an appearance at Utah Valley University.Mr. Kirk brought millions of young Americans in to the Republican Party, and to the ballot box for Donald Trump.Robert Draper, who profiled Charlie Kirk for The New York Times Magazine, discusses Mr. Kirk’s improbable rise to power, his stunning assassination, and his controversial legacy.Guest: Robert Draper, a Washington, D.C.-based journalist for The New York Times.Background reading: Read the profile of Charlie Kirk from February.Read updates about the shooting.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. Photo: Nic Antaya for The New York Times Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

At about noon on Wednesday, Charlie Kirk, the conservative organizer, activist, and media mogul, takes the stage for the latest stop on what he's been calling the American comeback tour. It's a series of talks that he's holding at colleges across the country. This stop was at Utah Valley University. about 30 minutes south of Salt Lake City. As the event gets underway, Kirk starts to work the audience

of about 3,000 people. Bring the best lids that Utah has to offer. He starts tossing Trump-themed hats into the crowd. Then he settles into a chair, underneath a tent, where he prepares to field questions in a debate format that Kirk likes to call

call, prove me wrong. A few minutes into this, Kirk is asked the kind of question that he relishes by a liberal-sounding person in the audience. So do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years? Too many. This person follows up, trying to establish just how rare it is for a trans person to carry out a mass shooting. Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?

Kirk responds with a follow-up question of his own. Counting or not counting gang vitals. Great. When suddenly, a single shot rings out. What happens next is captured by cell phone cameras from seemingly every angle. Kirk slumps over. Blood begins to pour out of his neck. He falls out of the chair.

It is clear that he is gravely wounded. people in the crowd start to scream and then they start to run. Meanwhile, Kirk is rushed to a car then taken to a nearby hospital where a short time later, he's declared dead. There are news outlets reporting the worst right now, Glenn. The moment that the news becomes official,

there is an outpouring of grief from the country's most prominent conservative. They're reporting that Charlie has died, that he's dead at the age of 31. Megan Kelly weeps on air. So does Glenn back. There's no way he survived that. The only good thing is it had to have happened quickly. And over at Fox News, the anchors observe a moment of silence for Kirk.

in the middle of their broadcast. Charlie, we love you. I don't really know where you go from here. I don't know where we go from here in a news program and I don't know where we go from here in America. From the New York Times, I'm Michael Babaro. This is The Daily. Today.

The story of how Charlie Kirk built a conservative empire that brought millions of young Americans into the Republican Party and to the ballot box for Donald Trump. I speak to my colleague Robert Draper about Kirk's improbable rise to power, his stunning assassination, and his controversial legacy. It's Thursday, September 11th. Robert, thank you for making time for us on a difficult evening. Sure thing, Michael.

Can you just describe how it is you learned that Charlie Kirk had died? Yes, I was about to go into a lengthy interview at about 3 o'clock when I saw a report that Kirk had been shot. I contacted Kirk's communications director, Andrew Colvitt, who, who confirmed to me that it had been shot and shot in the neck, but that he didn't have any other details. Colvert wasn't within that day. So my phone had kind of blown up, and my editor had contacted me to let me know that Kirk had apparently died,

but she would like confirmation, and could I get it? So I reached out to Andrew Colvert again, and he did pick up in an extremely emotional voice, confirmed that Charlie Kirk, who had worked with for years and who was like a brother to him, had died of an assassin's bullet. And after sort of working through my astonishment, it occurred to me, Michael, that Charlie Kirk was, in a sense, killed in the line of duty, or at least duty as he, to find it. Explain that. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, he was on a campus. He was at Utah Valley University campus speaking young people, which happened to be the mission statement of the organization that he co-founded, Turning Point USA. say. I think that after Trump himself, no one is more responsible for the Republicans winning over young voters to the extent that they did in 2024 than Kirk and his group. The thing about Kirk is that he became a media personality, a close advisor to the Trump family, to the president himself. But at bottom, he was still a youth organizer. And so there he was. You know, it's a well after Trump's last election showing up doing the thing that he was famous for. Well, tell us the story, Robert, of how it is that Kirk came to this work of essentially evangelizing for the Republican Party for Donald Trump, in particular, among young people, and how he became so successful at it.

