The Dan Bongino Show - Rest In Peace Charlie Kirk | Episode 123

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

On the anniversary of 9/11, we look at Charlie Kirk's life and all the good he's done as well as the political environment in America that got us here.  News Picks: Charlie Kirk noting assassination culture on the left months ago https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1909391943802703899 Ghoulish Dems, liberals are blaming Trump, Charlie Kirk for his own assassination — as MSNBC analyst is fired over comments https://nypost.com/2025/09/10/us-news/ghoulish-dems-liberals-are-blaming-charlie-kirk-for-his-own-assassination/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. Charlie inspired millions in tonight. All who knew him and loved him are united in shock and horror. Charlie was a patriot who devoted his life to the cause of open debate and the country that he loved so much, the United States of America. He fought for liberty, democracy, justice, and the American people. He's a martyr for truth and freedom, and there's never been anyone who was so respected by youth. Charlie was also a man of deep, deep faith, and we take comfort in the knowledge that he is now at peace with God in heaven.

Our prayers are with his wife, Erica, the two young, beloved children, and his entire family. who he loved more than anything in the world. We ask God to watch over them in this terrible hour of heartache and pain. This is a dark moment for America. Our Father, who are in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day, us this day that daily bread forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever amen charlie kirk was assassinated yesterday at uh he Utah Valley University we were live on the radio show we were about to close it out yesterday and we were going into our final segment and it was this audience

actually that alerted me first to the news which like you I was completely staggered by and we were able to not able to we we had the track obligation to bring the first reports of the shooting to the national radio audience yesterday many of you have messaged me about finding out about that on the program and it was when that hour had concluded all of us were were praying still holding out hope that there was hope for for charlie to survive this and to be with us in fact even at this hour as i'm talking to you now it does feel it still feels like he's alive. Charlie Kirk is a lot. He's 31 years old. He's not only he's alive, he's going to be here forever. It's definitely the thought that just keeps running

through my mind. And yet that, that of course is not true. He's gone. And we're going to do a lot today. I'm going to, I'm going to do a lot today. I want to talk to you about the impact that Charlie Kirk has. I think in a lot of ways, Charlie Kirk's life had a measurable impact. You could see the size of the crowds that would attend his events. You could see the size of the audience that he spoke to on the internet and on television and wherever he got a chance to communicate his great message. You can see all of that. There are things you can't see, though, just behind the scenes, how much influence he was

able to wield on behalf of the rest of us as such a young man, 31 years old and so impactful, living the kind of life that people twice his age only dream that they would have been able to live. He did it in 31 years. so we're going to talk about that today i want to start this morning as we start this show with breaking news we need to catch charlie's killer the assassin needs to be captured now any number of things can change by the time you're hearing this if you're watching me live of course this is just based on what we know at this hour by the time you hear this on a

podcast perhaps later uh hopefully god willing the assassin's been taken into custody by authority and we can and we can move on towards justice here but already this morning the FBI and the Utah Department of Public Safety have just done a briefing in the wake of the shooting yesterday they took into custody two different people persons of interest they questioned them and then subsequently released both of those individuals but as of this morning they now claim that they do have clear video footage of the assassin. And I want to take you now to the statement just made moments ago. You're going to hear from the commissioner of Utah's Department of Public Safety.

You're also going to hear from the FBI. Here's what they said again, just moments ago this morning. 11 law enforcement has come together as a group to recognize and honor those that sacrificed to preserve the ideals of this country, the freedoms of this country, the freedoms of this country and instead we find ourselves today hunting a murderer who chose to violate our rights the rights of an individual within this country just to recap yesterday's events at around 12.20 p.m. political influencer Charlie Kirk was at Utah Valley University participating in a student-sponsored event with

turning point USA Charlie was shot at that event he was transported to a local hospital where he later passed last night his body was moved to the office the state office of the medical examiner we will continue to facilitate movements to get him home today and with his family yesterday during the investigative process we located couple of persons of interest we interviewed those individuals and after releasing them and after clearing them but being suspects they face scrutiny they face threats we asked the public to be patient with the investigative

process these individuals were not suspects they were people of interest we ask that you do not impose into those in those people and that investigated process they don't deserve that harassment for for being subject to that. I'd like to thank all the investigators that are involved in this. They have worked around the clock all day yesterday through the night last night. Investigators from the State Bureau of investigations, from county, from city agencies, the university, our federal partners with the FBI, the ATF, and many others.

