The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1812 - Charlie Kirk Would Have Been President

00:00:00.000 Charlie Kirk would have been president. His friends knew it, his admirers knew it,

00:00:04.640 and his enemies knew it. I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:10.040 We have a lot to get to today, and it's not going to be anything that any of the other

00:00:15.460 TV news shows are talking about. It's going to be personal, and it's going to be political.

00:00:21.760 We're not going to focus on all the negative. There will be a time for that. There will be a

00:00:26.400 time for the reaction to the reactions. We're not going to forget about that.

00:00:31.580 That time will come, but today is not that day. We're going to focus on

00:00:36.260 grief. We're going to focus on mourning. We're going to focus on what Charlie means.

00:00:41.100 We're going to focus on the honors that have come to him from the president, from other presidents,

00:00:46.600 from Yankee Stadium, for goodness sakes. We're going to get to all of that.

00:00:51.560 I wrote a little obituary for Charlie on social media, which you can find. It's on the daily

00:01:01.520 website, too. When I think about the guy, not just as my friend, but as a political figure,

00:01:10.020 that's the point I keep coming back to. Everyone believed in this guy. Everyone believed this guy

00:01:16.380 would be president. I first met Charlie many years ago. The first time we met, I was in a green room

00:01:22.760 at Fox News in Los Angeles, tiny little green room, a little bureau there. It's three o'clock in the

00:01:28.900 morning, four o'clock in the morning. I lived in LA, so I should have been used to waking up. I was

00:01:32.980 doing that TV show a lot, and I'm half asleep in the chair. Charlie walks in. This is the first time

00:01:39.600 I've ever met him in person. Charlie comes in, probably off some flight on a different time zone. He's

00:01:45.180 just bouncing off the walls, just full of energy. Hey, Michael, just wants to talk about everything.

00:01:51.480 We were talking about politics, talking about practical politics at that time, in the early

00:01:57.440 days of Trump. We were talking about policy, just everything, four o'clock in the morning. I say,

00:02:01.940 hey, buddy, it's nice to meet you, but come on, I'm trying to sleep here. Just absolute boundless

00:02:06.840 energy. He looked the part, very tall, good-looking guy. He had all of the skills.

00:02:17.440 You know, Charlie founded Turning Point at age 18. He gets out of high school. I think he was an

00:02:22.780 Eagle Scout. He gets out of high school. He was going to go to college, realized there was not going

00:02:28.000 to be a useful way to spend his time and money. Founds Turning Point USA at 18. Raises a ton of money.

00:02:35.740 People believe in him. He inspires confidence from major donors and inspires confidence

00:02:41.940 from the young voters that he was reaching. And he turned this into the biggest organization on the

00:02:49.640 right. I don't even mean the biggest young voters organization. I mean the organization. Charlie was

00:02:54.800 the nexus for all of us on the right. He became extraordinarily important to the Trump campaign.

00:03:02.960 It is no exaggeration to say that President Trump in 2024 might very well not have been elected

00:03:07.660 without Charlie Kirk. He just kept getting more and more responsibility. He found a turning point

00:03:11.660 action, which then went on to lead, helped to lead the get out the vote efforts and therefore to win

00:03:18.980 the popular vote for a Republican for the first time in 20 years. He started the faith division. 0.99

00:03:26.360 So even of TPUSA, you had the nonprofit, you had the political action, you had the faith division,

00:03:32.200 you had women's leadership, you had all of these different divisions. 1.00

00:03:36.540 In the meantime, while he's doing all of this stuff, 18 founds the organization, 22 he's addressing the RNC.

00:03:43.880 This rocket ship of influence in American politics reshapes the government. As the vice president

00:03:51.580 pointed out last night, helped staff the government. And as he's doing all of this, he published five

00:03:59.260 books. He married his beautiful wife. He had two wonderful children doing all of these things.

00:04:07.060 A little bit that has not been discussed in his biography is, is how he grew his mind.

00:04:15.460 Because he was so busy doing practical politics and practical politicians usually aren't that smart.

00:04:19.480 They don't really read books and they just learn slogans and that's it. And Charlie could have done

00:04:24.200 that. You know, I mean, they would have had a great career doing that, but he wasn't content with that.

00:04:28.220 He wanted to make up for the education that he did not have one because he didn't go to college.

00:04:34.100 And two, because most people who do go to college these days don't get an education either.

00:04:38.200 And he wanted that education. And I remember I was sitting with another friend of Charlie's,

00:04:44.100 mutual friend of ours. And we were talking about how he should do one of these fellowship programs,

00:04:48.880 you know, to read great philosophy and, you know, the great books and all of this.

