The Eric Metaxas Show - #158 - Ryan Helfenbein

Episode Date: July 14, 2026

Today On The Eric Metaxas Show, Eric talks with Ryan Helfenbein, a longtime friend of Charlie and Erika Kirk, about attending the preliminary hearing in the Charlie Kirk murder case. Ryan describes the courtroom atmosphere, the forensic and DNA evidence, Erika’s emotional experience, the defense strategy, testimony involving Tyler Robinson and Lance Twiggs, the possible motive, and why the online conspiracy theories do not match the evidence presented in court.⭐ ORDER NOW:Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World📕: https://a.co/d/0ir3NlapTODAY'S SPONSORS:☀️ Honest, fast, and free Medicare plan guidance: https://askchapter.com/metaxas/

Hey there, folks. Welcome to Tuesday, July 14th. And I am shocked, shocked to find myself in New York City. Home. It doesn't seem possible. I forgot that there was such a thing as actually eventually going home. I've been on the road like a lunatic. I'll be on the road again. But I was recently in Las Vegas. As I know I mentioned, had dinner with Rich Little. Insane. We're going to get him on this. program. You wait. We're actually going to do that. I got an award, the Lawrence E. Reed Award for my book. I will show you that award when it arrives in the mail for my book on the Revolution. We then went to Dallas where I spoke at Prestonwood Baptist Church. My friend, Pastor Jack Graham, interviewed me at both services and met a lot of folks, signed a lot of books. But, oh, actually, before I forget, my guest in a moment is going to be for the hour. My friend Ryan Helfenbein, many of you know him.

He's executive director of the Freedom Center at Liberty University. He has been at the trial in Utah as a friend of Erica. And we were, you know, dear friends with Charlie. And so he's going to come on and we're going to talk about his experience in the courtroom and all of that stuff in just a moment. But as I say, I just wanted to mention that I was in doubt. And so near the hotel where we were staying, because yesterday I did a thing with TBN, they're going to air that on an hour special on my book Revolution.

They're going to air that on July 22nd. But near our hotel, I saw, oh, there's a Barnes & Noble in South Lake, Texas. Let me go in there and see where they have my book, Revolution. Now, again, to put it in context, Barnes & Noble always puts them. New York Times bestsellers right in the front of the store. They got stacks of them. So, you know, you're just, you're going to be there. So my book was number two on the New York Times list.

That was number three, was number five, was number eight. This week, I don't know what it's going to be. But, you know, they have all the best sellers, the top 10 that, you know, they're right there in the front of the store. So I go to the store, not one copy, not one copy. I don't know what to tell you, but something is rotten in the state of Barnes and Noble, I have to tell you. Order your book from Amazon.

Please order it. Order it for your local library. Order it for your relatives. We want it to be a bestseller, so Barnes & Noble is forced to carry it. I'll leave it there for now. We'll talk about this more tomorrow, but here's my friend, Ryan Healthenbind.

Stay tuned. Hey there, folks. As I believe I just promised, we have today a very very dear friend as my guest, Ryan Helfenbein, professionally speaking, he's the executive director of the Freedom Center at Liberty University, one of the tiny handful of great universities in America. He's the host of the Give Me Liberty podcast. Ryan, my friend and brother, welcome back. Eric, great to be on with you, blessings, brother. Yeah, I wanted to talk to you because you and I were

texting and you attended the murder trial of our friend Charlie Kirk recently you attended as a friend you were there in Utah just wanted to talk to you about it a little bit

because the whole thing is almost impossible for me to to fathom and I had a number of friends who were there to support Erica who is

also our friend, and more than a friend, my goodness, the widow of our dear, dear friend, Charlie. So why did you go? I mean, that's a big deal to travel to Utah. I couldn't go, so I didn't have to even think about whether I should. But what were you thinking about, you know, doing that, why you would do that, and what did you see? Well, I'll walk you back. You know, I met Erica Franz Faye before she was Erica Kirk all the way back in 2019.

And it was actually around the same time that I met David Englehart, you know, for the first time, Pastor David. And, you know, Erica was dating Charlie at the time. And they were heavily involved with the Freedom Center in 2019 and 2020 here at Liberty. And so I got to know both Charlie and Erica at that time. before they were married. And so, you know, this, of course, was not just a professional relationship. It was a friendship. And I became friends with both Charlie and with Erica.