Those are just a few of the people that we have involved in this. I'd like to thank all of them for their strong work. Through all that work last night, we were able to make it. a few breakthroughs. There's the key. We were able to track the movements of the shooter. Starting at 11.52 a.m., the subject arrived on campus, shortly away from campus.

We have tracked his movements onto the campus, through the stairwells, up to the roof, across the roof, to a shooting location. After the shooting, we were able to track his movements as he moved to the other side of the building, jumped off of the building, and fled. off of the campus and into a neighborhood. Our investigators have worked

through those neighborhoods, contacting anybody they can with doorbell cameras, witnesses, and have thoroughly worked through those communities trying to identify any leads. We do have good video footage of this individual. We are not going to release that at this time. We are working through some technologies and some ways to identify this individual.

If we are unsuccessful, we will reach out to you as the media, and we will push that publicly to help us identify them. But we are confident in our abilities right now, and we would like to move forward in a manner that keeps everyone safe and moves this process appropriately. Okay, let me just pausing on this for a moment. So what you're hearing from the commissioner of the Department of Public Safety in Utah is, yes, they've got clear imagery of the guy. And that comes as a great relief that they've got that. clearly their position at the moment is we're going to use our technology to track this guy down if necessary we will release the images to the public to get that assistance but they must feel like they're getting close without public assistance here and god willing they do get this

guy you'll this is that is after we saw very grainy footage we saw grainy footage of a man at the top of a roof uh with a clear line of sight down to Charlie inside that amphitheater at the university and and but other than that we had just hadn't had any clear images not at least publicly the law enforcement now saying they do have that that's a big and important change this morning last night i communicated with erika the family's devastated as a commissioner of public safety as a father as a husband i can only imagine what that family is going through. The heinous event that happened yesterday is not Utah. This is not what we're known for. Over the past several weeks, we've seen this state

come together to help families in mourning. Come together as a community to show what Utah is known for, for a state of character, of service, of camaraderie, of a neighboring field. We will not stand for what happened yesterday. We are exhausting every lead. We have every officer invested in this, every investigator, every local agency. The outpouring of support from the law enforcement community has been astounding. We are investing everything we have into this and we will catch this individual. Having walked through the crime scene, through the hallways of this school, through the classrooms,

I can't imagine what the people on scene felt as well. A horrific event where some of them barricaded in classrooms, some of them ran in fear, can't overstate the tragedy and the horrific event that yesterday was and how we will work to bring to justice the actions of one individual or any other individuals that assisted in that. Our state has gone through a lot and we will come out successful. With that, I'll turn the time over to Special Agent Bowles. This is the FBI. Good morning.

My name is Robert Bowles, and I am the Special Agent in Charge of the Salt Lake Field Office. Following yesterday's tragic shooting of Charlie Kirk, FBI agents have been working around the clock in coordination with our law enforcement partners. We are and will continue to work non-stop until we find the person that has committed this heinous crime and find out why they did it. This morning, I can tell you that we have recovered what we believe is the weapon that was used in yesterday's shooting. It's a high-powered bolt-action rifle. That rifle... A high-powered bolt-action rifle. Pay attention to this detail because we do have more information this morning that comes to us by way of Stephen Crowder.

I'll share that with you in just a second. was recovered in a wooded area where the shooter had fled. So the FBI laboratory will be analyzing this weapon. Investigators have also collected footwear impression, a palm print, and forearm imprints for analysis. Now I understand there are a lot of questions about motive. I assure you that all leads, tips, and tips are being fully investigated. As of this morning, we have received more than 100,000

We thank the community for that. The FBI has brought every resource to bear, and we will continue to do so throughout the course of this investigation. The FBI's mission is to protect the American people. It's to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Any attack on the First Amendment is an attack on the very foundation of our democracy. That is why we will relentlessly pursue this case and the shooter until we find him. We also continue to grieve with the family and the community. It's our community.

If you have any video or images from the shooting, we ask you to please submit them to our digital media tip website at www.fbi.com. Gov slash Utah Valley shooting. Yeah. You can also call the FBI at 1-800 call FBI. He takes some questions here. We truly rely on the public's help in these types of cases, and no tip is too small or insignificant. Thank you. A hard to hear a question here.

But they get into some basic descriptions of the shooter that have not been revealed until now. So what I'll release about the suspect is, uh, Suspect blended in well with a college institution. We're not releasing many details right now, and we will soon. Blended in well. Right now we're not. But that individual appears to be of college age. We are confident in our abilities to track that individual.