00:04:53.700 And some other people were saying, well, I don't know, is he really suited for that? Is he,

00:04:57.640 and I said, yeah, of course he is. Because he's got this unbelievable political talent.

00:05:01.920 He's got this unbelievable skill. He's a thing. And he recognizes that he, you know,

00:05:09.000 he doesn't have the most formal education and he wants that too. And he just wanted,

00:05:12.720 you just an absolute sponge of knowledge and skills. And so he did it. He did extraordinarily

00:05:17.700 well. He took it very, very seriously. And in some ways it was annoying because he became harder to

00:05:23.280 debate. He got, he got incredibly skilled at debating and organizing and fundraising and staffing

00:05:31.380 and communicating. Oh, he hosted that national three-hour radio show in there, in between all

00:05:36.180 of the, he just, so for, so that's another reason people believed in Charlie. That's another reason

00:05:43.720 why anyone you talk to, his friends, his admirers who didn't know him personally and his enemies

00:05:48.920 alike all said, man, you know, that guy, that guy's probably going to be president. But

00:05:55.080 for all those people too, and especially for his friends, what impresses me about the guy

00:06:02.740 at what I think is more important than his political skills and accomplishments,

00:06:08.120 even more important than his appearance, it's helpful to be tall. I mean, Charlie would joke with

00:06:12.780 me. I'd say, I'd look, I was like six foot five slouching. And he would say, I'd say, Charlie,

00:06:18.000 good, you know, you're just a giant. He said, well, yes, I'm descended from the Nephilim.

00:06:21.380 I'm descended from the fallen ones and the, you know, the Old Testament. And we're all, we're all,

00:06:28.100 we're all born fallen ones, you know, the fallen nature. And this really ties in with what's most

00:06:33.320 impressive about the guy, because there are people in politics who, on the left and the right, for that

00:06:41.720 matter, who present one way and live another way. There are, and some of them are fine politically,

00:06:49.340 and you can hit the campaign trail with them. And sometimes they say something interesting on TV,

00:06:53.080 but the image they're presenting is not the same as the person they really are.

00:06:59.820 With Charlie, he really was that guy. And I just think about the virtues,

00:07:07.140 and the four cardinal virtues, and then the three theological virtues, four cardinal virtues,

00:07:12.360 prudence, temperance, justice, fortitude. Prudence is the paramount political virtue. And he had it

00:07:18.240 in spades. He wasn't just some egghead ideologue. He was thinking, he was constantly growing,

00:07:23.480 constantly thinking, constantly applying his deeply felt principles to changing political

00:07:29.240 circumstances, taking in new information. A lot of people can't do that in politics or anywhere else.

00:07:34.640 So he had prudence, which is how he was able to help build and help maintain this general coalition.

00:07:40.380 This mass coalition with discordant parts that were actually able to get things done. The only

00:07:47.220 other person who can really claim that is Trump, Trump himself. So he had that in spades.

00:07:52.980 Temperance, I never saw the guy have a drink. He refused to have my cigars. He really was a

00:07:59.700 teetotaler. He was very, very temperate. And he was a young conservative. Young conservatives love

00:08:08.220 whiskey and cigars and hanging out and staying up late. And Charlie did not do that stuff.

00:08:15.460 And I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with doing that stuff. But it shows you that

00:08:20.980 he was determined not to squander one second or one ounce of energy that he had

00:08:28.940 that could go toward achieving his purpose, his political purpose, for which we now know,

00:08:36.180 in retrospect, he had so little time. 31 years. That's it. He did all of that in 31 years. I'm

00:08:43.040 skipping over countless aspects of his, of his resume of the things that he achieved.

00:08:49.180 And he didn't, part of, part of the reason he was able to achieve all that is he didn't,

00:08:53.980 he didn't go hang out. He didn't go have the third drink or the first drink for that matter. He

00:08:57.820 didn't, he didn't go stay out all night for this. He was just doing stuff all the time.

00:09:03.180 Justice, I think is clear. He was so fair to everyone. He's not underhanded in any way.

00:09:12.440 Plenty of people in politics are. Even people on our side. He was not in any way. He was always fair.

00:09:17.940 He was more than fair. Because an aspect of justice, at least an aspect of God's justice,

00:09:24.100 is also mercy, which go, go hand in hand. And he was so gracious to his opponents. And this,

00:09:30.580 I'll get back to when we talk about the, the political import of Charlie's assassination.

00:09:37.820 He, he gave his interlocutors, he gave his sparring partners on the left and the right.