And here I just want to explain why we're turning to you for this conversation. you closely cover the conservative movement in the United States for the Times, and you spent weeks traveling with Kirk. That's like until speaking to everyone who knows him and interacts with him to try to piece together that very story for us. And so I wonder if you can tell it here, how it is that Charlie Kirk became Charlie Kirk. Yes, I mean, we'll start with two facts. One is that he grew up in a wealthy Chicago suburb, Prospect Heights, a member of a conservative family. And so it was a conservative kid himself. And we should mention that Kirk died at the age of 31.

So we're talking about during his teenage years, he grew up during the Obama era. And all of his classmates were big fans of Obama's. And Kirk could see why they were. He could see why Obama was cool, why Obama had appeal. And why, correspondingly, the Republican Party had its work cut out for him because they were seen as somewhat fossilized. You know, no one could describe Mitt Romney as cool and the fiscal conservatism arguments as being sort of cutting edge and appealing to younger folks. So this is what, you know, Kirk began to see. And he was a political nerd.

He wasn't just that. He was a basketball player on his high school team. But he loved Rush Limbaugh. And he would during lunch hours go sequester himself and listen to Limbaugh by himself. And I think he not only became enraptured by Limbaugh's arguments, but by the sort of cult of celebrity that Limbaugh had established as, you know, this outrageous voice who would lampoon the left at every turn. This, to Kirk, seemed cool if there was just some way to convince younger people of it. Right, because, of course, Russ Limbaugh was owning. the libs before owning the libs was even a thing. Absolutely. Yeah, going back to the 1980s. And so

there was something very appealing about Limbaugh to Charlie Kirk. Kirk is graduating from high school, thinking of going to college, but not quite sure where to go and exactly what he wants to make of himself. He's bitten by the politics bug, and he loves what Limbaugh does. And he already sees in his imagination some version of himself as an heir to Limbaugh. But how do you monetize that? He had no clue. And in 2009 and 2010, and this is now putting this in time, the Tea Party was underway, having events all over Illinois, and Kirk starts showing up to him as this articulate young voice. And these older people in the audience, Tea Party activists, particularly this guy named Bill Montgomery, saw Charlie Kirk and thought, Charlie, you can go places. He not only encouraged Kirk to continue to speak at these

but to forego a college education. Essentially, he was saying, you know, you can do a lot more for the movement and, frankly, for your own career as a public speaker than you can by being just another dude who goes and gets a college degree. So this began to gather locomotion, and it was along with Bill Montgomery that he established Turning Point USA, not entirely sure what it would be. I just want to thank you for being here today. I'm a son of the American Revolution, and my sister's a darkenedic revolution. He only knew that this was something he loved, that he was getting attention for doing it, and that he was filling a void.

Every single person that believes in FISTO responsibility, limited government, and not spending more money to take in, gets one person that did not vote last time, vote in this election. That there weren't young people around going on college and, for that matter, high school campuses trying to proselyte. young people. That takes you going out in the public square and challenge the ideals, not being afraid of debate, like what we're doing, going into the colleges, debating the professors, debating the students on the same ideals. And what time period are we talking about here? We're talking about 2014, 2015, but then crucially, the Trump candidacy begins.

And Kirk, like so many Republicans, was a little unsure about Trump, was more inclined to support Ted Cruz. But by March or April of 2016, when Trump was making sport of the Republican field, Kirk began to realize, no, no, no, this is the guy who's got it. And Kirk endeavored to insinuate himself into that network. Kirk gets on the Trump family's radar through a succession of events that causes him to be introduced to Donald Trump, Jr., a president's eldest son. And just a few minutes into it, Don Jr. said, you know, look, I could use someone like you. And in a matter of minutes, Charlie Kirk was the assistant to the eldest son of candidate Trump taking over Don Jr.'s social media account as well as his schedule. So exponentially, he became suddenly central to the activities of what would prove to be the winning Republican campaign.