And, you know, through the years, we've been in touch, not just professionally, but personally. And on September the 10th, Eric, I had heard in a chat group that Charles, Charlie was in, that there were shots fired at Utah Valley University. And when I heard that, I immediately texted Erica and just said, hey, sister, just heard something happened. I am praying for you. The Lord's with you. And just like, just let me know. I mean, I'm summarizing what I said. And she responded back, Eric, I don't know whether Charlie is alive or dead. dead. That was on September the 10th. That was horrific. That was one of the most shocking moments. We were praying. You were praying. Many, many, all of us were for hours waiting, waiting to hear what actually happened.

And then, of course. It wasn't, for me, it wasn't ours. I mean, I remember that day. I was at the gym in Connecticut. And I think Malachi, our friend Malachi O'Brien texted me that Charlie been shot. And I always, I'll just never forget that something inside just says, well, I know everything's okay. Like it can't be, you know, that unthinkable thing. And I have to make a point. Whenever people say, like, we're praying for you, whatever. I got to say, I want to say this clearly, I hate it. I hate it when people say praying for you,

but they're not actually praying for you. Amen. Right. It doesn't mean, oh, you're in my thoughts and prayers, whatever garbage, that doesn't even mean anything. So if you want to be gracious or whatever, you can say things, but don't say praying for you unless you're actually praying for them.

And it doesn't mean thinking of them. It means praying for them. And I remember in the gym praying for the situation, praying for trial, pray, you know, whatever. hard to believe, you know, it's like another world, and yet it was yesterday. But so where were you that day, Ryan? The Hulu original series Furious is coming to Disney Plus, starring Emmy Rossum. Furious follows FBI agent Alice Black on the hunt for a mysterious and calculating serial killer.

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Five days before that, though, I was with Charlie in South Korea. We were in Seoul, South Korea. We were at a conference. Charlie was preaching. He was going to several churches, but then at this conference, we were there trying to encourage strength,

these Korean conservatives, right? These are guys who are, you know, they're on the front lines defending freedom against a kind of regime right now, not unlike Joe Biden. They have kind of a Korean Joe Biden president right now. And then there's all these accusations surrounding this election that happened more recently.

It's all kinds of chaos in South Korea. And there was a pastor that was jailed, you know, just the week after we had visited. because why? Because they were standing for truth. They're standing against transgenderism, right? And all kinds of other political nonsense that the left wants to throw. But I was with Charlie for several hours in South Korea. And I did not know we were sitting in the green room together. This would be the last conversation he and I would ever have. We spent several hours together. And we were talking politics. We were talking a lot about theology. I know Charlie's faith, and I know you know this as well,

his faith was so well grounded. But that was five days before September the 10th. And so I'll just give you one more thing. I'm like preaching on the stage, Eric, and it's a live broadcast. It's a live broadcast. And I get off the stage. I look at my phone and I have a text from Erica Kirk

to my wife and I. Hey, I was just watching. You did so well. God bless you, you know. And I was just like, are you kidding me right now? Like you watch that. We're in Korea. It's got to be like 2 a.m. in Arizona, right? And so that's the kind of person that Erica is. She's, she's a wonderful. She's a woman of gray. She's amazing. So I was invited to this trial as a friend, not, not, you know, as a liberty guy, but as a friend. And I'm there to comfort and support. of course, the family. But I got to observe Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, all of the proceedings, the eyewitness testimony, along with the evidence that was presented. And Eric, I got to say, this is the most compelling, I'm not going to call it proof yet,

but it is the most compelling evidence of any case out there. This is more obvious than say, you know, you go back to the O.J. Simpson case in that trial, if the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit all that stuff, Johnny Cochran, all that back in the 1990s. This, the, the evidence just on the DNA alone, it's 99.999-9999. It's actually one in a trillion odds,

and even greater than that, that it would be anyone else than Tyler Robinson, and that's according to the forensics established by ATF and FBI. There's so much there. We could talk about any of that, but being in that room and watching the emotion of Erica having to relive that, watching Charlie Kirk's parents having to experience that over and over again, I mean, it's torture.