00:09:44.960 He also loved debating his friends and his, his allies. And he loved, he just, he loved it. He

00:09:49.960 loved the exchange of ideas. He, he even loved being proven wrong. He might not admit it in the

00:09:55.360 moment, but he even loved that because then he would, he was, he'd deepen his ideas and he would get

00:09:59.060 stronger. And he would, he would, he would become even more of a force. You know, he wasn't afraid

00:10:03.380 of the truth. He wasn't afraid to be contradicted if what contradicted him led him even closer to the

00:10:10.260 truth. A lot of people are, a lot of people, a lot of people don't want to grow. That's how,

00:10:14.740 that's how he was able to grow. That's one of the reasons.

00:10:19.380 Even beyond the cardinal virtues, the three virtues that are, I think, most clear from Charlie

00:10:23.940 are the theological virtues, which are, which are the more important ones, faith, hope, and charity.

00:10:31.520 That guy believed what he said. I promise you, I don't think anyone doubts it, but if any, if anyone

00:10:38.940 who only had a passing acquaintance with Charlie on, you know, Instagram reels or something, if anyone

00:10:44.400 doubts it, that guy believed his religion and it was more important to him than any politics, any sharing

00:10:54.900 stages with the president, anything else in the world. He had a firm hope in the resurrection

00:11:02.220 and he had immense charity for, for everyone around him, including and especially his, his opponents.

00:11:11.360 And so we, we entrust Charlie to, as he confidently entrusted himself to God's care. And that's all

00:11:21.820 that, all that we can really do about it. We pray for Charlie and we, we do all of the things that

00:11:28.020 are attendant to religion, religion, which was the most important thing to him. There's one caveat to

00:11:35.800 this. People are grieving. They're going to grieve in their own way. I don't tell people how to grieve

00:11:40.260 really. I know there is going to be a broader impulse in the public for happy, clappy talk. Oh, well, you

00:11:49.500 know, he's with his savior today. And isn't that, we should really should be happy. You hear this

00:11:54.040 sometimes at funerals, funerals, which are no longer even called funerals. They're sometimes called

00:11:58.180 celebrations of life. You can't even, you can't even admit that one is mourning at a funeral. You have to

00:12:02.360 celebrate everything all the time. There's a, there is a deep religious truth as Christians to say, well, we

00:12:09.020 entrust these souls to God's care. Friends of Christ, we entrust to Christ's care at the particular

00:12:18.120 judgment and in heaven and in the life of the world to come. It's still sad. It's still really,

00:12:25.940 really sad because death is still bad. Even in light of the resurrection, it is still a bad thing.

00:12:34.540 It loses the sting. It loses a lot of the sting. But you know, Jesus wept when his friend died,

00:12:42.040 before he raised his friend from the dead. Death is a very bad, evil thing. And we can mourn and we

00:12:48.020 can grieve because the Christian religion doesn't contradict reality. Plenty of religions do.

00:12:56.100 The Christian religion does not say, don't believe your lying eyes. Oh no, don't, 0.99

00:13:01.640 the thing you're feeling. That's just totally fake. Just ignore that. Just deny that. Just be happy,

00:13:06.620 clappy. No. The Christian religion tells you more about reality. The, the, the supernatural perfects 0.99

00:13:15.380 nature. Grace perfects nature. It doesn't contradict it. So we should be sad. We should be sad. This is a

00:13:23.980 very, very sad thing. It's good to mourn. It's good to grieve. It's good to be, it's good to recognize

00:13:31.200 that this is really bad. And there are going to be other people. And I guess this gets us into a

00:13:38.340 little bit of the political response to Charlie's murder. There are going to be people who say, well,

00:13:44.240 they don't know what they've unleashed. You know, this, if you strike me down, I'll become a million

00:13:49.360 times more powerful. And this is where we're going to get you. And this is, this is the beginning

00:13:54.360 of something much, much greater. And maybe, yeah, maybe, but for the moment, let's just mourn.

00:14:07.760 They're going to be, there's a, there's a deep, deep anger. Trust me. I know.

00:14:11.760 Ah, that's for tomorrow. There is a greater commitment to, to our, our shared purpose.

00:14:23.160 Yeah, that's good. And we should double down on that. I was supposed to see Charlie 11 days from

00:14:30.920 now. I owed him a text. I'm very bad at texting and I owed him a text about, about actually some,

00:14:36.500 about something religious and something later down the road, which will now likely not come to pass

00:14:41.580 because we, we imagine these futures for ourselves, even though we're not promised

00:14:47.220 tomorrow. We imagine these futures, which is part of, part of the sting of the, of this kind of a

00:14:51.720 grief. As you say, no, but this was supposed to happen. No, we were supposed to do this. No,

00:14:55.780 we're supposed to talk about this. No, he was supposed to be president,

00:14:58.480 but we're not guaranteed a future. In any case, on our, on our political import here and on the

00:15:07.220 shared purpose politically, Charlie and I were supposed to do an event together on campus in

00:15:14.180 11 days in Minneapolis. I was on a show not long ago. Uh, we were talking about it on, on this tour.