Hmm. And once Kirk has the Trump family's backing, and of course at this point, Trump is now President Trump, what happens to Kirk's little project of trying to win over the young people of America and bring them to the Republican side? As I recall, Trump's victory sets off alarm in a lot of quarters of American University. Sure. I mean, in the years of 2016, 2017, I think even early 2018, Turning Point USA was becoming the dominant organization amongst conservative youth groups. But to be honest, it's not saying much. Young Americans for Freedom, Young Americans for Liberty, these kinds of groups were sort of these William F. Buckley, bow-tied things. And they were kind of easy to knock off. Perks group would open these chapters. And, you know, it's a fairly slipshod. I mean, there'd be, you know, a few people on this campus, a few on another. And it's kind of hard to tell what they were doing. And were they really like registering people to the vote? Where they certainly didn't seem to be moving the needle turnout-wise. That change only began to occur when Kirk came to know the president himself.

December of 2017, Don Jr. invited Kirk to Mar-a-Lago. Trump saw Kirk, had been hearing about Kirk, had been, retweeting Kirk's denunciations of the left, motioned him to come over. And through that conversation, came to charm Trump, as he had so many other older conservatives. I'm excited to be here today

with thousands of proud young American patriots. You're great people. You're great people. You're the future. You're the future. And in turn... Thank you to everyone at Turning Point, USA's Teen Student Action Summit.

What a group. That meant that Trump was a reliable keynote speaker at Turning Point USA events. I want to thank my great friend, and he's a young friend. He's a pretty young guy, Charlie Kirk. I said, how old are you, Charlie? He's a young one. He gave me a number, I won't say, but he's younger than he even looks. which really marks this signal moment after which Turning Point USA's events became the events

amongst not just young conservatives, but really all conservatives. But I'm thrilled to be here tonight with thousands of proud patriotic young Americans at Turning Point USA Student Action Summit. Incredible. The job that Charlie's done. He's the marquee guy, and Trump loved being in front of young people. So it's at that point that these Turning Point USA events really became almost over the top with theatrics. Like what?

Stroves and smoke and crazy lights everywhere and deafening soundtracks and montages of Trump looking like a prize fighter. They really became like rock concerts. In a way that would make, say, CPAC, look very staid. And what's Kirk's message at these events? And how is he seeking to hit a chord with this specific demographic, especially college students? Well, I'd say on the one hand that Kirk's message was mostly indistinguishable from that of Trump. GDP growth, lowest ever black unemployment, lowest ever Latino unemployment, lowest ever women unemployment. And yet, the left is doing everything they can.

to remove this president. Why? Because they don't just hate him. They hate you. He's just in the way. But again, in his ongoing quest to find a way to make conservatism cool for younger people, what Kirk seized upon was the growing resistance on the left and the ways in which that resistance was seeming, at least to some people, excessive. And look, young people on college campuses, you know, they think they're fighting the establishment. Hold on a second. Your professors are liberal.

Your parents are probably liberal. Your friends are liberal. The music you listen to is liberal. Hollywood is liberal. All the movies you watch are liberal. Who are you rebelling against exactly, right? I mean, if you want to be a rebel on a college campus, fight for freedom.

Fight for free speech. Certainly Trump, you'll recall, going all the way back to his beginning of his candidacy in 2015, would talk about political correctness and the idea that you can't speak what's on your mind and the idea that you might get canceled. The resistance in the ways in which it could be lampoon as being just completely beyond the pale was something that Kirk was very adroit at doing. Evergreen State College in Oregon. Some of the students petitioned their professors to have their feelings factored into their grades at the end of semester. At the Clemson University, they had

lecture by one of the diversity officers that requiring students to be on time could be culturally offensive because certain cultures don't look at time the same way as others. You look at some of these outrageous moments that political correctness is used to honestly stifle speech. And something that Trump himself loved doing. And so, you know, in Trump's being outrageous, he's also basically saying, look, for me, telling you like it is, is a safe space, where the left will do everything. everything in its power to squelch your desire, to speak your mind, say, whatever you know,

you want to say without fear of being censored. You guys for a minute here, one of the other things that you've done so successfully during your campaign in presidency is crush political correctness. And the college network that we represent, I represent an organization on 1,200 college and high school campuses is it's harder than ever to espouse support of your presidency and the ideas that you're fighting for. So thank you for what you're doing to help give us the courage. of our convictions to fight against political correctness.