If we're unsuccessful in identifying them immediately, we will reach out for the public's help and the media's help in pushing those photos. That was a new development overnight working. through the night studying those cameras so that's that's something that's new and that we're working through right now as far as okay all right so what we know as of this morning the brand new information is they have clear imagery and that this is a college aged assassin the person who fired this shot college aged uh they say would have blended in well with the college campus additionally to get to the point that i wanted to make just a moment ago about the high power bolt

action rifle. We do have some information this morning that came out ahead of that press conference from Stephen Crowder, who no doubt will be talking about the details on it, about this on his own program. But I do want to show you some of this. It says here, this is as Stephen puts it today, that his team has received an email from an officer at the ATF. The email includes a screenshot from what appears to be an internal message describing a weapon and cartridges located by the ATF and other law enforcement near the scene of the Charlie Kirk shooting. And in it, they describe how the agents responded. The suspect had fired one shot from an elevated position on the rooftop in an adjacent building on the campus.

Surveillance video shows the suspect jumping off, fleeing the area on foot. That's all consistent with what you just heard in this press conference from the Department of Public Safety and the FBI. The ATF and other law enforcement located an older model imported Mouser 30-od-6 caliber bolt action rifle wrapped in a towel in a wooded area near the campus. Again, consistent with what we just heard. The location of the firearm appears to match the suspect's route of travel. The spent cartridge was still chambered in addition to three unspent rounds at the top fed magazine. all of the cartridges pay attention to this detail all of the cartridges have engraved wording on them expressing transgender and anti-fascist ideology transgender and anti-fascist ideology we know that charlie was in the midst of actually answering a question

about transgender violence when he was killed my mind immediately jumped to what is that a coincidence the person who asked that question, was asking a question about transgender violence. And now we see this. I don't know. I don't know the answer. I won't pretend to know. I just, I'll, I'll relay to you that I have all of the same sort of rapid action emotions and responses to this and trying to piece all of this together from the distance

that I'm sitting at all the way across the country. I desperately want answers here as to what the hell happened. But this ATF report says that all the cartridges had engraved wording on them. expressing transgender and anti-fascist ideology. That emergency trace has been submitted and the ATF SLC, I believe that would be Salt Lake City, is working leads generated by the trace. The firearm and ammunition have been taken by the FBI for DNA analysis and fingerprint impressions.

Upon completion of forensics, the firearm will be disassembled for additional importer information. Multiple people of interest have contacted or been detained because of eyewitness testimony and review a video footage, that primary suspect has yet to be identified that was as of the time that this screen grab was taken. And you can see here just some proof here from Stephen Crowder of the actual Department of Justice filing that was shared with him.

So these are some of the early details we have as of today. Deeply frustrating, of course, to go this long without this suspect taken into custody, the pandemonium yesterday at Utah Valley University. Let's talk about some of the other elements here. There's a lot to get to. I'll tell you about Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk is a man who, just like you,

I was deeply aware of his impact, really, just a really incredible human being with a really incredible message. And the message, it was an important, a basic one. It was a reminder to get back to basics. which is that there is a god you are not him we should worship that god and um and that that thinking that that spiritual acknowledgement will lead you to conservatism uh and charlie kirk was one of the single most effective communicators on those messages in any of our lives and again he was struck down yesterday at the age of 31 years old you know when he first arrived on the scene

he was just a high school student. I think back to 2012, you'll remember, it was the Republican convention in Tampa in 2012, and all those many years ago. And Charlie Kirk was at that convention. He was 18 years old at the time.

And I've been talking to people who know Charlie well a lot in the last, in the last day, kind of getting a sense of all of this. I didn't know him well. I met. Charlie a couple of times, but I wouldn't have said, I wouldn't said that we were close or anything. I didn't, I didn't know him. But I do know a lot of people who did. And the one story that stuck out through the years is back then in 2012, he approached a big conservative donor by the name of

Foster Freeze, a wonderful human being who passed several years ago. Very tall man. You know, he lived in Jackson, Wyoming, wore a cowboy hat. He was a, a deeply spiritual man he came to to christ very late in life but but when he did he went all in and in fact i i can't remember a single conversation or meeting that i was in with him where that man did not bring up uh jesus christ in in the in the most jovial possible way he was just overflowing with angelic energy uh and and i felt like god had definitely touched that man and um he had a really good he had a successful career this is foster freeze he has super successful career at picking stocks and being an investor and becoming a very wealthy man as a result of all of that.