And yet they want to be present. They want to view the evidence. They feel it's their duty to know the truth, to report the truth accurately, and to face, they continue to face this responsibility. They are victims of what has happened to Charlie. And there are people out there, as you know, that claim to love Charlie. Claim to love Charlie.

Oh, I stand for what Charlie? No, you don't stand for what Charlie stood for. If you hate everything that Charlie loved, you do not stand with Charlie. If you hate everything that he loved, including his wife, if you hate her and you're willing to to drag her through the mud and continue to foment this demonic and diabolical conspiracy after conspiracy after conspiracy, you're willing to do that. You don't love Charlie Kirk. You hate Charlie Kirk.

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What's interesting to me, Ryan, because the older you are, I'm old enough now to have some perspective on life. And it is so interesting to see how in the last, let's say, 10 years since the advent of Trump, we are seeing things we've never seen before. Things are being exposed that most of us didn't know existed, levels of evil and horror that most of us didn't think we would see in our lifetimes. I mean, you know, if you try to think of, if you were alive in 1945 and you saw images of the death camps, most people recoiled and basically said, this can't be right. It's not possible that a civilized nation like Germany was capable of this kind of systemic evil. That's never happened before. There have been all kinds of things that happened, but nothing on that scale, nothing like that. It's a new level.

It's unprecedented. I feel similarly about what we've been through in the last 10 years, things have been exposed that we just thought, I just didn't think I'd ever see this before, a level of vulgarity and horror in public life, people saying things that even 20 years ago would have been completely unthinkable, a level of pettiness, vileness. So a lot of this has to do with social media, but, you know, that doesn't excuse it. But you and I love Erica. And I think, you know, to give the lunatics the benefit of the doubt,

some of them obviously genuinely believe, because they don't know her, they didn't know Charlie, they actually believe that maybe she or others were involved in the murder. So they're not thinking about the people that we know. They're thinking about these figments of their imagination, these symbolic villains in a way. But, you know, when we're when we're talking about

this unnamed horror of a person who's just been so vile, unspeakably vile, I mean, we've just never seen anything like this in public life. It's really, it's really astonishing. But I think that you're dealing with, you know, it's evil, it's narcissism. It's, it's, it's, Jealousy. I mean, writing in my revolution book about Benedict Arnold, when you see it's really just fascinating. It's like a Shakespearean level of evil where you see somebody, I think some historian, I quote him in my book, says that Arnold, at some point, his hatred or whatever, curdled into settled or bitter malice. Like, it's just, it's just horrific. And that's what we're talking about. We don't need to talk more about it. But I mean, again, on a human level,

those of us who knew Charlie as a friend, who love Erica, who cannot even believe what she is having to go through, facing the world alone with two children. It's just, we can't, we can't, you know, I can't, I don't know, I don't know what to say that what she has had to endure. And I'll say this too, there are Christians and there are Christians. And this is something I've seen in my life. She is the real deal. At her Christianity and the Christianity of anybody who is a serious Christian is on some level baffling and even repulsive to people who aren't on that same theological page. You just can't, you can't, because you're not there, you can't believe that somebody could be that devoted to Jesus, could forgive a murderer. You just does not compute. You don't understand even

what that is to forgive. It doesn't mean you say, no big deal. On the contrary, you say, even though it's one of the most horrible things ever, I choose to turn it over to Jesus. I choose to turn this person and this deed over to Jesus. I choose to do this. Anyway, I just have to say, I want to be clear that that's one thing I know about Erica. And I know there are people out there who they really don't get that. They don't get that. I hope at some point they would, but that's that's up to the Lord and them. So I want to say this because you bring up something just, it's really important, right?

At some point, objectivity has to enter in. At some point, correspondence theory of truth. I mean, people have to understand that, you know, there is a thing called reality. There is a thing called truth. We give forgiveness to people, of course, that are sort of innocent bystanders. They've, they're what they're witnessing.

They're trying to make sense of some. something. They've trusted some of these voices online for such a long period of time. And then it switched. Like it just flipped, right? At some point, these guys are not trustworthy anymore. And it takes time for people to come to this realization. And I think this trial presents the opportunity, right? And I think in that moment, too, in promoting the truth and standing for the truth and calling people to the truth, we, you, I, others, we have to allow room for grace and mercy, forgiveness, repentance, all that kind of stuff, and to bring people back to the standard. So I'm setting that one.