But in that sense, Kirk was sort of an early avatar of the anti-wokeness that became so popular amongst conservatives later. It's a great question. I think the numbers are actually much different than people think. I think we have a lot of support. Right. And if there was a place that at times could be accurately described as woke, it was probably going to be certain college campuses during this period. Certain college campuses where professors were denouncing Trump, but also denouncing particular conservative schools of thought were saying that certain people should not be allowed to speak

on that campus. And these kinds of things, I think, rubbed some students, not all, but certainly some, the wrong way. It seemed discordant with the notion of coming to campus and being able to associate with whomever you want and say whatever you want. Trump and particularly Kirk begin to play to those sentiments. The pitch becomes, be a conservative, because that will allow you to speak your mind, to truly be free, and to buck this oppressive system of liberalism all around you on college campuses. And it seems worth saying that the left at one point on college campuses was the counterculture,

but around this time it's pretty clear that it's just the culture in many of these campuses. and it feels like what's innovative about Kirk's pitches is that at this moment, conservatism can become the counterculture. Yes, because Perks' argument is that it is the left that is suppressing dissent. They were, as you say, really the owners of the culture and thus the oppressors of any kind of countercultural notion.

So it's during this period that Turning Point USA experiences tremendous growth with hundreds of chapters across U.S. campuses, and Kirk has begun to build a viable, very well-funded network that includes a strong media presence with his own podcast and a website that's turning out news stories. But the real test of what to do with all this, where this power can have its real effect, is actually after President Trump loses in 2020 and seeks to come back to political office. And Charlie Kirk, who remains by Trump's side after many Republicans abandoned him after January the 6th, plays an instrumental role in that. And his own influence really skyrockets during that period.

Robert, once President Trump loses in 2020 and ends up in the political wilderness, at a time when I think many of us did not conceive of a path back to the presidency. Kirk is, by your account, ascendant. So what happens in this partnership? Well, for one thing, Kirk never left Trump. What is going on with all the ballot fraud, the voter fraud, voter registration fraud, the irregularities? It's worth recalling that Perk was really at the forefront of 2020 election denialism. I have a new term I want to introduce into the zeitgeist.

It's called ballot laundering. Perk was going to campuses and speaking in other events saying that the election had been stolen from Trump. In Pennsylvania, there was a 1,776% increase in voter registration for 90-plus-year-olds in Pennsylvania. And that was his story, and he was sticking to it just as Trump was. So if I were the Democrats, we have to kind of put our hat on right now and say, what would I do if I were them to cheat? But, Perkins of doing this on his podcast to an increasingly large audience and sounding very much like the Rush Limbaugh. that he always saw himself. And I have to say, when you think about Kirk, we haven't established this yet, but really is an ardent Christian. But his inner Christian, often, at least it seemed to

me, was in conflict with his inner Limbaugh. Interacting with trans people. Like, they're normal people. They just want to exist. They don't want to be... No, no, trans people are not normal people. That's not correct. I think that's so disrespectful. No, it's not disrespectful. And the way that Kirk would harmonize those two seemingly conflicting forces would be to... to posit the left as this godless force within American politics to demonize the left in effect. And so I know you're obviously very anti-trans. I'm pro-reality. Let's elevate our discussion above personal insults.

