The Charlie Kirk Show - Vice President JD Vance Remembers Charlie Kirk

00:01:00.000 Hey everybody.

00:01:01.000 JD Vance here, live from my office in the White House complex, and filling in for somebody who cannot be filled in for, but I'm going to try to do my best, my dear friend, the great Charlie Kirk.

00:01:13.000 The last several days have been extremely hard for our country.

00:01:17.000 They've been hard for me, hard for my family, hard for the countless people in this building who knew and loved Charlie Kirk, and of course they've been hardest most of all for his darling wife Erica and their two beautiful children.

00:01:31.000 The thing is, every single person in this building, we owe something to Charlie.

00:01:38.000 He was a joyful warrior for our country.

00:01:41.000 He loved America.

00:01:42.000 He devoted himself tirelessly to making our country a better place.

00:01:46.000 He was a critical part of getting Donald Trump elected as president, getting me elected as vice president.

00:01:53.000 and so much of our success over the last seven months is due to his efforts, his staffing, his support, and his friendship.

00:02:01.000 I don't think that I'm alone in saying that Charlie was the smartest political operative I ever met.

00:02:07.000 Everyone knew him as this fearless debater, this guy who would take the conservative message into hostile places and inspire younger generations to have courage.

00:02:16.000 One thing that's hit a lot of those young Americans over the last week was how Charlie was there for them when others were not.

00:02:24.000 When they were afraid to speak their minds, when they were afraid of what a professor would say when they were afraid that they would be shouted down by their peers, Charlie was there, showing them that they could be courageous and that they could be bold.

00:02:38.000 Charlie was a visionary.

00:02:40.000 He was a luminary.

00:02:42.000 He brought together people.

00:02:43.000 He didn't just teach people how to speak.

00:02:45.000 He didn't just teach people what to say.

00:02:47.000 He didn't just teach people they could actually speak their mind on campus.

00:02:51.000 They create he He created a whole social network for an entire generation of young people.

00:02:56.000 I know people who met their husband, who met their wife, who met the best men at their wedding at a TPUSA event.

00:03:04.000 Because as you guys all know, it's not just about speaking our mind, it's about making friends along the way and creating that support network that won an election and that staffed the current federal government.

00:03:16.000 I owe so much to Charlie.

00:03:18.000 I've had friends reach out in just the last couple of days who sent me messages, screenshots that they exchanged with Charlie in the run-up to me getting selected by the president as his vice presidential running mate.

00:03:34.000 And it's such an honor to have people show me that Charlie said we want JD to be the VP nominee.

00:03:42.000 And I just had a conversation with the president, and I think things are actually going well.

00:03:46.000 I think he's actually going to choose J.D. Vance.

00:03:49.000 Do you know what it means to me that such a good guy, such a good friend, such a lion and visionary of our movement was advocating for me?

00:03:57.000 So I wanted to use this show today to advocate for Charlie, to talk about him, to talk about what kind of a guy he was, talk about what kind of a man he was, what kind of a husband and father he was, and to take people, most of them from inside the administration, but some of them from without who knew Charlie best and to talk about what he meant,

00:04:16.000 what he meant to them what he meant to this administration and what he meant to the conservative movement i was very honored a couple of days ago on september the 11th 2025 to fly out to utah where charlie was shot and killed to meet his wife to meet his mom and his dad his his sister all just incredible people who didn't deserve to have this happen to them And I was also honored to be able to take Charlie's remains from Utah to Arizona.

00:04:45.000 It was an amazing, amazing thing.

00:04:48.000 It was heartbreaking and it was sad and it was terrible.

00:04:51.000 But what an honor it was for me and my family to be welcomed in to the Kirk Inner Circle at their moment of grief.

00:04:58.000 There are a few things that I want to talk about just from that moment.

00:05:02.000 First of all, when I first met Erica, his lovely wife and such an incredibly brave soul I'm not sure if you saw her remarks after Charlie died.

00:05:11.000 If you haven't, I would encourage you to go and see them because you see this raw grief and incredible courage all in the same moment and that's what we need right now.

00:05:19.000 We need to grieve but we also need this courage in this moment more than we've ever needed it.

00:05:25.000 She gave me a hug and she was heartbroken as of course she would be and she said that she loved him so much and I said Erica he loved you so much.

00:05:36.000 He died way too young, but he died a happy man because of you, because of the family that you gave him, because of the home and the life that you guys had built together.

00:05:46.000 And we sat for about an hour and we talked about Charlie.

00:05:49.000 And, you know, in these moments, you don't know what to say.

00:05:52.000 I'm a person who literally speaks for a living and I had no idea what to say.

00:05:56.000 And I didn't try to console her because how can you console a person who just lost a loving husband and father?

00:06:02.000 But we just talked about Charlie.

00:06:04.000 We talked about who he was.

00:06:07.000 We talked about some of our favorite stories.

00:06:09.000 We talked about some of his idiosyncrasies and all the things that made Charlie Kirk who he was.

00:06:13.000 And she said something to me that I will never forget.

00:06:17.000 My wife was there.

00:06:18.000 It was just me and my wife on my side and then a lot of people from the Turning Points family, a lot of people from Charlie's family.

00:06:25.000 And she said to me that Charlie never raised his voice, that he never cussed at her, that he was never cross or mean-spirited to her.

00:06:35.000 And look, I'm a husband.

00:06:36.000 I'm proud of being a husband.

00:06:37.000 I think that on the great balance of things that I'm a pretty good husband.

00:06:41.000 But I can never say that I was never unpleasant with my wife.

00:06:46.000 I can never say that I've never raised my voice to my wife.

00:06:49.000 Like most husbands, even the good ones, were sometimes imperfect.

00:06:53.000 And I took from that moment that I needed to be a better husband and I needed to be a better father.

00:06:59.000 Because of all these moments that I shared just in the last few days, the books that I've read to my kids, going up to their bedroom and kissing them and hugging them before bed, I just realized that all of these moments that I get to have, Charlie is not able to have them anymore.

00:07:16.000 And Charlie's kids and his beautiful wife are not able to have them anymore.

00:07:20.000 And maybe the best way that I can contribute and the best way that I can honor my dear friend is to be the best husband that I can be.

00:07:28.000 To be the kind of husband to my wife that he was to his.

00:07:32.000 You know, we talked all the time about the most important thing you could do is not vulgar.

00:07:37.000 vote for a particular candidate it was to become if you were a young man a husband and a father he talked about the joy that came from fatherhood the joy that came from raising a family and being part of of their growth and their development and all the incredible things that happen when you get to be a husband and father and that is the way that I'm going to honor my friend is to be the very best at that most important job that I can be.

00:08:01.000 But that's not the only way that I'm going to honor Charlie and there's going to be a lot of discussion over the next two hours of this radio program about what exactly that looks like it's important and Erica asked me this to make sure that his movement the movement that Charlie started has to keep going.

00:08:18.000 We have to build upon it we have to add to it we have to make sure that the next generation of young people feels confident and courageous to speak their mind and to speak the truth we're going to talk about that.

00:08:29.000 We're going to talk about why do we do this of course we do this so that we can enact good public policy and take back our country we're going to talk with senior officials in the administration about what we're trying to do to honor Charlie's legacy in that way.

00:08:42.000 Of course we have to make sure that the killer is brought to justice and importantly we have to talk about this incredibly destructive movement of left wing extremism that has grown up over the last few years and I believe is part of the reason why Charlie was killed by an assassin's bullet,

00:09:01.000 we're going to talk about how to dismantle that and how to bring real unity, real unity that can only come when we tell the truth, and everybody knows that they can speak their mind about the issues of the day without being cut down by a murderer's gun.

00:09:16.000 We're going to talk about all of those things with friends of Charlie, with people in the administration, with people that he knew.

00:09:22.000 You know, on a podcast a couple of months back, Charlie was asked about how he'd want to be remembered if he died.

00:09:27.000 His answer, I want to be remembered for courage for my faith.

00:09:32.000 That would be the most important thing.

00:09:35.000 The most important thing is my faith, and that was Charlie.

00:09:39.000 And in this dark moment for our country, I think that's the greatest lesson any of us can take from Charlie to have faith, to have faith in the Lord and to be bold in how we glorify him.

00:09:52.000 To be bold in our pursuits as Charlie was in his.

00:09:56.000 So that's what we're going to spend a little bit of time doing this afternoon.

00:10:01.000 Keeping this incredible show he created going and hearing from some of the people who were so fortunate to call Charlie a friend.

00:10:08.000 We're going to pay tribute to his courageous legacy, and we're going to commit to keep it forever alive.

00:10:15.000 I'm looking forward to this.

00:10:16.000 Joining me now is Stephen Miller, White House Deputy Chief of Staff, dear friend of mine, and dear friend of Charlie Kirk's.

00:10:23.000 And uh before I get into the nitty-gritty of what I wanted to talk with Stephen about, you know, there's a lot of questions about the investigation, where we are in the investigation.

00:10:31.000 I want to be respectful to the FBI's process, but just know that we are on top of this, and the entire administration is trying to do as much as possible to find everything that we can about what led to this, about how we got here, and of course, ultimately how an assassin took Charlie's life.

00:10:47.000 I wanted to zoom out with Stephen a little bit and talk about all of the ways that we're trying to figure out how to prevent this festering violence that you see on the far left from becoming even more and more mainstream.