And I want to say something else. The discussion came up this last week. We were talking about Elizabeth Elliott, right? Jim Elliott was martyred along with some of his friends. This was in Ecuador. This goes away back to, I think, the, late 1950s. It was, I was 1956. I've met

Elizabeth Elliott. I knew her brother well, Thomas Howard, and her young husband, a missionary to tribal people in Ecuador, was murdered by them, my goodness, very early in their marriage. So yes, go ahead.

So we've heard this comparison before, but, you know, in many ways, Charlie is like a modern Jim Elliott, like a Jim Elliot. He didn't have to go to Ecuador, though, to face that kind of persecution

where he could be killed for his faith. He just went to a public American university. That's it. But in this scenario, Elizabeth comes back to the United States. Who doesn't have sympathy for Elizabeth

Elliot? Who in America would not champion and laud and praise this woman as a righteous woman of faith, as that proverbial woman, a widow, who has suffered unspeakable loss going through this unimaginable scenario. And, you know, of course, we know Elizabeth Elliott goes on to be, you know, the woman of wisdom, lady wisdom as she is. And she speaks at, she writes numerous books, speaks at numerous conferences, has a ministry that lasts for decades, right? In this scenario, though, Charlie gets killed an American

public university as a Christian martyr. And Erica is like an Elizabeth Elliott except for Eric, look at all the things that she has had to bear publicly as though she is some kind of villain and not a victim. And walking through that, she is in a theological class of life right now where she is walking through and she is experiencing something I've never had to face.

Many of us have never had to face and that is to bear these slings and arrows of criticism, even demonic attacks from all these different signs. She's having to bear all of that pain of losing her husband and add to that these other things. At some point, I believe that God will vindicate the truth in terms of objective reality,

but I also think that God will absolutely vindicate, and already has in many ways, Erica Kirk, but it will become so publicly obvious that not even social media, with all of its delusional power, we'll be able to cover it up. And that's what we need right now, I think more than anything. We're waiting for that public aha moment to reveal to everyone.

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And look, we just have to be realistic. they're always going to be, you know, Charles Manson had followers. Jim Jones had thousands of followers. Adolf Hitler had millions of followers. There will always be people, whether diluted or complicit or both, in following wicked figures. You know, that's a reality. And just because there are. are millions saluting Adolf Hitler doesn't mean Hitler will not eventually be brought to God's

justice, will not be, will be brought to justice in a global sense that that most people in the world will recognize exactly who he was and what he did. And so, but it's hard in the meantime, When an evil figure is doing or saying evil things, and we have to be clear too. There's enough truth in every lie so that people can say, well, wait a minute, but what about that? That's right. Hitler was right about many things.

Doesn't change the fact that that was all in the service of a greater lie. So it's dark stuff dealing with this and trying to see this. you know, just to get back to Jim Elliott and Elizabeth Elliott. And again, this gets back to what I said about Erica being a true Christian. I think there are a lot of people that think of themselves as Christians, and I don't know that they are Christians or, you know, I'll leave the detail to God of whether they're saved. But I just want to say that God wants us to go deeper with him.

And so when we bring up the issue of Elizabeth Elliott, she was able to forgive the murderers of her husband, her young, beautiful, godly husband murdered. She was able, just as Corey Ten Boom was able to actually live out her faith, not to talk about it, but to actually live out her faith and to forgive her husband. That's what God wants from all of us. And I think there are a lot of people out there who think of themselves as Christians. They don't get that. So they don't get Erica.

They don't get, they're just, there's a, there's sort of a carnal barrier. They go this far, but they're not going, you know, they don't, they don't get that. It just doesn't make sense to them. And I, I want to say that when you follow God at that level where you're able to forgive a murderer, good will come out of it no matter what. in the case of Elizabeth Elliott, the murderers of her husband

came to faith in Jesus Christ. They became profound Christians because of the ultimate example of the forgiveness of Jesus

lived out in the life of the widow of the murdered man. It's an extraordinary thing. That's the power of God. You want to see the power of God, that's where you're going to see the power of God. And I think it's important for us to realize, again, I think there are plenty of people maybe listening to me now. They don't get this. They don't get the fact that, you know, I talked about meeting with David Berkowitz, who was called the son of Sam, who murdered six people, who at some point in his life,

completely repented and received Jesus and is a new creation. That can happen. I know there are people listening to think of them as Christians. They don't, they don't get that. They haven't seen it. And I just want to put this out there, folks. If you don't get that, you need to get that. Your soul is on the line. God asks you, reaches out to you in his example of death on the cross, forgiving his enemies. He needs you to understand that. He needs you to accept that.

