The Duran Podcast - Charlie Kirk political assassination

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

Charlie Kirk political assassination

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The assassination while he was speaking at a campus event, the videos are now all over the interwebs and on social media, very graphic, very disturbing videos of the assassination, the killing taking place. he was in charge running a turning point USA. He was also a very prominent podcaster, a political commentator, and a debater, a very good debater, as well as as a father of two children. Your thoughts on what happened yesterday? Well, I found it one of the most upsetting things I've ever seen.

I mean, I saw the film. I didn't see it at the time. I wasn't watching it when it happened, but I saw it later. And it was, I mean, the killing was unbelievably shocking. I mean, it was absolutely horrifying. Bear in mind, over the last three and a half years, I've seen many video films in many places, which do show violence and fighting, fighting in war. So, you just thought that by now I'd become used to this.

I absolutely wasn't when I saw what I saw yesterday. I mean, that was, it was, it was horrifying. And it happened when he was doing what he does, he did, which is debate and talk to people and go to campuses, often places which were politically different from his points of view. And he took, he engaged people in discussion and debate. And he was a young man of 31 and he had children and he had a family. And he had had sincerity in his convictions, and he was, in general, as far as I could see, almost entirely, I never saw any sign of him being anything else but polite with people. He was a civil person. He was a debater, and now he's been killed. And it was done in a way that was done from the

distance, the person who killed him, I mean, I'm not trained or experienced in this, but he appears to have been a sniper. He clearly thought of what he was doing. It was a clearly very intentional and very, very ruthless act. And it is disturbing that this person has not yet been found. And I hope that whoever it was, he sued will be and that we will get at least start to get at least some clarity about this killing. Though I have to say, with political assassinations in the United States, often unanswered questions remain and continue decades after the event. And I worry that the same will be true with this one. I get it just by the way, if I can. I know people always bring it up, but I think I will because there's a very famous poem

by William Butler Yates, the second coming, which I think captures the horror of it, things fall apart, the centre cannot hold, mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-timed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned. The best lack or conviction, whilst the worst are full of passionate intensity. And that it seems, in me captures the moment, it captures the moment with his killing. You said the word, the words political assassination. We're waiting for the investigation to catch the person that shot Charlie Kirk, that assassinated Charlie Kirk or the people that were involved in assassinating Charlie

Cook because a sniper usually does not act alone. Oh, true. That's absolutely. Yeah. How would you compare this with previous political assassinations? Well, the first thing. MLK comes to mind. The Kennedy assassinations come to mind.

Charlie Kirk, once again, he was a podcaster. He was a debater. I think he could say he was a political activist. And he was connected to the Trump administration. I mean, he wasn't directly part of the Trump White House. He wasn't on salary to the Trump White House or appointed to any position. But he played a big role in getting the college youth vote for Trump in the election. And he was very good friends.

It seems he was very good friends and close to Trump. the Trump family, and also the vice president, J.D. Vance. So, I mean, how does this compare, given what we've seen with political assassinations? I'm thinking about the 1960s and today, in today's America. Right. There's a number of points to make here. First of all, I've no doubt at all that it was a political assassination. Even if the person who carried it out had some personal reason to kill Kirk, the way in which the killing was committed in a public space whilst he was talking and speaking to large numbers of students. In other words, in the middle of his engaging in political activity makes this a political assassination. So I think this is one thing I

think one should make absolutely clear about this. And yes, of course, he was a political assassination. And yes, of course, he was somebody on good terms with the president. He was a very strong supporter of the president. He was part of the MAGA movement in its totality. He had connections with the vice president. I don't think they're said he'd out at all that he was involved in the political movements that have been affecting and changing the United States over the last 10 years and that is why he was killed because we always see the passions and the control pieces that have been taking place in the United States over the last 10 years as the Maga movement has grown in strength and support and won elections and now in the person of Donald Trump

holds the presidency. So that's one thing I wanted to say. Now, talking about assassinations of the past, I, of course, was born in the 1960s, and I remember the assassinations, some of the assassinations of the 1960s. I'm too young to remember the assassination of President Kennedy, but I remember the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. I'm old enough to remember those. In fact, the assassination of Robert Kennedy is the first political event of what, which I was conscious as a political event. It is where, if you like, my political journey began. So I remember that and I remember the mood in the 1960s. And indeed, in the 1960s, there were many of the same tensions in the United States, in the world that we see today. However,