00:10:59.000 And you know, before I do that, Stephen, I want to do this with every guest because you're a friend of Charlie's, and one of the things I'm hoping that people get out of this is an understanding for the kind of guy that Charlie was, who he was.

00:11:09.000 And so before I talk to you about what we're doing to try to prevent something like this from happening again, maybe you could just talk about why you love Charlie, what memories you have of him, something that would give our audience a sense of what he was behind the microphone.

00:11:24.000 Yeah.

00:11:26.000 I've known Charlie for 10 years.

00:11:28.000 He was a treasured friend.

00:11:31.000 And you know, his is going to sound he made he made you believe more on yourself, is the best way I could put that.

00:11:41.000 That's right.

00:11:42.000 The he was your biggest cheerleader.

00:11:47.000 He would, if I was working on a hard project, an important executive order, a major new initiative, he would give me the strength and the focus to get it done.

00:11:57.000 He was everybody's um supporter, enthusiast, cheerleader, promoter.

00:11:57.000 That's right.

00:12:03.000 Uh he made all of us better every single day.

00:12:06.000 You know, my uh the memory that I keep turning to is not a single memory, it's a period of a couple months after we won the election.

00:12:17.000 And Charlie was in the campaign or the transition office every single day.

00:12:21.000 And from dawn till dusk, volunteering his time to get into the weeds, the nitty-gritty of government.

00:12:30.000 And he was so damn excited.

00:12:33.000 I mean, it just it really hurts to think about it right now.

00:12:36.000 He was so excited about all of us being here.

00:12:39.000 And we would be talking about every executive order, every new regulation, every new policy plan.

00:12:45.000 I just, it was such a thrill for me to get to spend a few months of my life, because you know, he came from the nonprofit, the activist world.

00:12:53.000 I came from the government world.

00:12:55.000 And in this transition to be able to work hand in hand, take all of his ideas from being the leader of TP USA, spending time with college students, spending time with activists, and then be able to be with us in the transition to plan out the next step of our government.

00:13:09.000 That was an experience for which I will always be grateful.

00:13:11.000 And the last thing I'll say is that to my earlier point, Charlie would send me messages all the time, just saying, you know, great work, or here's a new idea, or here's what I think will take this to the next level.

00:13:22.000 And I took them all to heart.

00:13:23.000 And I just love the man so much.

00:13:28.000 He was he was our biggest supporter, Stephen, but he Was also if he disagreed, he would figure out how to get us to get where he wanted us to go.

00:13:36.000 And he was always such a big cheerleader.

00:13:38.000 You're absolutely right.

00:13:39.000 The darkest moments of my life, it was Charlie who was on the phone saying, don't let him get to you, keep on fighting, keep on going.

00:13:45.000 You're absolutely right.

00:13:46.000 So I want to be mindful of time here.

00:13:49.000 A lot of people are very worried about how we got here in the first place.

00:13:53.000 And you have the crazies on the far left who are saying, oh, Stephen Miller and JD Vance, they're gonna go after constitutionally protected speech.

00:14:00.000 No, no, no.

00:14:00.000 We're gonna go after the NGO network that foments facilitates and engages in violence.

00:14:08.000 That's not okay.

00:14:09.000 Violence is not okay in our system, and we want to make it less likely that that happens.

00:14:13.000 Walk me through at a high level, like what you and I have been working on, what the whole administration has been working on to try to make sure that we don't reward and promote this craziness.

00:14:23.000 Yes, so it's an excellent question.

00:14:25.000 I said this before, and uh, but it bears repeating.

00:14:29.000 The last message that Charlie sent me was um, I think it was just the day before we lost him, which is that we need to have an organized strategy to go after the left-wing organizations that are promoting violence in this country.

00:14:42.000 And I will write those words on to my heart and I will carry them out.

00:14:47.000 People ask me, you know, what emotions I'm feeling right now, and this is something people say.

00:14:51.000 I mean, you kind of know the answer.

00:14:52.000 There's incredible sadness, but there's incredible anger.

00:14:56.000 And the thing about anger is that unfocused anger or blind rage is not a productive emotion.

00:15:02.000 Right.

00:15:03.000 But focused anger, righteous anger, directed for a just cause is one of the most important agents of change in human history.

00:15:10.000 Charlie showed that.

00:15:11.000 Amen.

00:15:12.000 And we are gonna channel all of the anger that we have over the organized campaign that led to this assassination to uproot and dismantle these terrorist networks.

00:15:23.000 So let me explain a little bit what that means.

00:15:25.000 So the organized doxing campaigns, the organized riots, the organized street violence, the organized campaigns of dehumanization, vilification, posting people's addresses, combining that with messaging that's designed to trigger incite violence and the actual organized cells that carry out and facilitate the violence.

00:15:43.000 It is a vast domestic terror movement.

00:15:45.000 And with the God as my witness, we are gonna use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people.

00:15:58.000 It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie's name.

00:16:00.000 Thank you, Stephen.

00:16:01.000 Joining me now, and I'm excited about this one, are a few guys who, like me, were lucky enough to call Charlie their friend.

00:16:07.000 I have Taylor Budowicz, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Calen Doerr in the middle is the White House Deputy Communications Director, and Andrew Colvett is Charlie's longtime friend and the executive producer of this show.

00:16:20.000 Gentlemen, thanks so much for joining me.

00:16:22.000 Thanks for being a dear friend to Charlie.

00:16:24.000 And I thought what I'd start with is you know, we all knew Charlie the man, not just Charlie, the personality or Charlie the celebrity or Charlie, the guy who did debates on college campuses.

00:16:33.000 I want to start with you, Taylor.

00:16:35.000 What's something that you wish people knew about Charlie that they don't if they just watched his clips on X or YouTube or wherever?

00:16:43.000 So with Charlie, what you see is what you get, and I think that was true even for my first interactions with him on uh 2020 uh presidential campaign.

00:16:52.000 We'd be do always be doing these fundraisers, Don Jr., Kimberly Gilfoil, who was the Trump victory finance chair, would host these big fundraising events. 0.97

00:17:01.000 Charlie was always the first one to show up.

00:17:04.000 Um, and we would do these team events where we make calls all day.

00:17:08.000 And you'd always want Charlie on your team because the guy would get there first, make as many calls, and he was the best fundraiser that we had.

00:17:15.000 But you know, we have the not just the privilege of being Charlie's friend, but seeing what he's built through Turning Point.

00:17:23.000 And it became personal to me when my sister, who uh we're from California, um, and you know, has trying to find her way politically.

00:17:33.000 And said, you know, I want to get involved, and we have the benefit of we can go to any event, any rally, any intimate setting.

00:17:39.000 Um, and I said, you know what, there's uh the the young women's event that he hosts in in Dallas.

00:17:45.000 I said, How about we go to Dallas?

00:17:47.000 And one of the reasons why Charlie's events, I think have been so successful, and why this organization has been so successful, is he makes makes these events approachable to the person that hasn't done politics before, hasn't been engaged, but is curious and thinks maybe something is going wrong with the country, maybe that there's a way to get involved.

00:18:09.000 That's not the big rallies that that that's not, you know, standing in lines for a long time, but just and for my sister, it was for uh conference room of girls listening to Taylor Swift music during breaks and uh kind of having an approachable, but then also talking about life,

00:18:25.000 talking about family, talking about, you know, at this event, you know, just relationships, and starting to build a path for young people that is both approachable but informed and and thoughtful.

00:18:40.000 And so for me, it was it was an ability and an opportunity for me to share with my sister something that I get experienced all the time.

00:18:48.000 And and I think it was something that she really appreciated, and I know millions of young people are appreciating, and by the looks of the signups, the sign-up's pretty good, and they're gonna appreciate it a lot more.

00:18:59.000 Yeah.

00:18:59.000 We'll talk about that, Andrew.

00:19:00.000 So it sounds like there's been this blowout of interest in turning points you say in the mission.

00:19:05.000 You know, one of the things I really hope is that this assassin didn't silence Charlie's movement, and I think that's the best way for us to honor him is to keep it going.

00:19:13.000 You're one of the critical people at TPUSA.

00:19:15.000 Tell us a little bit about Charlie, but also about what you've seen in the wake of Charlie's assassination.

00:19:20.000 Yeah.

00:19:20.000 Um, you know, to put things in perspective, you know, there were, I guess, currently 900 official chapters of turning point on college campuses.

00:19:31.000 And that's you know, when you get you get at about 900, 920, give or take, kids graduate, you gotta kind of rebuild a few chapters.

00:19:38.000 That's about what you're gonna get to.

00:19:40.000 And we have 1,200 uh high school chapters, which was our big new initiative.

00:19:44.000 And we were really proud when we the high school chapters eclipsed the college chapters because we were known as the college.

00:19:50.000 And so there's about 23,000 uh high schools in America, 23,000, 24,000.

00:19:56.000 And I'll I'll never forget this.

00:19:57.000 This is a really funny moment a couple weeks ago in Aspen.

00:20:01.000 And Charlie was like, we are gonna have a Club America, which is the high school brand, on all uh all uh 23,000.

00:20:09.000 He didn't know the number, this is actually part of the story.

00:20:11.000 We're gonna have it on every high school campus in America, and his you know, the team is gone.

00:20:15.000 Oh my gosh.

00:20:16.000 And Charlie goes, we're gonna have 35,000 high school chapters, and you know, he just threw out this big like stretch goal, you know, like and uh and you know, we're like, oh Charlie, the whole team's freaking out because that that's a that's a huge lift.