And I think to accept that is humbling for us because we want to be proud. We want to be better than, you know, how can I ever forgive that? But we're not saying that you don't call murder murder and you don't call evil evil. But unless you can see your own complicity in evil, unless you understand you need forgiveness, you're not getting it. And I suspect that there's just a lot of voices out there because, listen, I get the idea of we want justice, right? You know, I want to see Candace Owens pay for the evil that she has done.

There's justice. but at the same time we have to beware of in our own hearts are we carrying love and forgiveness do we ultimately want to see that person come to repentance and healing whether they do or don't that's another story but what is in our hearts so i didn't mean to get so theological ryan but since i'm talking a good friend i uh you know i just think these things need um explication sometimes because I think there are a lot of people that kind of you know they're stumbling along like yeah I'm a Christian but you know you might not be if you're not if you're not understanding that what Erica did at the memorial a week after Charlie's death that's right

it was the most powerful expression of Christian faith I think I've seen in my life yes in my lifetime it was a bomb without question dropped into the bowels of hell and I got to tell you that upsets the enemy and when you see that extraordinary expression of Christian faith what we saw it wasn't just that that was the highlight but what we saw at that memorial service was astonishing and it made hell very very angry and we're seeing uh you know the demonic manifestations and I just want to be clear that that's a big part of what we're seeing right now anyway no you're at the trial um I um I forgive me for talking so much. I ask my audience, please forgive me. But I, I'm just curious to sit in that courtroom,

unfathomable to me, my friend. What is it like to be in that room? I can't imagine. Well, I think, you know, it's interesting, Erica said it best just the other day at her leadership summit that was there in D.C. with, you know, all those students, you know, she was comparing this room with these bright-eyed, young, conservative men and women. And she said, you know, this is the future of America. And she said, this is so much better than what we just experienced in that courtroom. I will say, it's just very, obviously, it's very somber. It's kind of a sterile environment. You're gathered into that room with, you know, obviously the family of the Kirk's, but then also, you know, Robinson's family, Tyler's family was there. Everybody's quiet.

you could hear a pen drop in the room and every tiny whisper can kind of be heard. So, you know, if we're talking in our row, for example, and everything's kind of quiet, you know, the judge is in there. I mean, literally anyone within 20 feet can hear the tiniest whisper, right? It's one of those things where it's so emotional

because you're hearing this kind of technical language, you know, legalese, right? I'm not a law, I'm not a lawyer. I have no formal legal education, you know, but I've watched TV, right? That's probably the most dangerous thing because none of that stuff is real. When you're in a courtroom, it's forensic, it's very sterile. They're trying to ask questions.

the prosecution is doing their job. The defense is then doing their job in cross-examination. And they're trying to find any wrinkle, any hole, right? But the way it's happening is not with a lot of drama. It's subtle. It's very subtle. And one of the things I will say that kind of shocked me, Eric, on Wednesday. So it's my first day.

I've never been in one of these things before, okay? The only thing I've ever been into was like a traffic court. So I've never been at a capital murder trial. But I'm watching, and the defense team is up there, and they're doing their thing. And they're just very chummy. It's very, it's very sort of like, they're trying to be warm and gregarious.

You know, the different attorneys, Bird, Novak, Nestor, Nester, I forget her name, but they kind of have winks and nods at each other. And you're like, you know, my friend was murdered. I mean, is that the emotion you have for this room? It's incredible, right? And so I'm passing it through my own lens here of what I've experienced, what my dear friend is lost in her husband and children not having a father. And I'm seeing them, these professional million dollar, by the way.

These are seven figure lawyers. how in the world that kind of defense is afforded with taxpayer money, I have no idea. Because the prosecution is not a million dollar team, I assure you. But they were just very lighthearted in some of their approach, and they're kind of joking amongst one another. Well, you know, fast forward as the evidence is presented, and it's very jarring, Eric. It's very, you know, again, all of this pointing to Charlie.