firstly, there's a number of points to say about this. Firstly, all of those political killings, President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, they did have an effect. They changed the political direction of America. If there had not been those killings in America in the 1960s, by 1970, the United States would have been a different country from the one it was. and it would have continued on a different political trajectory thereafter. So those assassinations did make a difference, but they also happened in a very, very different geopolitical time. The United States of the 1960s was far and away the biggest economic power in the world,

biggest economic and military power in the world. Obviously, there was the Soviet Union, but the United States was far richer, much stronger than the Soviet Union was at that time. The overall situation in terms of geopolitics at that time was very stable. We had two superpowers that understood each other and worked in order to preserve peace. I mean, there was the Cold War, but they continuously avoided getting into a direct clash with each other, even as they conducted proxy wars with each other, like the one, for example, in Vietnam. And at a personal level, the leaders of these two blocks actually got on quite well. So there were regular meetings between Soviet and American leaders in the 60s, and

Khrushchev and Kennedy, Kisigin and Johnson, they were able to meet, they were able to conduct substantive negotiations. There wasn't this atmosphere of tension and fear that you see today. And in the United States and in the West as well, the 60s was a time of extraordinary. economic growth and rising prosperity of a kind that we have never had since. So with that growth and prosperity and that enormous increase and expansion in opportunities for people, there was extraordinary optimism. You see this in the films that were made at that time, extraordinary confidence and a rock-like sense of stability. None of that, that exists today. And we don't have other additional factors. There was no social media

like we have today in the 1960s. That didn't appear until, well, the mid-2000s on a really big scale. There was nothing like that in the 1960s. There was an alternative press. The mainstream media in those days was completely different from what it has become. come today. I mean, there was it, I mean, there were conservative leading media outlets. There were liberal leaning media outlets, but the extreme partisanship that we have now simply did not exist at that time. And, well, I have to say this killing of Charlie Kirk, a personal tragedy, is happening in a far more fraud, political. and social environment than what I remember from the 1960s.

And I'm afraid that gives a very ominous sense of what is coming. Yeah, the past two weeks on a political, like a social, political, geopolitical level, it's been a very violent past couple of weeks. Yes. No doubt about it. Yes. What this is doing, at least the first 24 hours since the assassination, since the confirmation of Charlie Kirk's death came in, is that this is fueling the left-right divide. I don't know if it's the real traditional left. I would say it's more of a woke left, right divide that you're starting to see in social media.

You're starting to see accounts which are celebrating this assassination. And on the right, I'll call it the right, you know, you're seeing anger. Elon Musk even posted something about this as well, where he said something about the left. and he specifically referenced the left. I don't know if this is the traditional left. I mean, you're someone who comes from the traditional left. This is not something that the traditional left would be cheering on or would be celebrating. I think that's certain.

But wouldn't you define this as more of this assassination is more of the people against the deep state or the people against the globalists? I mean, maybe we should have looked. at this as the left and the right, because, I mean, if you, if you get rid of the regime changes, the, the color revolutions, the wars, the imperialist type of, the empire type of wars, and the country just focused on the country, the differences between the left and the right can be solved, the social, domestic differences. If you can just get rid of all of the other stuff. But, but I mean, there are forces that don't want all of the other stuff gone, right? Well, absolutely, and you're completely right. Now, first of all, I mean, you're absolutely

right to say that my roots are in the left. The left that existed once upon a time in the 1960s in Europe, in the 1960s in the United States. That left, as far as I'm concerned, barely exists today. What is called the left today is something profoundly different, profound different in the causes it promotes, which would not have been recognized as even left-wing when I was young, just to say. And also, the methods of political action, which it embraces. I mean, the left that I remember would have been horrified by this event. They would have been profoundly disturbed and shocked by it. And they would have, without exception, opposed it. Now, it's...

Well, the assassinations, just to say the assassinations in the 60s were against people of the traditional left, mostly. Is that correct? Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, very, very, very much so. Now, I mean, and people at that time on the left, they were the ones. who were worried about being assassinated. I mean, this was something that people on the left felt very, very intensely. And of course, it made them very, opposed to assassinations altogether. But I mean, it goes beyond that. I mean, if you're talking about, as I said, the social democratic Western left, that I was a part of,

of in my adult life, in the earlier part of my adult life. I mean, they were opposed to assassinations. Anyway, and can I say this was also true in the 60s of the political right at that time. The assassination of Robert Kennedy, for example, which I do remember, was a consolidating event in Americans. society, everybody from every section of society came together and was horrified by what had happened. I don't remember the assassination of President Kennedy, but from what I understand, it was exactly the same. The killings of people like that in the United States at that time.

were seen as an assault and attack. This is, I'm talking about, you know, the vast majority of people. They were seen as an attack on America itself and on the American way of life. If you watch the films, and remember again, Robert Kennedy, absolutely on the left, if you watch the films of the train that is taking Robert Kennedy to, you know, his body to his burial, You see the people lined along the railway tracks, and they're carrying American flags. I mean, it's a patriotic moment. Now, not all the assassinations were the same.