Let's try to... You see, the left can't debate, so they just call names. The left can't have a dialogue, so they just call names. The left can't have a dialogue, so they just call names. names. And so Kirk, through just the sheer volume of his condemnations of the left, began to take on added prominence in his own right, but particularly as this unflagging defender of the former president in exile. My sense, Robert, is that at this point, Kirk has something pretty unique in the American

political system. He's a celebrity political warrior, saying, outrageous things. I mean, I can remember a tirade he went on against Martin Luther King, of all people, and called him a bad guy. He said that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a mistake. He is saying some truly, in many people's minds, contemptible things. And yet that media empire sits astride a get-out-the-vote political operation that itself is on a scale. That's pretty much unrivaled. And so suddenly you have, in this still very young person, somebody who has built a media and political mobilization operation all housed in one place, Turning Point USA, that is sitting next to the President of the United States with his blessing and support. And so that's just a

tremendous amount of power and influence. And suddenly, it's going to face this huge test in 2024. Yes, and we should establish, too, that those two pieces of his apparatus, the sort of outrageousness of what he's saying and his political organization are by no means in conflict, but instead are both testaments to Kirk's savvy when it came to building influence in the attention economy. So, I mean, as Kirk's celebrity grew, as his power as a conservative influencer, began to augment itself, he was also applying it to the desire of getting Trump elected by establishing a true get-out-de-vote operation in swing states. And he convinced his donors to donate millions and millions of dollars to this end. It was fairly audacious of him. Again, Kirk had, by this point, had the total faith of President Trump and of Trump's family and of Trump's most loyal donor base. And if Charlie Kirk said, this is what we need to do to win, these people fell in lockstep with him.

And so he really began in 2024 in a way that he had not earlier to try to chase ballots and find unlikely voters and turn them out in key states like Wisconsin and Arizona. And one testament to Kirk's efforts came from Trump himself, who said privately to Kirk that you are one of the three or four people who are most responsible for me winning this election. Wow. I mean, it's a stunning statement. Yeah. Kirk actually asked me not to use that statement in the story, but I think it's okay to say it now.

And once Trump wins that second term, what we all began to notice, and this was really when Kirk came on my radar, is that he is suddenly operating with the authority of someone who's basically in the West Wing as an enforcer of what Trumpism means in this second presidency. You're absolutely right. He became the quintessential Trump operator. He now had won the complete trust of President Trump and intended to use that. And Kirk was often in the room when senior staff suggestions were bandied about during the transition, but also to look at the political landscape and particularly focus on Republicans with the intent of making the party completely quiescent to whatever this new president wanted. And that meant, at times, focusing on senators who had been less than enthusiastic in their support of Trump, such as the Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, and basically threatening to primary them if they didn't confirm Trump's nominees and weren't completely brought to heal. Joni Ernst, for her part, was hesitant to confirm the Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegsef.

Right. And part on the grounds that Hegsef had, according to allegations, been abusive to women and Ernst herself was a sexual assault survivor. But after the very public campaign to pressure her led by Kirk, she buckled and she confirmed Heggseth. And what Kirk told me in real time, Michael, was that this was not just an effort limited to changing the behavior of Senator Ernst, but in fact to change. change the behavior of the entire Republican Party and make them understand, you know, this president has been elected by an unassailable majority. And his agenda is what you guys are going to vote for. And if you don't vote for it, you're going to suffer. Right. And it clearly worked because congressional acquiescence is the story of Congress's relationship with President

Trump. And so this is the apex of Charlie Kirk's. power. At this point, he's not just winning over young conservatives. He is, in a sense, calling the shots of who gets to stay in the United States Congress, and he's helping make sure that a wide range of policies do not face any meaningful opposition from lawmakers. That's right. I think for all the reasons you're describing here, it almost goes without saying that Kirk's murder on Wednesday leaves a huge void. I mean, the party has arguably lost its most potent connection to young voters and the greatest practitioner of attracting them to the party coming out and voting.