So, you know, you're going to see like pictures of an inanimate object and different things. And here's the forensics of a bullet. But it all points back to our friend was murdered. Everything that is presented in that courtroom, there's a widow here. And she's grieving and she's reliving that pain. And so the most haunting thing for me was, hearing my friend Erica just sobbing that I told you how quiet that room was oh you could hear it and um it's just one of the most painful experiences to have to walk through it really is I can't

imagine what she's going through but I'm just saying like no one with a soul uh who hears that who experience and experiences and witnesses what's taking place no one with a soul, with a conscience, at least one that is pure and clean, can walk through that without just breaking apart. And so Wednesday was very tough. Wednesday was hard. The defense wanted to redact as much of Lance Twiggs testimony, damning testimony, redact as much as possible. Anything tied to transgenderism and anything, according to Mr. Novak, the defense attorney, that could be construed, Eric, as a confession. Yeah.

And he said it very clearly. Tyler told him he murdered Charlie Kirk. And that's... Now, Lance is the lover of... That's right. That's right. Of Tyler, yeah. That's right.

And the defense was walking all over the judge. Again, I'm not an attorney. I'm a friend, but I'm watching this play out. They were prepared. And they're going to be bullish. all throughout this trial. This is just a preliminary hearing. This is the one where only the state

is really supposed to be presenting the evidence for probable cause. The defense kind of had their way in that courtroom. And they did all kinds of procedural things to raise objections and all that. But every single piece of evidence presented by the state was admitted into court,

which basically, you know, Any conspiracy theory out there, all these guys online that are promoting all these alternatives, they should be the defense lawyer, right? Try that in court, right? The defense team is not using any of that nonsense because they know it doesn't work. I listen. And also I just want to say, like, I get the idea of people having questions. Yes. You know, I mean, believe me, I had questions.

And we all want to know. I mean, it's kind of like when you're talking about the murder of JFK, we've seen what that was like. You know, I get the impression that in fact there was a conspiracy with President Johnson, then the vice president, and the CIA and the mafia. Like I believe that actually happened. So you can understand people being cynical. It's like, oh, yeah, the Warren Commission says it was a single kid, it was Oswald. What baloney?

What, you know, so I get that. But we have to be careful. And again, we're living in crazy times, right? where we've all been lied to so much that you see a lot of people that have gone over the edge into conspiracy world. The earth is flat.

We never landed on the moon. You know, Hillary Clinton is a lizard person or she was just hanged in Guantanamo Bay, didn't you hear? You know, like it goes on and on. And I think that we have a responsibility before the Lord to be sober-minded. Yes.

So if something was a conspiracy, see if someone was involved or okay like we are we're going to ask those questions but at some point you know it's like chesterton said you know the whole point of having an open mind is so that at some point you close it down on something that's exactly right that's exactly right and you you don't just keep asking questions and asking questions because that becomes diabolical that becomes realistic i'm just asking questions right at some point you have to shut up and make a decision we've asked questions, okay, what do we think happened? And rather than try to keep people on the line, you know, like you're playing a fish, but you don't ever want to land the fish. You just want to

keep them on the line because you're getting paid by the hour for keeping them on the line. So that's really cynical and dark. And I'm so sorry in a way that we have to go through this as a culture, but the Lord has allowed it for whatever purposes. And also, ultimately, there's a part of me, which says, like, I don't care about any of this stuff because Charlie's dead. And that's that. You know, who did it, how it was done. You know, on the one hand, I care. On the other hand, the horror is that no matter what happens in that courtroom, you can't

get Charlie back. That's, you know, that's to me the tough thing. Yeah. That's the tough thing that however the trial goes, whoever was shown to do whatever, you know, at the end of the day. So maybe that's what animates some of these folks that are asking these big questions that, you know, honestly, because they want to get to the bottom of something. They want somebody to pay.

They want, you know, in any event, we care about the truth, whatever, whatever that is. But in this case, so far it looks like he did it. And that itself is unfathomable. How can a human being throw away his life? take a gun to murder, a father, and a husband, and know that his own life is over. Like, what did he think was going to happen? So can I...