I mean, there was an enormous outburst of anger when Martin Luther King died, and there were riots and things of that kind. But then, of course, one has to understand that that falls also within the civil rights dimensions and the fractures that existed in America at this time. The problem is today, it's not just America being fractured on certain specific issues. Today, America looks fractured, period. This is why you start to see people who, as you rightly say, celebrate this killing, which, I mean, I just, again, I find that impossible to get my mind round. But, you know, there it is.

And there's also these commentaries that you get from people who speak about this assassination and say it was wrong. But, you know, having said that, he had all of those controversial opinions, which almost gives you the impression that what they're basically saying is that he brought it on himself. and deserved it in some ways. So they don't really feel any fundamental human sympathy as I feel, you know, as I would understand it, with this young man and his family who have been cut down in this way. Now that, again, if you go back to Robert Kennedy's killing,

that was absolutely not the case then. I mean, people did not talk like that. Robert Kennedy was a controversial political figure. He was people that were strong views, both for and against him. But when he was killed, people were horrified. And there weren't these sly insinuations and caveats squirled into the commentaries at that sort of time. So this is a very different moment in America and a very disturbing one. And as you rightly say, absolutely rightly say, we have had a significant uptick of violence in America.

It's been taking place since the events of the summer of 2020. I'm going to be very careful of what I say here. But we've seen considerable uptick of political violence in America. And I have to say, this seems to me to fit into that. that and to the assassination attempts on President Trump during the campaign, the election campaign, and now we've had this. Well, a lot of political violence in the world, actually, Alexander, in just the past couple of weeks, to be quite honest.

You know, we've covered it on many videos of what's been happening around the world in the past, just over the past couple of weeks. Anyway, just the final question. What does this mean for the Trump administration, or does this mean anything for the Trump administration? What does this mean for the United States in general? An empire that is in decline. That's not controversial to say, and that's not even a bad thing to say. You've explained many times that a U.S. that is not a hegemon, but part of a multipolar system

is a much better United States for the world, but also for its own people. But what do you think this means for the United States? Does it mean anything for the United States going forward? Does this mean anything for the Trump administration going forward? I think it means an awful lot for both. First of all, I mean, they need, if you're talking about the Trump people, I mean, they must, I think, now be saying to themselves, we are up against an entirely implacable adversaries.

Again, we don't know who this person who carried out the killing was. We don't know to what extent he acted in a group or acted alone or who might have been involved with him. But the fact is that he did this because he was involved in a particular political moment and environment, which shaped his views. I mean, that's, I think, uncontroversial. I mean, that's obvious. And the Trump people will go away

and they'll take a step back and they will say to themselves, this political campaign that we are undertaking is one at which our lives are at risk. And that is going to shape them. And it's going to obviously mean, and I think this is an important point, They need to be perhaps even more politically disciplined than they have been up to now.

But it's going to affect the way they act and the way they practice politics. They will be perhaps even more careful. And they will probably become more combative, which is not something I welcome, but which is true. Now, going back to where this leaves America, I mean, this is going to widen. the gaps and the differences in America. I can't see how he can do otherwise. I mean, the thing about Kirk was that he tried to reach out across the divides. He was a debater. He would go to campuses. He would debate with people who didn't agree with him. He would say, show me where I was wrong, where I am wrong. I mean, he would invite people to talk to him in that sort of way.

And now he's dead. And that makes reaching out across the divide, making deep bridges, it's going to make it more difficult at precisely the moment when, as you rightly say, the United States is transitioning from the position of being the global hegem on, the empire which doesn't admit to itself, that it is an empire to becoming one would like to believe a republic and a nation again. And clearly, that transition, which is anyway going to be very difficult, has just been made far more difficult than it would otherwise have been because the differences that breakdowns in America are expanding

and the opposition to all attempts to achieve this transition in an orderly way are growing. Yeah, it also sends the message to not reach out to the other side and to not talk. That's the message that it sends. Well, that's exactly. It seems to me that that is almost certainly the message that is intended. Yeah. Okay, we will end the video there.

Take care.