00:20:30.000 And uh and he goes, We have they have to be on every every single high school campus.

00:20:34.000 And then I I'm I'm sitting next to him, I look at it and I Google it, and it's like there's 23,000 uh high schools in America, Charlie.

00:20:40.000 He goes, Oh, okay, 2023,000.

00:20:43.000 We're gonna be on every single one.

00:20:44.000 And then that you know, the team got him eventually to say, well, okay, the the big stretch goal is 10,000.

00:20:50.000 And um, it was amazing because now I I tweeted out and it's it's I don't know, it's like 10 million views or something.

00:20:56.000 It like I think it made people feel good because we now have uh 37,000 applications to start chapters around the country, and um, you know, it almost brings a tear to your eye because that moment is like we all remember all the whole team, we were all in a ballroom going through a presentation together, and he was adamant we are gonna be on every high school in America, and um he's gonna be proven right.

00:21:24.000 That's right.

00:21:25.000 Well, he was in a lot of ways, as you guys know, the ultimate cheerleader, and he saw in you things that you didn't necessarily see in yourself.

00:21:32.000 He was a true friend in that way.

00:21:33.000 And I I remember, you know, one one particularly difficult moment, probably the hardest moment on the campaign trail for me.

00:21:40.000 We had an event in Arizona, I believe with a bunch of faith leaders, and it was it was the one time on the entire national campaign where I gave my chief of staff a hug and apologized to him because I was just at a you know, I hadn't seen the kids in seven days.

00:21:56.000 I was particularly cranky, and I get to this event, I'm just kind of like, man, come on, we gotta do this again.

00:22:01.000 And Charlie comes back and he gives me a hug.

00:22:03.000 And he's like, you know, your kids, you know, they love you, and they're gonna realize eventually why this was so important to do this.

00:22:09.000 And that kind of gave me this sense of all right, my head's back in the game.

00:22:13.000 And that was what Charlie was always good at setting ridiculous objectives, but finding some way to motivate people to go after it, even though it was you know, it seemed unattainable until you got a little Charlie Kirk pep talk.

00:22:25.000 Caitlin, what was your uh what's what's the thing you missed the most about Charlie?

00:22:29.000 What do you What do you what do you think is the is the most difficult part of replacing the great Charlie Kirk?

00:22:34.000 Well, I think you know, you mentioned him being everyone's best cheerleader.

00:22:38.000 And I uh the last time I saw him, I have a lot of peace in my heart because I had a very good interaction with him, as we always do.

00:22:44.000 Uh I was wandering the hallways of the E.O.B. and I must have had a horrible look on my face.

00:22:50.000 And he literally, he he jumped down the stairs, he put his hand on my shoulder, and he said, What's going on?

00:22:56.000 I just mentioned, man, you know, my baby's six months old.

00:22:59.000 We are going through it.

00:23:01.000 We are really strong.

00:23:02.000 I'm struggling, man.

00:23:03.000 And uh he sat there and he prayed for me in the halls of the E.O.B. uh for quite a bit of time, and he didn't need to do that, right?

00:23:09.000 You know, it could have been a quick check-in.

00:23:11.000 Um and I asked him, I said, dude, how do you do it?

00:23:16.000 You're killing it, your great dad, you guys are doing an amazing job at Turning Point.

00:23:16.000 How are you doing it?

00:23:20.000 I think you're doing everything you can.

00:23:22.000 And he looks at me and says, I have a great team.

00:23:24.000 And I laugh and I said, Cool.

00:23:26.000 So are you gonna donate to the Calen Dornanny fund after this?

00:23:29.000 And he said, No, that's not what I'm talking about.

00:23:31.000 I have a great team.

00:23:32.000 I said, You and JD and everyone here in this building are part of the team.

00:23:37.000 And uh I know that he would be very you know excited to see all the work that we have going on here in the administration, but also all the the testimonials.

00:23:46.000 I mean, like, I don't know how the guy had the bandwidth.

00:23:48.000 Like the the sheer volume of people whose lives he touched uh that we're just now discovering is is out of control.

00:23:55.000 And I think, you know, growing up, we didn't have a turning point.

00:23:58.000 We didn't have a Charlie, we didn't have these kind of people in our lives who who dedicated and put in the blood, sweat, and tears to go make sure that that this was a thing that existed for people like us.

00:24:08.000 And um, you know, the the lasting message is that, and you know, I've I've I think I've said this at Turning Point Events before is that the left wins, the the enemy they win when when you feel alone, and when you feel like you're the only one who thinks, eats, prays, breathes, lives the way that you do.

00:24:25.000 And Charlie was so great at at connecting those dots and connecting human beings.

00:24:31.000 I mean, our friendships are all stronger because of him with one another, but people, I mean, like I've never met Andrew, but I know I've talked to him through Charlie for years.

00:24:39.000 And he was so great at doing that.

00:24:39.000 Yeah.

00:24:41.000 So I think it's our mission to go out there and embolden young conservatives, young Christians most importantly, to go out there and continue to do his work because it's exactly what he would want.

00:24:50.000 He would want you to go find five people who don't believe in Jesus that day and and and give them you know a good a good lecturing and then and walk them through everything in a way that is respectful and is you know grounded in fact.

00:25:02.000 And uh I don't know how we replace that, but I think the energy that I'm seeing amongst people uh it is just palpable.

00:25:09.000 It's it's insane.

00:25:10.000 Yeah, Caitlin, there was this incredible hope at the core of Charlie's character that you could solve so many problems just by communicating with people.

00:25:19.000 Like if he wanted to introduce somebody to God, he would just go and talk to him.

00:25:23.000 If he wanted to introduce them to a new idea, he would just go and talk to them.

00:25:26.000 And it's what makes this particularly tragic is that he was doing the very thing that he loved, the very thing that led him to inspire so many people, and that's when they tried to cut him down at his strongest doing the most important thing that he was doing for our country.

00:25:39.000 I mean, Taylor, you mentioned his sister or your sister going to a turning points event.

00:25:44.000 And the thing about Charlie, and this is again something I don't know that people fully appreciate unless you know him particularly well, is he was such a bright guy, right?

00:25:52.000 He read theology and he read political philosophy, and he knew all these like crazy citations and you know, he knew like every Bible verse for every particular case, or he knew something that was written by some 15th century political philosopher.

00:26:03.000 He's like, Charlie, where the hell did you get that from?

00:26:05.000 It's like, oh, I just read a lot of books.

00:26:07.000 But he could also deal with people at the level who didn't know anything about politics, who were curious, who loved their country, they wanted to make it better.

00:26:14.000 Taylor, talk a little bit about that about because Taylor, those of you who don't know, is the lead in our communication shop here in the White House.

00:26:22.000 He knows more about talking to people than pretty much anybody in the White House, or at least that's what you're supposed to know more than anything anybody else about.

00:26:28.000 But like, talk about Charlie the communicator, because that's one of the things that made a movie was.

00:26:33.000 And in that I'm gonna tie two things that they said together, because uh Calen's right, we didn't have a Charlie Kirk.

00:26:40.000 Growing up, we had Barry Goldwater and Reagan, two guys that we barely were alive to to know or or overlap with.

00:26:49.000 Um the future has Charlie Kirk.

00:26:52.000 And you know, before Wednesday, Charlie Kirk was a young man inspiring young people.

00:27:01.000 After he was killed, he has become a Titan whose inspiration will move through eternity, inspiring millions of people for decades to come.

00:27:13.000 And he does it through both the understanding of biblical terms.

00:27:18.000 I mean, I I I spent, I'm sure, like a lot of people this weekend, spent my weekend scrolling through old videos of Charlie, and one really really hit me with the story of Jesus uh meeting the prostitute, where he says, you know, though those without sin cast the first stone.

00:27:37.000 And he Charlie points out everyone forgets what he says next, and he says to the uh prostitute, go on, sin no more. 0.96

00:27:45.000 And Charlie understood both the compassion of the Bible, but the honesty and truth telling of the Bible.

00:27:52.000 That is what I think has been missing in our political discourse that you don't have to be nasty.

00:27:58.000 You can be compassionate, but you should tell the truth.

00:28:01.000 And so the future of the political movement is going to be informed by young people, brave and courageous enough to tell the truth, but compassionate enough to understand the suffering of those around them.

00:28:14.000 And that that's that's Charlie Kirk.

00:28:16.000 Gentlemen, thank you so much for sharing all those stories, for sharing your time, for talking about Charlie.

00:28:22.000 Hello, everyone, Vice President JD Vance here.

00:28:24.000 Welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:28:26.000 So I am moonlighting as a radio host today, of course, in honor of my dear friend Charlie.

00:28:33.000 And uh, you know, I wanted to be like Marco Rubio.

00:28:35.000 I wanted to add an extra job here as the radio host and vice president here in the West Wing here in the White House complex.

00:28:42.000 But I have another person here who wears many hats and is one of the most gifted communicators I've ever seen, right up there with the great Charlie Kirk.

00:28:50.000 I'm glad to be joined by Carolyn Levitt, our press secretary.

00:28:53.000 Carolyn, so good to see you.

00:28:54.000 Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

00:28:55.000 Very kind.

00:28:56.000 I appreciate your saying that.

00:28:57.000 So let me let why don't you kick it off and tell us a little bit.

00:29:01.000 So those who don't know who are listening or watching, you actually were involved with TPUSA very early on when you were in college.