And I wonder who fills that void and if it's even fillable. I think it's no understatement, Michael, to say that there's no person who can replace Kirk. Whatever one thinks of Kirk's views, it's pretty unchallengable that he was singularly gifted at the art of speaking with fluency and a total conviction about the virtues of conservatism as practiced by Donald Trump. He possessed these oratorical gifts. He possessed a real organizational savvy, and he possessed this remarkable ability to woo and galvanize. donors. People like that don't grow on trees. I really don't know what Turning Point USA does without Charlie Kirk. Because of Kirk's centrality to the Trump world and really to the future of Magaism, it seems hard to imagine that this is not going to be treated as an act of political

violence. And the latest in a string of them over the past few years directed at leaders of both political parties. There's the effort to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer. There's the effort to kidnap Nancy Pelosi. There was the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. The list goes on and on. And each time people come to the conclusion that their party is being targeted

because of who Kirk is, it seems hard to imagine that this is not going to be seen as an attack correct me if I'm wrong, on Trump, on Trump-ism. Now, we have to acknowledge at this hour 8.15 p.m. on Wednesday, we don't know anything about the motivation

of who did this. We don't even have a suspect in custody that could change, but right now, we don't. But knowing what you know about this movement, is this going to be seen as a kind of proxy attack against the president? I wish I could disagree with you, Michael. I really do. No, it will, without question, be viewed as an act of political violence

against not just a leading voice of Trumpism, But Trumpism itself, the reaction will be very much of a piece with the reaction following the attempted assassination of candidate Trump in 2024. Already you see this language cropping up on social media. You're seeing the third person plural, they, they did this to Charlie Kirk, which is what we saw so often, you know, after the Butler, Pennsylvania assassination attempt on Trump. So, yeah, I find it very difficult to imagine that this will in any way quell. the sort of political passions and division that often arises from these acts of violence. Now, I think it's going to intensify them. How are you processing all of this yourself as someone who has spent so much time with Charlie Kerr?

Not just the movement, but the man. Yeah, I've spent a lot of time with Kirk. We remained in frequent touch. We had dinner in Washington a month or two ago. I noticed that he had security with him, and he told me that he had been receiving death threats, but he seemed, you know, to just act like that was, that came with a territory. I found Kurt to be a very remarkable young man. And for me, you know, as a reporter, someone who really was useful in shedding insights on Trump, on Trumpism, on the future of the Republican

party. And I, you know, came to know his wife, Erica. And I really grieve for her at this moment. I mean, it's a, his two young children, it's a terrible. thing that's happened. And Kirk and I actually were texting yesterday. There's a magazine project that I'm undertaking, and I wanted to come visit with him and talk to him about it. He wrote back and said, please, how many time? Let's fix a date. I even proposed to Kirk a specific date. That was the last text I sent him. I didn't hear back, and obviously I won't hear back. Robert, thank you. We very much appreciate it. You're welcome.

In Utah on Wednesday night, police said that they were still searching for Kirk Shooter. To my great fellow Americans, I am filled with grief and anger at the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk on a college campus in Utah. And in Washington, President Trump released a tribute to Kirk. from the Oval Office. His mission was to bring young people into the political process, which he did better than anybody ever. In which, without evidence, Trump blamed the rise of political violence, including the attempt on his own life last year,

exclusively on the political left, and promised to use his power to pursue the liberal individuals and groups who, he said, have encouraged. encouraged such violence. For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible

for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to another day. This morning, I introduced a very simple amendment that directs the Attorney General to release the Epstein files. In a surprise maneuver on Wednesday, the Democratic leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, tried to force a vote on releasing all of the government's files on Jeffrey Epstein.

Ask, my Republican colleagues, after all those years you spent calling for accountability, for transparency, for getting to the bottom of these awful crimes, why won't you vote yes? But Senate Republicans blocked the vote with their leader, Senator John Thune, calling Schumer's effort a political stunt. Today's episode was produced by Diana Wynne, Olivia Nat, Anna Foley, Astha Chattervedi, and Michael Simon Johnson. It was edited by Devin Taylor and Rachel Quester, fact-checked by Susan Lee, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Special thanks to Kellyn Browning. That's it for the daily. I'm Michael Bobar.

See you tomorrow.