But he also had a skill for picking people. He had an innate talent for identifying people who would be successes. And the reason I'm telling you this is because it was at that convention, Charlie walks up to Foster Freeze, walks up to him and says, Mr. Freeze, I'd like to pitch you on an idea I have for an organization. Could I get a couple minutes of your time? And as I understand it, Foster's first reaction was to suggest that he was a little busy. He had to move. He wouldn't be able to do it right now. Maybe he could get in touch with one of Foster's assistants.

And Charlie insisted, he said, no, no, no, it's just going to take two minutes. And Foster, being a generous and a very good man, said, okay, sure, two minutes. So Foster gave him those two minutes. Over the course of the next two minutes, Charlie had successfully convinced Foster freeze that turning point should be a real thing that we're going to be a real thing that we're will change the country that conservatives can reach young people and can win them over that conservatives can create a movement of young people that will forever improve the future of our country Charlie in the course of two minutes to use the blessings that god had given him even at an

early age just the age of 18 years old to convince one of the wealthiest and certainly most powerful people on the right at the time to support his cause And Foster did. Right on the spot, Foster caught him a check for six figures to start this organization. And then would, of course, support it with utter enthusiasm in the years that ensued, watching Charlie's many successes. That was back in 2012. In 2012 was a wild year for the right.

Obviously, it was the Mitt Romney candidacy. But it was also the year that we. lost Andrew Breitbart. Andrew Breitbart had died earlier that year, and that was, that created shockwaves on the right. It was, it reminds me a lot of actually of what we're all experiencing today as we say this is too soon goodbye to Charlie Kirk. Breitbart passed, and the right was completely stunned by it.

So many people who we now know and love, or are all big voices on the right. were impacted by Andrew Breitbart. He had created a universe of people who would go on to do all sorts of good things for the country. And then that's the same year that Charlie Kirk's political career, his influential career, began.

And I remember thinking back, you know, I was with the Daily Caller since 2010, so I've been in conservative media for a while now, and long enough to have observed Charlie Kirk on the rise. And I remember thinking, on first blush when I was aware of what he was standing up and doing. And I hate myself for thinking this.

But I was worried. I was like, gosh, I hope he's just not one of these guys who's, there's all sorts of people in politics who basically take money and pretend like they're going to do something with it and then don't do anything but enrich themselves. You know, they come along. I know a kid comes along and says, hey, older conservatives, I can get the youth to support the conservatives. And then they start raising money and you're like, man, you're just taking advantage of old

people who are hopeful about the future and they're believing you and they're wrong to believe you i was wrong whatever whatever concern i had about that was allayed very quickly because you suddenly you discovered very quickly that charlie kirk had one of the most unique generational talents for both communication and organization that anyone has ever been given by the lord above and charlie built a behemoth we see the public side of of it we see the public side you all the social media videos all of the college visits all of the massive events that he put together you see the public side of it behind the scenes though charlie was our spokesman charlie was the guy who was able to get into the room with the people

who made the decisions to represent the rest of us he was the one who was reminding people what this is all about that we're here for americans we have to see to their needs he was the one who was forcing them i can't tell you how many politicians i've seen in the last 24 hours that he would go to and he would tell them okay good now what what are you going to do next how are you going to win this race where are you going to concentrate your time how are we going to get these votes jd vans the vice president of the united states reflecting on his friendship with charlie kirk in the last 24 hours posting the social media saying that they became friends and jd vans of course is so thankful for that. And Charlie said, you take care of Wisconsin. I've got Arizona. It's pretty big for

a guy just turning 30, 31 years old to be able to help the president and the vice president of the United States win an entire state and return to the White House. But that's the kind of influence that Charlie Kirk had. Charlie Kirk maintained close friendships with some of the biggest names and people that you and I are aware of, including people who really disagree with each other from time to time. Charlie Kirk was the bridge between so many of the factions of the right that exist today. He was the bridge, actually.