00:29:09.000 Tell me about that experience and about getting to know Charlie Kirk through that forum.

00:29:13.000 Sure.

00:29:14.000 Well, I'm a Gen Z conservative.

00:29:16.000 So I was really raised within the MAGA movement and within the MAGA movement as a Gen Z conservative means you're very much a part of the turning point USA movement.

00:29:26.000 And so my political education was not just through the rise of President Trump, but also the rise of Charlie Kirk.

00:29:33.000 And watching him and listening to him, and I inquired about starting a turning point USA chapter on my college, St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, where I went and where my political ambition and love of media and politics really began.

00:29:47.000 And so just by watching Charlie from a distance was so inspiring to me as a young conservative woman.

00:29:54.000 And then I got to know him personally when I decided to run for Congress, and he was a tremendous supporter and friend.

00:29:59.000 Great.

00:30:00.000 So you literally communicate for a living.

00:30:03.000 You're the person that speaks to the American people and the world on behalf of the White House every single day.

00:30:10.000 Did you learn anything particular about the way that Charlie Kirk communicated with people?

00:30:15.000 And what I always appreciated is that though he was very smart, and though you see all these clips of him owning people or of him getting the better of somebody in a debate, if you watched a full Charlie Kirk rally and all of the QA, and I was just talking with Andrew about this off-camera, 90% of it is Charlie being kind and being compassionate and offering moral support to people.

00:30:39.000 What do you take from Charlie Kirk, the communicator?

00:30:42.000 So many things just by watching him and by being around him.

00:30:46.000 But I think most of all, standing firm in your convictions and picking a fight, especially when you know you have the facts and the truth on your side, but doing it with a smile.

00:30:56.000 And that's something Charlie did so brilliant brilliantly and well.

00:30:59.000 He would go to these campus reform events and he would say to the crowd, if you disagree with me, come to the front of the line.

00:31:06.000 And I find myself doing that in the briefing room, you know, taking on the reporters, whom I know very much disagree with me and with the president.

00:31:14.000 But as long as you believe in what you're saying and you have conviction in it and you have truth and the facts on your side, it makes it a lot easier to say it.

00:31:20.000 And that's what Charlie did for a living.

00:31:23.000 And I know he inspired me as a young voice for President Trump now, like you said, behind the White House podium.

00:31:30.000 And you know, before every briefing, I always pray um to Jesus Christ.

00:31:35.000 And Charlie was so outspoken with his faith, and I will continue to be in honor of him.

00:31:40.000 But I'll also think of Charlie and just how brilliantly he was able to combat the la lies with facts and to do it with a smile.

00:31:48.000 Absolutely.

00:31:49.000 So, you know, I I always think of Charlie Kirk debating sometimes these kids on college campuses, and how the one part of your job that maybe would be harder if you went on college campuses is I think some of these college kids ask way better questions than the radicals do in the White House press briefing room.

00:32:06.000 So that'd be like good good preparation for you in a lot of ways.

00:32:09.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:32:10.000 TPOSA was actually the varsity.

00:32:12.000 Now you're you're kind of getting the JV level uh with your opponents here, but but you do such an incredible job.

00:32:18.000 And you know, you were, of course, not just the White House press secretary, you were also the main spokesperson during the Trump campaign.

00:32:26.000 And, you know, what what made I want to ask how important Charlie was to the victory, because there were so many events that we did with TPUSA where I would show up and they were incredible and the energy was off the charts.

00:32:38.000 And Charlie would always tell me, whenever I went to Arizona, he'd say, Don't worry about Arizona, worry about Michigan, worry about Wisconsin, we've got Arizona.

00:32:46.000 Talk just about how important Charlie was to our effort to win and make Donald Trump the president of the United States.

00:32:52.000 Look, the president has said it himself.

00:32:54.000 The president's massive gains with young Americans across the country was in no small part because of the efforts of Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA.

00:33:03.000 And our team on the campaign was constantly checking in with him and keeping him apprised of what the president was doing and saying because we needed his voice to relay that to his audience, which is made up of young people across the country.

00:33:16.000 And the president spoke at many turning point events.

00:33:18.000 He went into that lion's den at the invitation of Charlie to get his message across.

00:33:23.000 And Charlie was incredibly supportive of non-traditional new media strategy that the president took.

00:33:28.000 And, you know, the president loved Charlie deeply.

00:33:32.000 You know that, uh, Mr. Vice President, and I know that.

00:33:35.000 And I know he deeply um is hurt by this loss because um Charlie played an instrumental role in returning the president to the Oval Office.

00:33:44.000 And I just love that clip from election night when Charlie realized President Trump had won.

00:33:48.000 And he was speechless for one of the few times in his life.

00:33:52.000 There were no words, just tears.

00:33:54.000 Thank you, Caroline.

00:33:54.000 Welcome back to the Charlie Kirk show.

00:33:56.000 Joining me now is my friend and a close friend of Charlie, the great Tucker Carlson.

00:34:02.000 Tucker, thank you so much for being here.

00:34:04.000 You know, Tucker, I think you know this, and some of you know this because I wrote about it on x.com.

00:34:10.000 But when x.com was Twitter, I did an interview with uh Tucker Carlson Tonight show on Fox News, and I got a message from a guy named Charlie Kirk that said, You did a great job.

00:34:22.000 I really liked what you said, and let's keep in touch.

00:34:26.000 And that began the start of my friendship with Charlie Kirk.

00:34:29.000 That was the first time I had ever communicated with Charlie Kirk.

00:34:33.000 So you've known him for a long time.

00:34:35.000 You talked to him about a lot of issues, and I want to talk in in part about how to honor Charlie's legacy because I think that he modeled civil discourse within the right.

00:34:45.000 He accepted there were big disagreements on all these issues, but he thought we were all in the same team, and we could debate this stuff, but actually have a drink at the end of the day and recognize that we were all trying to accomplish fundamentally the good of the country.

00:34:57.000 So I want to talk a little bit about that.

00:34:58.000 Before I get there, just tell me about your buddy Charlie Kirk.

00:35:03.000 What did people who only know him from radio or TV not appreciate about what a good guy he was?

00:35:03.000 What was he like?

00:35:09.000 That is Christianity was sincere and his commitment.

00:35:12.000 To Jesus was totally sincere.

00:35:14.000 And it, you know, sometimes isn't, especially uh in public figures who throw out Bible verses they don't understand and stuff like that.

00:35:21.000 But in his case, not speaking to him in particular, but in his case, um it informed every single part of his life from his marriage to the way he treated his children to the way he treated his staff to the way he approached disagreement to the way he thought of other people, which was always primarily as people first.

00:35:37.000 And that was, you know, he was much younger than I am, and I met him when he was a teenager.

00:35:42.000 So I mean, he's literally the age of one of my children.

00:35:45.000 So it's kind of hard to take him seriously at first.

00:35:49.000 And over the years that I knew him, you know, more than 10 years, I ended up learning from him.

00:35:55.000 And I'm not just saying this because he's past, I mean that sincerely.

00:35:57.000 And the main thing that I learned from him was How to disagree with people on topics that you take very seriously and that they take very seriously without hating them or without feeling bitterness.

00:36:09.000 I mean, he it wasn't, you know, people knew what was going on behind the scenes.

00:36:13.000 You know, there was a lot going on behind the scenes, and it was intense.

00:36:17.000 And it was bitter, and you know, because the divide, particularly on foreign policy questions, is very real in the Republican Party.

00:36:25.000 The neocons versus the realists or whoever you want to describe it, he was on the realist side for sure.

00:36:30.000 But he was mad at the people who disagreed with him.

00:36:32.000 He liked them as people, he agreed with them on some things.

00:36:36.000 And he would always say that.

00:36:37.000 You know, I agree in private, he would say that.

00:36:39.000 And, you know, I was involved in it because people were mad at him for having me at his conferences or for talking to me.

00:36:46.000 And so we had cause to talk about it a lot up until he was assassinated.

00:36:52.000 And I was so struck the whole time.

00:36:54.000 I would say, you know, I would use the ugly language I'm famous for in private, and uh he would never talk like that.

00:37:01.000 He would say, well, you know, I agree with him on this, but uh obviously I'm on your side on that.

00:37:05.000 And he just never forgot there was a person behind the views.

00:37:09.000 And that inspired me.

00:37:11.000 And God commands that of us.

00:37:12.000 That is that's a real commandment, in my opinion.

00:37:15.000 And he lived it.

00:37:16.000 That's exactly right, Tucker.

00:37:17.000 He he treated everybody with respect and because he genuinely loved people and he genuinely wanted their salvation, he wanted them to have a relationship with God, he wanted them to know the truth.

00:37:27.000 He always treated them with respect, maybe especially when he disagreed with them.

00:37:31.000 And I I think about this.

00:37:33.000 So you talked about foreign policy.

00:37:34.000 That is one of the big divides on the American right now.

00:37:38.000 And the thing that Charlie seemed to understand intuitively is that the coalition that made Donald Trump the president of the United States and J.D. Vance, the vice president of the United States, it included Tucker Carlson, but also Ben Shapiro.

00:37:53.000 That's exactly what it's like.

00:37:53.000 It included people who did disagree vociferously, but agreed on 70 or 80% of issues.

00:37:58.000 And fundamentally, the question Charlie would ask is if you're a good faith person and you're trying to do right, then you are part of the big 10.

00:38:06.000 And I think that's that's something that we have to try to model together because Charlie's no longer around to do it for us.