I can't never understand it. I'm going to interject this one thing, exactly what you're asking right there, and I think that's really important. There is a big portion, like over 20 some odd minutes. It's an incredible amount where the state prosecution, I think the attorney's name is Ryan McBride, He is asking through video testimony, he's interviewing Lance Twigs.

And the part that the defense team did not want to include in the preliminary hearing was something that would explain motivation. And so part of that big part of that testimony had to do with sexual orientation gender identity, getting at kind of what was what's kind of going on what's the relationship about all of that i have not viewed it um so i'm not going to embellish anything but there's a big part of that that was not presented to anyone in the courtroom and there's a reason for that and then i'm going to add something else david inglehart um who is a dear friend uh has submitted a letter speaking to to Charlie's faith and that that is a big part of what has happened.

It's not that Charlie is, you know, assassinated because of his politics. No, it goes beyond that. Lindsay Graham just died, you know. tragic what happened. It happened very quickly. Lindsay Graham clearly a politician, right? Clearly a politician.

You know, I heard Franklin give kind of just a, you know, some kind of warm words about Lindsay. What I did not hear Franklin really talk about was Lindsay. You're talking about Franklin Graham. Yeah, Franklin Graham, excuse me, giving some words about Lindsay. Franklin, I didn't hear him say anything about his Christian faith. Was you Christian, was he not? I have no idea.

But in the case of Charlie, it is very obvious, even at the moment within the few minutes before he was shot at 1223 and 38 seconds in Utah time local. When he was shot, he was sharing his faith. He wasn't talking about politics. He was talking about what's upstream from that. And this goes, just to clarify for the audience. So this goes to motive, folks, right? In other words, David Englehart, who's the pastor, who's my pastor and my dear friend.

And I met him through you, Ryan, and through Charlie. however many years ago, 2019. Yeah, he submitted a letter basically talking about Charlie's faith and about the biblical view that Charlie held of sexuality, of male and female. And of course, that is ultimately very damning because it shows motive or could show motive on the part of the alleged murderer that this is why he did this. And I know that that was very contentious about whether that letter, you know, obviously the defense, they don't want this letter put in there because it's potentially, you know, the smoking gun of why this man murdered another human being. That's right. That's exactly right. And I'll say in the state of Utah, the Utah Constitution, now this is sick, but this is kind of the way it is.

you do not get capital punishment for a murder just by committing a single homicide. And so if you kill someone, so I'm pro death penalty, if you kill a single individual, and say it's proven in court, jury of your peers, you get a guilty verdict,

you will likely get a lifetime sentence. Maybe you're available for parole after a period of time, but you're not going to get the death penalty automatic for something like that. So there has to be an elevated status. There has to be something that goes to motive that goes just beyond. And they call this aggravator. This is kind of a legal status.

And so in this trial going as to motive, talking about sort of this religious, persecution, you know, the faith angle, of course, transgenderism. and then something else, as they're discussing where they were when the shot was fired from the perch, elevated 68 feet, roughly 430-some-odd feet from where Charlie was, there's thousands of people. The bullet had to go over their heads in proximity to that tent where Charlie was. There are dozens of people really close to him. Tyler not only took Charlie's life, but he risked every other life in that process. And that is something that this trial,

when it goes to trial, is going to consider that, yeah, this is an aggravator status because of all those things I just mentioned. We're at a time. Final thoughts, if you have any, my friend. I just want to go back to the words of Jesus. You shall know the truth,

and the truth shall set you free. There are a lot of people, with broken minds today because they have broken hearts. We talked about this. This is a soul thing. The line that goes from the mind to the heart is direct. It doesn't take any U-turns. It doesn't stop off at an airport

and get a connecting flight. It's direct. And so there's a lot of people incapable of understanding the truth, and they're incapable of being logical because their hearts need to be healed. And that's what Jesus does. And so I do believe there's a, there's a lot of subjectivity. People are not thinking logically.

And so we need to pray that Jesus Christ, who is the truth, who has a name, reveals himself to them, Eric. So grateful for your coming on. Ryan Helfenbine, executive director of the Freedom Center at Liberty University and the host of the Give Me Liberty podcast. My friend, thank you. Thank you. Hey, y'all.

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