He maintained a very close relationship with Don Jr., who we've heard, of course, loved Charlie like a little brother, adored him, in his words, little brother. He was very close to do. J.D. Vance, as I said, the two had a very good friendship. He's very close to Tucker Carlson. Very close. Tucker and him were great friends. And by the way, it wasn't always that way. There was a time period you can find years ago where Tucker went on a debate stage with Charlie and the two of them squared off and it was wild to watch. But what it was was dialogue. It was

dialogue. And you could see over the years the influence that they had on each other. that Tucker had on on Charlie and and that and that Socratic impulse that that Tucker became famous for which is to to simply just ask the core questions how is this good for the country? How does this serve the American people well and and Charlie? Charlie embodied that thought process as well as anyone also speaking of Tucker I mean it's no secret that Tucker and Mark Levin have been at war with each other well, you know, war, meaning they've just been fighting with each other publicly.

Charlie is the bridge between those worlds. Both men love Charlie Kirk. Both men are so sad that he's gone. Alex Jones expressing his condolences and outrage now about what happened to Charlie Kirk. Just all of these, this whole universe of people all coming together around this one man who brought us all together. I saw Matt Walsh say in the last 12 hours that it's time for the infighting to stop on the right. We have a mission. We have a mission to move forward together.

The left has elements that want to kill us. There is no question about this. How could anyone question it? You just saw it happen yesterday. The left has elements that want to murder their political opponents. It's because they're incapable of engaging in the dialogue that Charlie Kirk represented. Charlie Kirk was a guy who just said, hey, let's have a conversation. The people who would pick up a rifle to kill him are the weak-minded lefties who've been inflamed to take out the people who want to have that dialogue.

I use weak-minded very intentionally because, one, it's true. it's it's absolutely true um another thing to to remember about all of this is um it's not the first time we've seen this in american history remember um these things happen if you if you if you know history you can detect the elements here and there's a chaos that the united states has experienced before certainly in the middle of the last century but i want to take you back a little over a century ago and remind you of the words of of teddy roosevelt Teddy Roosevelt on October 14th of 1912 was shot in the chest by a would-be assassin on his way into give a speech. Now, Teddy, by virtue of the folded up speech in his pocket and the spectacles that he also kept in his pocket, was able to survive the shooting, but with a pretty serious wound to his chest.

And he walked in and he gave the speech anyway. And when he walked in to give the speech, he announced to the crowd that he wasn't surprised. that assassin had tried to kill him. And here are the words that he used back then, and I think they're instructive for us now. He said, now friends, of course, I do not know, as I say, anything about him. But it is a very natural thing

that weak and vicious minds should be inflamed to acts of violence by the kind of awful mendacity and abuse that have been heaped upon me for the last three months by the papers in the interest of not only Mr. Debs, but of Mr. Wilson and Mr. Taft. In other words, where Teddy Roosevelt was saying at the time is,

my political opponents have lied about me so viciously and so thoroughly and so disgracefully that there are weak and vicious minds who are being inflamed, who are taking up arms against me, Not for legitimate purposes, but instead to eliminate me at the urging of the people who run my political opponent's parties. That's what Teddy Roosevelt announced back then. And here we are doing this conversation. Again, we had this conversation last year.

We, as a country, we had this conversation last year. When the president of the United States, Donald Trump, was almost assassinated, one time wounded, Multiple times. Multiple times. When is it going to stop? And now a vicious, weak-minded, radical lefty has decided to take these shots at a softer target, a very influential target. But when I say a softer target, I mean a less protected target.

Murdering Charlie Kirk yesterday. This is a part of a long string of left-wing violence in our country. You are witnessing right now in the media some attempt to suggest that this is a, quote, both sides problem. It is not. Are there people on the right who are driven to do awful things beyond reason? Yes, it happens on occasion. But there is nowhere near where the left is in terms of it is. It's sheer out-of-control violence.

Just dating back to the first year. of the first Trump presidency, 2017. We had the Alexandria baseball shooting. Steve Scalise was grievously wounded on that field by a Bernie Sanders campaign volunteer who not only shot Scalise, but shot several others as well. Of course, last year we had multiple assassination attempts

against President Trump, one of which wounded him, a shot to the head that he survived by the grace of God. We saw an assassination attempt on Justice Brett Kavanaugh in order to compel an outcome in a case that was designed to prevent the murder of the unborn. We just watched the murder of a health care CEO in cold blood in a city street, and the left lionized the assassin, treated him as if he was a king. In D.C. recently, we had the murder of those young Israeli diplomats, just young people in the prime of their life.