00:38:12.000 And in one way in particular, I was very touched by this.

00:38:14.000 I actually texted Mark about this because you know, you very generously have put out some donation link to help support Charlie's family.

00:38:22.000 And think about that.

00:38:22.000 You know, Eric and the kids, most importantly, they're grieving the loss of a dear husband and father.

00:38:28.000 But somebody, us, we're gonna have to step in and fill the gap to provide for them in a way that Charlie no longer can't because he was taken down by an assassin's bullet.

00:38:38.000 You know who I saw, share that link was Mark Levin.

00:38:41.000 And I thought it was a really good example of how Charlie was able to bring people together from across our movement so long as we were operating in good faith.

00:38:41.000 Yeah.

00:38:50.000 That was the question.

00:38:51.000 If you were good faith, you're on his team.

00:38:53.000 That is exactly right.

00:38:54.000 And good faith is the measure.

00:38:56.000 And I, you know, I just I have to say, I think now is exactly the wrong time to appropriate the memory of someone and the and the emotion that comes with that, the really intense emotion that all of us feel at his murder, and use it for your own parochial ends.

00:39:11.000 Like he stood for this, you know, and I think the reason that Charlie was able to bridge the gap, particularly in foreign policy, is because he had, for example, genuine affection for Israel, which he expressed to me in private many, many times.

00:39:24.000 Like, I love Israel.

00:39:25.000 I don't think we should have another forever war regime sh regime change war against Iran.

00:39:31.000 And I think that made complete sense to me.

00:39:33.000 I sort of agree with that, actually.

00:39:36.000 Um so it allowed both sides to talk to him because they felt like this person doesn't hate me.

00:39:41.000 It doesn't need to get existential.

00:39:43.000 It's not about disliking me or some weird bigotry.

00:39:46.000 Um, but I don't think it's helpful to for people to jump in, particularly foreign heads of state, to say, this is what you know, he lived for my cause or whatever.

00:39:55.000 That's disgusting, actually.

00:39:56.000 Don't do that.

00:39:57.000 That turns everybody off.

00:39:58.000 You don't help your own cause by doing that, and it's also literally untrue.

00:40:02.000 So I just hope that we can continue in I'm not exaggerating, the spirit that he operated in, which is one of love for other people, including people we disagree with, and don't make it, you know, as smallbore as that.

00:40:17.000 That doesn't help.

00:40:18.000 Yeah, so one of the issues, Tucker, and I agree with you, that that he would express disagreements with the administration on.

00:40:25.000 There are two that that jump out.

00:40:27.000 Is one, you know, Charlie was a hardliner on immigration.

00:40:31.000 He wanted us to control our borders as much as possible.

00:40:34.000 He wanted us to ramp up the deportations.

00:40:36.000 I remember having conversations with Charlie where he would say, Why are the deportations higher?

00:40:41.000 Why aren't you doing more?

00:40:42.000 And I would talk to him.

00:40:43.000 But it wasn't, hey, I don't understand this or I disagree with you, and therefore I'm going to blast you and assume that you're in bad faith.

00:40:51.000 It's I'm a free citizen.

00:40:54.000 I love you guys.

00:40:55.000 I supported you guys, and I'm going to use my platform to try to accomplish as much good as I possibly can.

00:41:02.000 And I think that made him such an effective operator.

00:41:04.000 And I would talk to Charlie and say, Charlie, well, look, here are the reasons why.

00:41:08.000 And it was you've seen Tucker, we've ramped up deportation numbers.

00:41:12.000 We have actually, there are a lot of people who are self-deporting because they don't want to be in the country knowing that eventually immigration enforcement will happen.

00:41:19.000 But I think part of that success comes from people like Charlie applying pressure.

00:41:24.000 Pressure as a friend, pressure as somebody who cares deeply about the issue.

00:41:28.000 And that's true also, I know we have about 90 seconds left, but that's true about foreign policy.

00:41:32.000 Like I remember Charlie calling me and saying, I'm really worried.

00:41:36.000 And this is back in the summer when the Iran strikes were sort of first being contemplated.

00:41:42.000 He said, I'm really worried this is going to become another regime change war in the Middle East that we get trapped in.

00:41:47.000 And I said, Charlie, first of all, like have some gives have some faith here.

00:41:51.000 The President of the United States is not a believer in perpetual war.

00:41:55.000 He knows the mistakes of Iraq and Afghanistan. 0.52

00:41:57.000 He doesn't want to repeat them.

00:41:59.000 But Charlie was very clear that he could support Israel.

00:42:03.000 And by the way, he did eventually support the strikes on the nuclear facility while simultaneously saying no more.

00:42:10.000 This can't become a bigger thing.

00:42:11.000 This can't become a broader thing.

00:42:13.000 And I and again, I think he modeled a really good way of applying pressure of disagreeing when you do disagree, but also recognizing that so long as you're operating in good faith, we're all part of the team.

00:42:25.000 And that's something I'm going to try to take from Charlie's legacy is not that we're always right, not that we can't take criticism, but that we all should try to work together.

00:42:34.000 It did worry me, because I think your description is perfect.

00:42:37.000 He's one of the very few who took that message and stood by it.

00:42:40.000 I mean, right to the very end.

00:42:42.000 This cannot get bigger.

00:42:43.000 We don't want another regime change war.

00:42:45.000 But man, some of the people who send money to turning point, his donors were very tough on him.

00:42:51.000 So tough on him that I couldn't feel it, you know.

00:42:54.000 I talked to him a lot in the last few months, and he was under enormous pressure.

00:42:59.000 He never bent.

00:43:00.000 He never became bitter.

00:43:01.000 He kept his integrity to the very end.

00:43:02.000 To the very end.

00:43:03.000 And I just think it's important to say that because it's true.

00:43:06.000 Absolutely.

00:43:07.000 Thank you, Tucker.

00:43:08.000 It's good to be with you.

00:43:09.000 Joining us now is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., our great health and human services secretary.

00:43:15.000 Bobby, thank you so much for being here.

00:43:16.000 And one of the things that I always took from Charlie was this idea that we needed to grow the coalition and expand the coalition.

00:43:23.000 There's probably no person in the entire administration who better exemplifies that than you.

00:43:28.000 One of the leading consumer advocates, health advocates that exist in our country, but until a few years ago, more aligned, given your name.

00:43:38.000 You were a Zion of one of the great political families on the Democratic side in American history.

00:43:43.000 But now you're one of the most important members of the administration in a Republican administration.

00:43:48.000 Maybe talk, if you would, just a little bit about Charlie's approach to politics and how it ultimately made you uh one of the most important people in the federal government.

00:43:58.000 Yeah, well, Charlie was uh probably the primary architect of my unification with President Trump.

00:44:06.000 Um I actually announced my endorsement of President Trump at a turning point rally in Arizona, which was his idea.

00:44:14.000 And he was for people who were there, remember it.

00:44:17.000 There was all these kind of fireworks and sparklers on the stage when we shook hands, and that was all Charlie's uh uh orchestration.

00:44:28.000 That was his idea, and he insisted on that.

00:44:31.000 But I first met Charlie in July of 2021.

00:44:34.000 I had just written a book about Anthony Fauci.

00:44:37.000 And he had me on his show for this very, very wide-ranging interview on which he really let me talk a lot, which was unusual at that time because I was not allowed to talk on most outlets.

00:44:50.000 And um I think both of us approach each other with some trepidation because we came from such different places.

00:44:59.000 Uh by the end of that interview, I felt like I met a spiritual soulmate.

00:45:04.000 And our friendship was comed after that, and even during the campaign when, you know, he was um strong disporting President Trump.

00:45:13.000 He We always had a communication and outreach.

00:45:16.000 And then after I made the endorsement, I saw him all the time.

00:45:20.000 And he helped me a lot during the transition.

00:45:25.000 As did you, as did Tucker.

00:45:28.000 And helped Amarillas, who's my daughter-in-law, he really kind of pushed her a lot.

00:45:34.000 Um to get the job that she has today. 1.00

00:45:39.000 So you know, I the thing that united us was his total commitment to free speech.

00:45:46.000 And now it had been a theme of my campaign.

00:45:49.000 I had been subject to censorship like so many other people during COVID and saw the threat that it was to our country, so that once they understood they could censor us.

00:46:00.000 And Charlie and I talked about this that the founders put the freedom of speech in the First Amendment, because they knew all the other rights depended on it.

00:46:11.000 If a government can silence its opponents, it has a license for any kind of atrocity.

00:46:17.000 And, you know, as soon as they realized that we were going to put up with that, they went after freedom of assembly, which isn't the first amendment with social distancing regulations.

00:46:26.000 They went after freedom of religion, closing all the churches in this country, which is extraordinary. 1.00

00:46:32.000 I mean, it's extraordinary that we let get away with that.

00:46:35.000 And by the way, they kept the liquor stores open as essential businesses.

00:46:41.000 They went after the Fifth Amendment, they shut all of our businesses, 3.5 million businesses with no due process, no just compensation.

00:46:51.000 They went after the Seventh Amendment right to jury trial.

00:46:55.000 Seventh Amendment says no American shall be denied the right of a trial before a jury of his peers.

00:47:01.000 In case there are controversies exceeding $25, there's no pandemic exception.

00:47:06.000 And yet they were able to give these broad categories of industry these, you know, these exemptions from any litigation, no matter how much they hurt you.

00:47:16.000 They went after the Fourth Amendment uh prohibitions against warmless searches and seizures by making us disclose our medical information.

00:47:25.000 So the entire Constitution came under attack as soon as they realized that they could go after free speech.

00:47:31.000 So talk to me just a little bit about Charlie's influence and actually politically getting you to be the HS secretary, because I remember he was such a strong advocate for you.

00:47:41.000 He was so proud of the president and of you when the president nominated you.

00:47:45.000 Obviously, like all of our big nominees, there was a tough confirmation fight.

00:47:49.000 Just talk, give give us 50 seconds on how important he was to making you have the position and the title you have right now.

00:47:56.000 Well, you know, uh, you know what the transition is like.

00:47:59.000 You never kind of know what's gonna happen.

00:48:02.000 And he was a critical ally for me in calling President Trump.

00:48:06.000 And at first, you know, when President Trump asked me whether I wanted this job, I was tentative.

00:48:11.000 I didn't know whether I wanted to handle the Medicaid and Medicare portion, which is the biggest, you know, economic BMF.

00:48:18.000 Sure.

00:48:18.000 And he really persuaded me that I should do it.

00:48:22.000 And then he helped me not only making calls to the president himself, but telling me people that I should call operating strategically, but I'm keep talking about this piece of it.

00:48:36.000 He was strategically brilliant, and he was a good political operator in a way that I think so many people don't realize.

00:48:42.000 Yeah, he was uh I mean he was an empresario strategist.

00:48:49.000 And he knew exactly, he did the same thing with Amarillas.

00:48:52.000 He told her, make this phone call, make this phone call, make this one first, this one second.

00:48:57.000 Yeah.

00:48:58.000 And he knew exactly, you know, he knew the he understood the uses of power.

00:49:06.000 And he understood what buttons needed to be pushed to move the ball across the goal line.

00:49:12.000 So he was very good on that.

00:49:13.000 But so he was a pragmatist, but he was also one of the most idealistic people that I've ever met.

00:49:19.000 He was.

00:49:20.000 And his principal preoccupation was with conversation.

00:49:24.000 He thought conversation was the only thing that could heal our country.

00:49:27.000 We have all these forces, and particularly the algorithms now in social media that are driving us apart.

00:49:34.000 And it's inexorable.

00:49:36.000 There seems to be nothing that could stop it.

00:49:38.000 And he understood that the only thing that could bridge that gap was debate, was open debate, and that censorship was the enemy of that.

00:49:47.000 And that in order to have real conversations, we had to end the vitriol.

00:49:51.000 We had to stop being poisonous toward each other.

00:49:54.000 We need to say what we mean without saying it mean.

00:49:57.000 Yes.

00:49:58.000 And he was just amazing.

00:50:00.000 He was so respectful of the people who disagreed with them.

00:50:04.000 He gave them the most respect and the greatest hearing.

00:50:08.000 He wanted their voice to be heard.

00:50:09.000 I I saw on, you know, one of the networks just now that there's this big revolt against the social media because of their contribution to the polarization that ultimately led to his death, this broughting up of hatred.

00:50:24.000 Ironically, I think Charlie would revolt against that.

00:50:27.000 Yes.

00:50:28.000 Because he hated censorship.

00:50:29.000 Yes.

00:50:30.000 What he said is the answer is conversation and dialogue.

00:50:35.000 And we need to learn to do that if we're if our democracy is going to survive.

00:50:40.000 If we are if we're going to survive, we need to talk to each other, even though all these things are telling us not to.

00:50:46.000 Yeah, so I talked to Charlie.

00:50:47.000 It was either the night of or the day after our debate with Tim Walls.

00:50:51.000 And you know, he was excited.

00:50:53.000 He told me how great I did.

00:50:54.000 And obviously it's it's awesome to hear from a friend who tells you that you did a great job, but he asked what I thought of Tim.

00:51:00.000 And I said, honestly, you know, because you get in this sort of bunker mentality in the campaign, it's us as them.

00:51:05.000 And I was like, honestly, even though I'm glad that I think I did well, and I certainly don't want this guy to become vice president.

00:51:12.000 I actually kind of liked him afterwards after 90 minutes of talking with him, and Charlie said, that's why I do all these debates.

00:51:19.000 It's like you can disagree vehemently with somebody, but if you're actually communicating with them, it's it's really hard not to appreciate at least a little bit as a human being.

00:51:29.000 Even if you think they're 100% wrong on the issues, you can appreciate them a little bit as a human being, and that's what Charlie was so good at.

00:51:36.000 So uh with all respect to you and all gratitude for being such a big part of his life the last couple of years.

00:51:42.000 Bobby, good to see you.

00:51:44.000 Mr. Vice President.

00:51:46.000 Thank you.

00:51:47.000 And joining us now is a very special guest, the White House chief of staff, the person the president of the United States calls the most powerful woman in the world.

00:51:55.000 It always embarrasses her, which is why I have to say it every time I introduce her.

00:51:59.000 Uh Susie Wiles, who is such a vital role of what we do in the White House every single day, such a vital role of the success of the 2024 campaign.

00:52:07.000 Susie, I just want to say thanks so much for joining us here to honor Charlie here.

00:52:12.000 I I want to tell you a little story.

00:52:13.000 You may not be aware of this story, but and maybe you didn't pay attention to the social media chatter.

00:52:18.000 But if I go back to probably six weeks after I had been selected by the president, I was the vice presidential nominee.

00:52:25.000 We were campaigning hard, and there was a weird little social media campaign to try to get Susie Wiles fired from her job.

00:52:33.000 And she was running the Trump campaign at the time.

00:52:36.000 It was it was a full-on campaign.

00:52:38.000 And I remember talking, Charlie Kirk called me and he said, This thing to take down Susie is an op, meaning it's an operation meant to discredit us, meant to make us less effective.

00:52:48.000 And the reason he thought it was so important to protect you is because he had such great respect for you.

00:52:53.000 He thought you were such an incredible part of the team.

00:52:55.000 You you were sort of the person that held all the chaos together operationally in the midst of that very intense campaign.

00:53:02.000 And so Charlie was thinking, as he always did, a little ahead of the curve.

00:53:07.000 He was asking himself, what are the problems that are out there so I can be two or three steps ahead.

00:53:12.000 And he was fighting for you, maybe even before you realized that there was this thing against you.

00:53:18.000 And it was never a situation where anybody ever doubted Susie Wiles, but I wonder sometimes if the reason why you had such good and strong support from the very beginning is because you had such a powerful voice in the Republican Party, standing with you every step of the way.

00:53:34.000 So I just wanted to tell you that because it's one of the reasons why I admire and respect you.

00:53:38.000 I know Charlie loved, admired, and respected you, but I've told my Charlie story.

00:53:42.000 Maybe talk in those days of the campaign, what an important part Charlie was of our efforts and our ultimately successful efforts to install the boss in the Oval Office.

00:53:53.000 Thank you, Mr. Vice President, and thank you for doing this.

00:53:55.000 Of course.

00:53:56.000 I have a Charlie story that maybe hasn't been told, at least not Enough.

00:54:01.000 In the 2024 campaign, the law changed, election law changed, and campaigns were finally allowed to coordinate with outside organizations.

00:54:10.000 One of the biggest expenses in the campaign is canvassing.

00:54:13.000 The door-to-door activity that it particularly in a Donald Trump campaign is critically important.

00:54:18.000 And so we were we were liberated.

00:54:21.000 We had license to coordinate with everybody, and everybody came to the table, and everybody was going to canvas at this level with this sort of fidelity to our plan.

00:54:32.000 And included Charlie.

00:54:33.000 And at the end of this whole odyssey, the person that really did everything they said they were going to do and more was turning point.

00:54:43.000 He had an army of good people who were motivated and passionate.

00:54:48.000 And they they delivered 110%.

00:54:51.000 And I don't know that Charlie gets enough credit for that.

00:54:54.000 That was a tactical assist to the campaign.

00:54:57.000 We didn't have to pay for it.

00:54:59.000 We didn't have to think about it.

00:55:00.000 We didn't have to follow up after him.

00:55:03.000 It was an immeasurable help.

00:55:06.000 And most of those canvassers were some of the same young people that voted for the president and convinced their families.

00:55:13.000 So in many ways, it was really a pivotal effort.

00:55:17.000 That's that's awesome to hear.

00:55:18.000 And it's consistent, Susie, with this theme that I've been coming back to today, which is that Charlie was a brilliant order and communicator and debater.

00:55:26.000 He would go to these college campuses and give them the courage to speak to build friendships with with fellow conservatives and Republicans.

00:55:34.000 But everybody knows that because everybody saw it.

00:55:36.000 What they didn't see necessarily is that Charlie was this very effective strategic operator at all levels of politics.

00:55:44.000 And you know, one of the things that the president always talks about is that compared to really not just his campaign in 2016, but any Republican campaign for the past 40 years, we saw young voters shift in every county, in every demographic, white, black, rich or poor, young voters shifted right in 2024 in this very profound way.

00:56:08.000 Can you talk a little bit about what Charlie did to make that happen and why this youth movement that he really built, I mean, he was a kid when he started Turning Points USA, how this youth movement, without any of us probably being able to prophesize or predict it, ended up helping us deliver the White House in 2024.

00:56:28.000 Well, I I explained the tactical benefit.

00:56:30.000 Um we never thought again about Arizona or Pennsylvania.

00:56:34.000 Charlie had it.