Gunned down, killed. by a radical lefty. We saw the terror attacks on Tesla's earlier this year. All of the Tesla stations, Tesla dealerships, attacked by radical lefties, angry that President Trump and Elon Musk were working together for the betterment of this country. We've seen the endless assaults on law enforcement, including in Washington, D.C., where left-wing grand juries refuse to indict the people who commit these acts of violence. We've seen the attacks on ICE agents themselves, an explosion against members of, members of

immigration and customs enforcement because of the words and the encouragement of the leaders of the left and the activated weak, vicious minds of the radical left, calling ICE agents Nazis, people like Tim Walls and Michelle Wu, Hakeem Jeffries. The list is endless and unfortunate. Now, the left has been very activated to violence. There's no question about it. And the data support exactly what I'm telling you today. And by the way, what the president told you in his address to the nation last night. We knew and Charlie Kirk knew to be clear that the left has been overtaken by something that we unfortunately have to refer to as an assassination culture. Look at this. This is from April of this year. Here's Charlie Kirk.

Assassination culture is spreading on the left, said Charlie. 48% of liberals say it would be at least somewhat justified to murder Elon Musk. 55% said the same about Donald Trump. In California, activists were 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 a maximally violent response for the left. This is the natural outgrowth of left-wing protest culture

tolerating violence and mayhem for years on end. The cowardice of local prosecutors and school officials have turned the left into a ticking time bomb. Charlie knew what was going on. Charlie is now a victim of that assassination culture. on the left. And those numbers that Charlie was reciting, those came to us from something called the Network Contagion Research Institute. And of course, he was right about that. Fifty-five percent of so-called left-of-center people said that they could at least somewhat justify the murder of

President Trump. Forty-eight percent of left of center, you heard what I said, left of center people, people who consider themselves somehow moderate take these radical extremist positions on the American left. is a massive cultural cancer on the American left. It's huge. It's not a small thing. It's not a concentrated number of radicals. It is a massive contagion. That wasn't the only survey that found that Scott Rasmussen found in September of last year the following shocking data, 17% of people in the United States said that Trump would be better off. America would be better off if Trump had been killed, if Trump had been killed, 28% of Democrats say that America would have been better off if Trump had been assassinated.

Another 24% were not sure. Fewer than half of Democrats could bring themselves to say that America would not be better off if the opposing party's candidate for president had been assassinated. These numbers really lay out in vicious and unfortunate detail, just how crazed the left has become. how disinterested in dialogue they've become. I've got one more piece of evidence on the data side that shows this. And I've shared this from time to time.

This comes to us back in 2022. The Southern Poverty Law Center, I highlighted it at the time, a poll done by the left wing and out of control, Southern Poverty Law Center, who, by the way, has inspired violence against people like Charlie Kirk on a routine basis. They were the source of inspiration for the attack on the Family Research Council years ago. The Southern Poverty Law Center found in their own survey that nearly half of young male Democrats approve of assassinating a politician who is harming our country or democracy. So I'm sorry, when I see tweets from Barack Obama, when I see tweets from Joe Biden and Bill Clinton and Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer and Gavin Newsom saying things like violence is not.

the answer. Violence has no place in our democracy, as Obama said overnight. Here he is. 5.26 p.m. yesterday. Despicable violence has no place in our democracy, said Obama. I'm sorry. I don't believe you. You knew what you were breathing life into. we've seen it growing for a very long time it is not enough for any one of these democrats all of those high-profile democrats the list i just read off to you all of them saying that violence is not the answer overnight all of them rushing to suggest that there's no way they had anything to do with this no no we we could not have inspired any of this it's not enough for you to say political violence is not acceptable

if there is decency anywhere to be found anywhere to be found and i'm and i'm addressing now the american left you have to pull yourself out of this dissent you have to recognize the humanity of donald j trump you have to recognize the humanity of charlie kirk you have to recognize the humanity of the people that you share a country with the dehumanizing has to stop and you need to get control of your own house this is not a message for everybody it's a message for the half of democrats who say it is justifiable to assassinate the president of the united states if you were anything close to serious you'd be involved in cleaning it up but they've shown no signs of that joe biden spent his presidency saying that donald trump was a threat to quote democracy

Obama has done this very thing as well hakeem jeffreys has done this very thing as well chuck schumer threatened the united states supreme court in the lead-up to the assassination attempt on breck cavana the reality is every single one of these guys should have no influence on our politics actually should not be engaged in this at all and let me extend this critique to the media again in the last 24 hours the media have demonstrated the same kind of poisonous instincts that they have every time something like this happens we've got attacks on charlie kirk in the wake of his assassination they're calling him a right wing extremist far right on and on and on designed to of course prejudice the audience into believing

that he deserved his fate that it was his fault that he was shot on msnbc yesterday there was a person called matthew dowd a paid employee of msnbc cut three and here's what he said on the yesterday saying that Charlie had it coming. But following up what was just said, he's been one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups. And I always go back to hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions. the reaction to that was immediate and intense all across our country yesterday Matthew Dow was not the only person who went on that network to say something completely

poisonous Matthew Dowd has been fired as of this morning by NBC but that's not enough NBC as a network should not exist these networks have squandered whatever credibility they ever established in the past, if at all. And they should be sued into oblivion. These are not news channels. These are propagandists who've made our country more dangerous. Who've used their purges to pit Americans against one another. They shouldn't exist.

remember fox news had to pay like a bazillion dollars like an epic epic settlement in a case about questioning the results of the 2020 election and yet you have entire cable networks where they dignify the assassination of attempts on Donald Trump or people like Charlie Kirk and there are no consequences for the entirety of the network that's insane to me and in a moment the fellows tell me i've got some news to share with you so we'll do that in a second but i let me let me just finish on a point here and this is about charlie charlie called all of us to our better angels i get it it's uh this this is also infuriating and and if you are um a gun owner uh be well trained on your weapon protect your family

defend yourself that's all very important we have no idea what the future holds but I do know what we can control and that's ourselves Charlie Kirk has called all of us to appeal to our better angels to engage in dialogue

to believe in this country and to believe confidently in his future it would be an utter tragedy for us to reject the mission that he's given the rest of us. It would be an utter tragedy to let the bastards win, the kind of person who would open fire on Charlie Kirk in the hope of creating the kind of chaos

that brings this country down. Don't give those assholes what they want. Look after your country, speak up, be better in every single way that you detect that you're not good enough yet do it charlie did charlie spent every waking hour pursuing excellence i don't even know how he accomplished all of the things he accomplished in his young life he's already inspiring me to tap into every last second and every last resource i can to be better uh and i intend to do that to honor charlie and to be inspired by charlie which i am we've got more in a moment but first justin you

say we've got some some breaking news from the president now before we begin let me express the horror and grief so many americans at the heinous assassination of charlie kirk have felt charlie was a giant of his generation a champion of liberty and an inspiration to millions and millions of people our prayers are with his wonderful wife eric and his beautiful children Fantastic people they are. We miss him greatly, yet I have no doubt that Charlie's voice and the courage he put into the hearts of countless people, especially young people, will live on. I'm pleased to announce that I will soon be awarding Charlie Kirk posthumously the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The date of the ceremony will be announced, and I can only guarantee you one thing that we will have a very big,

big crowd very very big god bless the president god bless him god bless him yeah you know um what a world in which we live is the president of the united states who told most of us yesterday actually the the tragic news he um you could tell the president knew already it was just a matter of of time before he would make the announcement about about charlie's death you could tell just ahead of it um the reason i know that is because uh as a reporter for the new york post by the name of diana narosi she used to be my white house correspondent she was uh her her maiden named diana globova and she tweeted this out yesterday

at 4.19 p.m., this was ahead of the president making the announcement on Truth Social. She said she asked the president, how was Charlie Kirk doing? He said he's not doing well. It looks very bad. And then she asked him how he was feeling the president that is. And the president responded, not good. He was a very, very good friend of mine. And he was a tremendous person. you could tell that the president was on the verge of making the announcement that he did moments later that he knew that Charlie Kirk had passed. This is a really important moment for our country, obviously.

And people are looking, trying to figure out what to do about all of this. Well, let me just begin with the most obvious thing that I know Charlie Kirk would urge you to do, which is definitely to lift your eyes, to lift your heart, to lift your soul and prayer on behalf of our country and that we can keep this entire thing going. That's the thing. Another would be, I do think that it is worth paying attention

to the words that are coming out of the White House right now and the president of the United States. This is a moment where the president is being called once again to be the leader of the nation. And I know he's receiving condemnation already from the left overnight, and who cares, but just to make a basic point they're attacking him for pointing out the excesses of the radical left and how dangerous everything has become what the president is doing is the thing that all of us need to do every single day which is just say the truth out loud just tell the truth out loud the only way anything improves is if you can tell the truth out loud so the president of the united states has been doing that so i'm going to keep paying attention to every word he has to say on the subject also I personally, in my house, I lowered my flag to half staff last night.