00:56:36.000 And as for the youth vote, I mean, he was he evangelized.

00:56:40.000 He was on every college campus in every part of the country, and he was broader than that.

00:56:45.000 A turning point event was something you had to be at, had to pay attention to.

00:56:53.000 And I struck by you had Secretary Kennedy on uh just a minute ago, and Charlie was instrumental, very in Secretary Kennedy coming to the ticket, and you too.

00:57:05.000 Yep, that's right.

00:57:06.000 I know that.

00:57:07.000 And that's one of the things that, you know, I'm sitting in this office here in the West Wing or White House complex, and if it weren't for Charlie Kirk, I would not be the vice president of the United States.

00:57:19.000 And I think about that a lot.

00:57:21.000 I thought about that a lot of the last few days.

00:57:23.000 I mean, other than the president himself, Charlie was maybe the most important person in both getting us across the finish line, but actually getting me the nomination to begin with.

00:57:33.000 It was his grassroots army, it was his advocacy that I think made me a critical, a credible selection for VP in the first place.

00:57:40.000 And obviously, the president makes the final determination, but it takes a team.

00:57:45.000 And Charlie was such an incredibly important part of that team.

00:57:48.000 It's one of the reasons why I feel so indebted to him.

00:57:51.000 And one of the reasons, I mean, I I worry, Susie, that he is fundamentally just an irreplaceable figure.

00:57:58.000 And he is.

00:57:58.000 There's no way that we can replace Charlie.

00:58:01.000 certainly not for Erica and the beautiful kids they're never going to get back what the assassin's gun took away from them but But they the movement has to figure out a way of continuing and continuing to build on what he built and continuing to go to college campuses and talk to young people.

00:58:20.000 And and not just that, but when we won power, Charlie was a critical part of getting us the right people of staff.

00:58:27.000 Staffering.

00:58:28.000 So talk a little bit about that.

00:58:30.000 Because other than the president of the United States, the chief of staff is probably the most important person in the transition, picking cabinet secretaries, picking all these important staffers.

00:58:38.000 Talk about why Charlie mattered so much and not just helping us get there, but helping us succeed now that we're here.

00:58:45.000 I think he worked in transition every day.

00:58:47.000 He did.

00:58:48.000 In one place or another, doing one thing or another.

00:58:51.000 And so very much the Trump administration has his imprint.

00:58:56.000 My worry about turning point, and I couldn't agree with you more.

00:58:59.000 It has to be bigger and better and growing all the time, is one of Charlie's gifts was not talking at you, but engaging you where you were.

00:59:09.000 That's right.

00:59:10.000 And it's hard sometimes.

00:59:12.000 You know tough things are coming at you.

00:59:14.000 He never shrunk from that.

00:59:15.000 So whoever, I can't say takes Charlie's place because that will be nobody.

00:59:20.000 But whoever comes in to be sort of a voice of turning point, they need to be somebody that's willing to engage at a level where you're not talking to the followers.

00:59:29.000 You're talking to the people that are not and engaging them where they are.

00:59:33.000 That's going to be the hardest thing, I think, to replace.

00:59:37.000 I really agree with that, Susie.

00:59:38.000 And I've I've talked to a lot of the turning point staff.

00:59:41.000 And what they tell me is operationally, organizationally, Charlie had built a machine.

00:59:46.000 I mean, some of these people have been working with Charlie since he was literally a teenager, and he trusted them.

00:59:51.000 Where I think he is genuinely irreplaceable is for lack of a better word, on the talent side of it, right?

00:59:57.000 How do you find a person who goes into these places who takes very difficult questions, sometimes very hostile questions, and to your point is actually engaging with them, is not talking at them.

01:00:08.000 Now there are all these social media clips, and I was talking about this earlier, so forgive the audience, forgive me for repeating myself.

01:00:14.000 But he was not just the super viral clips of him getting the better of a person in a debate.

01:00:22.000 If you sit down and watch a Charlie Kirk event at one of these universities, it is 90% him almost acting like a big brother to these kids.

01:00:30.000 If it's a young conservative who's very nervous about the crowd and nervous about asking a question, Charlie steps up and says, Don't be nervous.

01:00:30.000 Right?

01:00:37.000 I was nervous at one point.

01:00:39.000 Just speak slowly, get your question out.

01:00:41.000 He would coach them through it.

01:00:42.000 If there was a young progressive who is getting jeered by some of the people in the audience, he said, no, no, no, guys, let her speak, let him speak.

01:00:50.000 This is part of open debate, is they get to hear from us, and we get to hear from them.

01:00:54.000 And I thought that was just such an incredible thing that he did.

01:00:57.000 I mean, I've talked to a number of friends, I've talked to, you know, Tucker, I've talked to Laura Ingram, I've talked to a number of people about how we can try to replace that part of it.

01:01:08.000 Not in the way that Charlie did it.

01:01:10.000 Charlie is irreplaceable, but we can at least have a team of people try to step into the gap and make sure that we're carrying this message to college campus because if we don't do that, I think that's the way in which I worry about the assassin winning.

01:01:25.000 Is we've got to carry on the mantle, we've got to carry on the torch, and we've got to do it by continuing the message, continuing.

01:01:33.000 That's why I'm doing the show today.

01:01:34.000 Is I just wanted to send a signal that we're not going to let Charlie's mantle be discarded.

01:01:38.000 We're going to keep on carrying in.

01:01:40.000 And one final thing that I wanted to talk about is what Charlie was so good at was marshaling political action into a policy outcome.

01:01:50.000 That's more person outcome.

01:01:52.000 And this is where I want to talk about Bobby.

01:01:54.000 And you know, so many of the really good nominees that we had, they weren't easy to get across the finish line.

01:01:59.000 And that's no insult to our great nominees.

01:02:02.000 Great people are actually always going to be a little bit harder.

01:02:04.000 If it's a you know a person who doesn't make any controversy, who doesn't say anything especially controversial, that person's gonna be easy.

01:02:11.000 It's but the president didn't want that.

01:02:13.000 He wanted to staff the administration with people who had interesting things to say, who brought unique perspectives, and that meant that we were gonna have some tough confirmation fights.

01:02:22.000 Maybe talk a little bit about the role that Charlie played on the inside, on the outside, and making sure that all of these great nominations that we had actually got across the finish line in a town where we've got 53 GOP senators and we could only lose three for any particular nomination.

01:02:41.000 Well, I would say you and Charlie were a good tag team.

01:02:43.000 We were let's take Bobby or Pete, for example.

01:02:46.000 Yep.

01:02:47.000 The president really didn't want uh, you know, a homogenized cabinet.

01:02:51.000 He wanted different people that were for whatever reason a part of a movement that we need to we need to keep keep.

01:02:59.000 There were interest groups, there were coalitions and and people that came to be Trump voters.

01:03:05.000 Um we don't have an exact number, but it was certainly more than a few.

01:03:10.000 And now we have three and a half years to convert Trump voters to being Republicans So that in 2028, we can keep the White House, the House, and the Senate.

01:03:20.000 That's what Charlie helped us think through.

01:03:22.000 I'll speak for myself, that's what Charlie helped me think through.

01:03:26.000 Yes, his expertise was with young people, but he he knew so much about everything.

01:03:32.000 And he knew that there was this group of people we now call Maha that were out there looking for a home.

01:03:38.000 He found Bobby and introduced Bobby into our world.

01:03:43.000 And now he's the secretary of HHS.

01:03:46.000 So that's the kind of thinking that we saw Charlie all the time do.

01:03:52.000 And I I think that the movement cannot be, or he cannot be replaced by any one person.

01:03:58.000 He's got to be replaced by you, by Don Trump, by so many others that can that are good communicators and can be taking as well as giving.

01:04:10.000 You heard it from the White House Chief of Staff.

01:04:11.000 It's up to all of us, including those in the audience to keep on the legacy of Charlie Kirk.

01:04:16.000 Shortly after Usha and I left Charlie's family and Charlie's remains in Arizona, I wrote a story in the Nation magazine about my dear friend Charlie Kirk.

01:04:28.000 Now, The Nation isn't a fringe blog, it's a well-funded, well-respected magazine whose publishing history goes back to the American Civil War.

01:04:39.000 George Soros's Open Society Foundation funds this magazine, as does the Ford Foundation and many other wealthy titans of the American Progressive Movement. 0.98

01:04:50.000 The writer accuses Charlie of saying, and I quote, black women do not have brain processing power to be taken seriously. 0.86

01:04:59.000 But if you go and watch the clip, the very clip she links to, you realize he never said anything like that. 0.98

01:05:06.000 He never uttered those words.

01:05:09.000 He made an argument against affirmative action as a policy.

01:05:13.000 He criticized a specific Supreme Court justice as an individual.

01:05:18.000 He never said anything about black women as a group.

01:05:20.000 He made an argument for judging people of all races and backgrounds by their own individual merits.

01:05:28.000 The very evidence she provides, this hack of a writer shows that she lied about a dead man, and yet she wrote it.

01:05:37.000 An esteemed magazine published it.

01:05:39.000 It made it through the editors, and of course, liberal billionaires rewarded that attack.

01:05:47.000 Now, of course, even if Charlie had uttered those words, it wouldn't mean that he deserved his fate.

01:05:52.000 But consider the level of propaganda at work.

01:05:55.000 Charlie was gunned down in broad daylight, and well-funded institutions of the left lied about what he said so as to justify his murder.