I don't have one of those huge flagpoles. I just have one of the ones that lean outside the house, but I was able to lower the flag down the pole. And to the extent that you can show your love for your country in that way and send the message that this has to end, I encourage you to do that. I think sometimes conservatives feel like they're living in isolation, especially if they live in blue communities.

it's okay to indicate that you love your country. And in fact, sometimes you bring people out of the woodwork who maybe you didn't realize they too do love their country. That's an important piece of this. And then the other big lesson here is hold your family close. As a father and as a husband, I was thinking a lot yesterday after all of this went down. What were Charlie's final moments like with his family?

Did he kiss his kids on the head as he walked out the door for the last time? Assuming, of course, that he would see them imminently. Was it a rushed goodbye? Did they dwell? I mean, I'll never know the answer to that question. It's not mine to know, but it's the kind of thing that I thought a lot about. And it reminded me just as a person. By the way, I'm not saying any of this as like a conservative media person or anything like that.

all I'm saying is just as a human being, you just really never know when God's going to call you back and to treat every moment like it's the blessing that it actually is. So that's the plan. That's the plan for me. Anyway,

let me, yeah, don't get dead exactly right. Oh, and I do want to, let me offer one other thing. I know Dan Bongino, I know you and I know instinctively, that there are, I almost, my instincts tell me that Dan Bongino is working more fervently to capture this killer than maybe anybody in the FBI right now. Dan is a dedicated warrior on behalf of this country. And he is doing this job because he loves it.

And I don't have a single question in my mind about his resolve to see. this through and i will say with utter unimpeachable confidence that he is moving right now with aggression to his great credit and he's doing exactly the job he has to do and i did send him a message this morning he's busy so he hasn't had a chance to respond to it maybe he won't i don't need him to but I did tell him Dan I'm preparing to do a show that you should be doing

because I want to see what Dan Bongino has to say on this subject um look I want to end today with Charlie I want to end with Charlie and

um what he has had to say and why you should be inspired by him. They are not going to be able to take away his influence. They're not going to be able to take away his impact because you and I have an obligation to keep that alive. There's a lot of video of Charlie Kirk that we could dwell on. There's a lot of things he said through the years that I could share with you,

but I'm going to instead share with you something that he told the Deseret News just a month ago. it's a quote that I have obsessed over all night long because I think it represents the essence of the mission that God placed Charlie Kirk on this earth to perform and here's what he said Charlie Kirk told the Desert News last month

my job every single day is actively trying to stop a revolution this is where you have to try to point them towards ultimate purposes and towards getting back to church getting back to faith getting married

having children that is the type of conservatism that I represent and I'm trying to trying to paint a picture of virtue, of lifting people up, not just staying angry. Charlie Kirk called all of us to live up to our God-given potential. Charlie Kirk is asking you and he's asking me to be the absolute best versions of ourselves. God didn't give you the talents and blessings that he gave you for you just to let them waste away.

He gave them to you on purpose so that you could use them to glorify him to care for the souls around you who God also created. And each of us are unrepeatable and irreplaceable. And that is totally true in the case of Charlie Kirk. The world is a better place for getting 31 years from Charlie Kirk. 31 years. 31 of the most effective years that any man has ever given. And he died using the blessings that God gave him and his death will absolutely not be in vain.

You and I refuse to let that happen. God bless you and God bless Charlie Kirk. Rest in peace, Charlie. What advice do you have for me as I move into adulthood in order to become a more informed and involved citizen? Well, first of all, thank you for being here, and I have hoped thanks to people like you. How old are you again? Thirteen. Here's a couple of things I want to encourage you to do.

Learn something new every single day. And focus on what it means to be a good person and a person in strong character. Aristotle said that courage is the ultimate virtue without it, there are no other virtues. If people aren't courageous, you don't have honesty, you don't have justice, you don't beauty, you don't have wonder. And so at age 13, I want you to commit yourself to a life of courage. Courage is doing the right thing when you don't know how it's going to work out. Courage is committing yourself to the correct course of action, regardless of the cost

associated to it. Every human being, I believe, is made in the image of the divine, is sacred, is unique, and if we get away from this principle as we have, we not only have moral degradation, We not only have the collapsing society around us, but it's bad for that being itself. That being itself is unique. That being has rights. And who are we to say just because we're older that we get to murder it? Thank you.