01:06:07.000 This is soulless and evil.

01:06:10.000 But I was struck not just by the dishonesty of this smear, but by the glee over a young husband's and young father's death. 0.99

01:06:19.000 Quote, she says, he was an unrepentant racist, transphobe, homophobe, and misogynist.

01:06:28.000 The nation wrote, who often rapped his bigotry in Bible verses because there was no other way to pretend that it was morally correct. 0.97

01:06:38.000 He had children, as do many vile people.

01:06:41.000 That's what they said he had children, as do many vile people.

01:06:46.000 Now, hours before this smear was published, my wife and I had the honor of escorting Charlie's body back to his home in Arizona.

01:06:55.000 We took his wife, Erica, we love you, his parents, his sister, and a few of his best friends with us.

01:07:03.000 And as they offloaded Charlie's casket from Air Force II, I worried that Erica would collapse with grief.

01:07:11.000 Now I'm a very lucky husband to a very wonderful wife, but I have never been prouder of my wife than that moment as she held Erica and Erica's very darkest hour.

01:07:22.000 And I thought of Erica as I read that disgusting attack on Charlie.

01:07:27.000 He had children, as do many vile People.

01:07:31.000 That's what they said about him.

01:07:34.000 I said the Lord's Prayer.

01:07:36.000 Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

01:07:45.000 And I asked Usha what Erica had said to her earlier in the day in a private moment, and I asked Erica's permission to share this.

01:07:54.000 My wife told me, she asked me for advice.

01:08:01.000 Erica asked me for advice on how she should tell her children that their father had been murdered.

01:08:08.000 She asked my wife how to tell her beautiful kids that their father and my dear very dear friend is no longer with us.

01:08:19.000 And as she was doing it, there were people dancing on that father's grave.

01:08:25.000 Now I have heard many calls in the last few days for unity and for healing in the wake of Charlie's assassination.

01:08:33.000 You have no idea how desperately I want that, how gratified I was when Democratic friends and even former Senate colleagues reached out to offer their condolences to me.

01:08:45.000 I'm so thankful.

01:08:46.000 And I know there are so many like them all across our great country.

01:08:52.000 i am desperate to wrap my arms around them as we all unite to condemn political violence and the ideas that cause it psalm 133 tells us behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity It is like the precious ointment upon the head.

01:09:14.000 Oh, how badly have I craved that precious ointment in recent days, and I believe we can have it.

01:09:21.000 But first, first we must tell the truth.

01:09:28.000 For what was he, if not a man who told the truth in every place in every environment.

01:09:35.000 Now the most important truth Charlie told is this that long ago a man, begotten, not made, came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit, was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man.

01:09:50.000 For our sake, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate and suffered death and was buried and rose again on the third day.

01:09:58.000 Charlie believed, as I do, that all the truth he told flowed from that fundamental principle.

01:10:08.000 I really do believe that we can come together in this country.

01:10:13.000 I believe we must.

01:10:16.000 But unity, real unity, can be found only after climbing the mountain of truth.

01:10:23.000 And there are difficult truths we must confront in our country.

01:10:28.000 One truth is that 24% of self-described, quote, very liberals believe it is acceptable to be happy about the death of a political opponent, while only 3% of self-described very conservatives agree.

01:10:44.000 Only 3% is too many, of course.

01:10:47.000 Another truth is that 26% of young liberals believe political violence is sometimes justified, and only 7% of young conservatives say the same, again, too high a number.

01:11:01.000 In a country of 330 million people, you can of course find one person of a given political persuasion justifying this or that or almost anything.

01:11:10.000 But the data is clear.

01:11:13.000 People on the left are much likier to defend and celebrate political violence.

01:11:18.000 This is not a both sides problem.

01:11:21.000 If both sides have a problem, one side has a much bigger and malignant problem, and that is the truth we must be told.

01:11:30.000 That problem has terrible consequences.

01:11:34.000 The leader of our party, Donald J. Trump, escaped an assassin's bullet by less than an inch.

01:11:40.000 Our House Majority Lever, Stephen Scalice, came within seconds of death by an assassin himself.

01:11:47.000 And now the most influential conservative activist in generations, our friend Charlie, has been murdered.

01:11:55.000 This violence, it doesn't come from nowhere.

01:11:59.000 Now any Political movement, violent or not violent, is a collection of forces.

01:12:03.000 It's like a pyramid that stacks on top, one support on top of the other.

01:12:09.000 That pyramid's got a foundation of donors, of activists, of journalists, now of social media influencers, and of course of politicians.

01:12:18.000 Not every member of that pyramid would commit a murder.

01:12:21.000 In fact, over 99%, I'm sure would not.

01:12:24.000 But by celebrating that murder, apologizing for it, and emphasizing not Charlie's innocence, but the fact that he said things some didn't like, even to the point of lying about what he actually said, many of these people are creating an environment where things like this are inevitably going to happen.

01:12:43.000 A couple of months ago, I had land a fundraiser in Southern California, and since you know we'd be out there anyways, my wife and I decided to take our kids to Disneyland one weekend.

01:12:53.000 We had fun, and to be clear, most of the guests said very nice things, or they just left us alone.

01:12:58.000 But there was a loud and very cool minority that would shout at my children, who are eight, five, and three whenever they got the opportunity.

01:13:07.000 You should disown your dad, you little s one middle-aged woman yelled at my five-year-old. 1.00

01:13:13.000 Tell the Secret Service to protect the Constitution, not your father, screamed another.

01:13:17.000 Are these women violent? 1.00

01:13:19.000 Probably not. 0.97

01:13:20.000 Are they deranged?

01:13:21.000 Certainly. 0.97

01:13:22.000 And while our side of the aisle certainly has its crazies, it is a statistical fact that most of the lunatics in American politics today are proud members of the far left.

01:13:34.000 After Charlie died, one of his friends and one of our senior White House staffers had left-leaning operatives in his neighborhood passing out leaflets telling people what he looked like and where he lived, encouraging neighbors to harass him or God forbid to do worse.

01:13:52.000 While he was mourning, his dead friend, he and his wife had to worry about the political terrorists drawing a big target on the home he shares with his young children.

01:14:04.000 Are these people violent?

01:14:06.000 I hope not.

01:14:08.000 But are they guilty of encouraging violence?

01:14:10.000 You damn well better believe it.

01:14:12.000 We can thank God that most Democrats don't share these attitudes, and I do, while acknowledging that something has gone very wrong with a lunatic fringe, a minority but a growing and powerful minority on the far left. 0.84

01:14:30.000 There is no unity with people who scream at children over their parents' politics.

01:14:35.000 There is no unity with someone who lies about what Charlie Kirk said in order to excuse his murder.

01:14:41.000 There is no unity with someone who harasses an innocent family the day after the father of that family lost a dear friend.

01:14:49.000 There is no unity with the people who celebrate Charlie Kirk's assassination.

01:14:54.000 And there is no unity with the people who fund these articles, who pay the salaries of these terrorist sympathizers who argue that Charlie Kirk, a loving husband and father, deserved a shot to the neck because he spoke words with which they disagree.

01:15:12.000 Did you know that the George Soros Open Society Foundation and the Ford Foundation, the groups who funded that disgusting article justifying Charlie's death, do you know they benefit from generous tax treatment?

01:15:24.000 They are literally subsidized by you and me, the American taxpayer, and how do they reward us?

01:15:31.000 By setting fire to the house built by the American family over 250 years.

01:15:37.000 I am desperate for our country to be united in condemnation of the actions and the ideas that killed my friend.

01:15:44.000 I want it so badly that I will tell you a difficult truth.

01:15:49.000 We can only have it with people who acknowledge that political violence is unacceptable, and when we work to dismantle the institutions that promote violence and terrorism in our own country.

01:16:03.000 Now our government, you heard me talk to Stephen Miller about this, will be working very hard to do exactly that in the months to come.

01:16:11.000 We're not always going to get it right.

01:16:13.000 We will sometimes move more slowly than you would like.

01:16:15.000 We will sometimes move more slowly than I want us to.

01:16:19.000 But I promise you that we will explore every option to bring real unity to our country and stop those who would kill their fellow Americans because they don't like what they say.

01:16:31.000 But you have a rule too.

01:16:33.000 Civil society, Charlie understood this well, is not just something that flows from the government.

01:16:40.000 It flows from each and every one of us.

01:16:44.000 It flows from all of us. 0.98

01:16:47.000 So when you see someone celebrating Charlie's murder, call them out in hell. 0.94

01:16:51.000 Call their employer.

01:16:53.000 We don't believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility.

01:16:57.000 And there is no civility in the celebration of political assassination.

01:17:01.000 Get involved.

01:17:04.000 It's the best way to honor Charlie's legacy.

01:17:07.000 Start a chapter of TPUSA or get involved in the one that already exists.

01:17:11.000 If you're older, volunteer for your local party, write an op-ed in your local paper, run for office.

01:17:17.000 I can't promise you this is going to be easy.

01:17:20.000 I can't promise you that all of us will avoid Charlie's fate.

01:17:23.000 I can't promise you that I will avoid Charlie's fate.

01:17:28.000 But the best way to honor him is to shine the light of truth like a torch in the very darkest places.

01:17:35.000 Go do it.

01:17:37.000 We owe it to our friend to ensure that his killer is not just prosecuted but punished.

The Charlie Kirk Show - September 15, 2025

Vice President JD Vance Remembers Charlie Kirk

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