00:15:23.140 Uh, obviously I don't, I don't, I, I have not, uh, spoken to TPUSA. We're, uh, we're, we're letting them

00:15:31.040 grieve of course. And, uh, uh, beyond personal messages and things like that. We're not, I don't,

00:15:37.180 I don't know what's happening there. I'm sure they don't know what's happening there. This is a very

00:15:40.260 live situation. So, you know, take everything with a grain of salt from the, from the 30,000 foot view

00:15:46.040 though. I know some people are talking about canceling events and not going to the campuses

00:15:50.360 anymore or anything like that. I had already pared back a number of those events. I do not intend to

00:15:57.280 cancel any events. I don't intend to cancel any of them. Uh, I I'll be going out if, if the events

00:16:04.340 are to occur, if the doors are open, uh, I will be doing that. I suspect a lot of other people on

00:16:11.400 the right will be doing that too. Uh, we will, we will not, uh, be cowed by this. Uh, so, um, there

00:16:20.200 will be more information about that coming. I don't know exactly what that's going to look like when

00:16:23.720 these things are going to look like, but, uh, for now, at least while there's still so much

00:16:27.920 confusion about what the future looks like, I, I will not be canceling a single event myself,

00:16:33.200 but the events will, certain events will be canceled just generally in politics. That's

00:16:42.000 just how these things go. And, and I think broadly speaking, the political import of Charlie's

00:16:48.000 assassination beyond the personal side is that these kinds of events are broadly over, you know,

00:16:56.560 what did Charlie do? What did she, he did a lot of, he did a million things. What was he best known for

00:17:04.040 in this moment? What did he dominate in this moment? What did South Park feature him for as,

00:17:11.420 as an amazing tribute toward the end of his life, though none of us knew it would be the end of his

00:17:15.320 life. He showed up to campuses and debated ideas. He showed, he just wanted, he showed up to campuses

00:17:24.220 and elsewhere and sat down and debated ideas graciously with people and they killed him for it.

00:17:36.020 Which means we're probably not going to have as much debate in the future because Charlie did that.

00:17:44.200 He did that really, really well. He did it actually better than anybody right now and they killed him for

00:17:53.260 it. And in a battle, whether you're talking about a physical battle or a battle of ideas,

00:18:00.020 your opponents get a say too. He showed up, he wanted to debate ideas and they killed him.

00:18:07.860 Which means that we're probably not going to get as many debates in the future.

00:18:16.760 If one side doesn't want to debate, we're probably not going to get as many debates in the future.

00:18:21.960 I felt that the Harvard law professor, whom I greatly admire, Adrian Vermeule, had a good point

00:18:28.180 yesterday on this. Which is, he said, you know, Charlie dedicated himself really in this beautiful way

00:18:36.160 to the free exchange of ideas and the debates and his enemies found that intolerable. And so they

00:18:43.420 assassinated him. And there are two responses that one can have to that. The bad response is

00:18:53.800 repaying violence with private violence, not justified violence, which is self-defense and

00:19:00.640 there are other kinds of, but, but some of this talk of retribution and, you know, you take one of

00:19:06.560 ours and we'll take two, you know, that, that would be unjust. That's, that's one response.

00:19:12.240 The other response, however, is to say, okay, uh, we like the free exchange of ideas. We endeavored to

00:19:22.660 do that. We were, we did it in as good faith as one could possibly do it. Uh, Charlie Kirk was

00:19:28.760 literally a boy scout and was just so wonderful to his opponents. And now we need to, uh, restrain the

00:19:37.420 people who are doing violence against us. Now we, if, you know, if you don't want to engage in, in that

00:19:42.420 kind of thing, then we need to arrest more criminals. We need to, uh, be less permissive

00:19:51.040 of social pathologies and, and mental illness and threats of violence and all of the things

00:19:59.580 that we've just kind of let run amok. We need to be a little clearer about what is good and what is

00:20:05.640 bad, what is true and what is false. We need to be a little clearer about that. We need to be a

00:20:13.240 little less hands-off. We need to, we need to assert our moral vision because if vigilantes on the

00:20:20.820 left and some people with state power on the left are, are asserting their moral vision and in an

00:20:25.620 unjust way, in a, in a way that no one, but the most despicable sorts of people would defend.

00:20:31.380 Well, we need to do it in a just way, in accordance with the laws.

00:20:37.640 That seems to be the inescapable political inclusion here. An event like this

00:20:43.120 is, is massively significant. And a lot of us have been kind of just walking around in a fog and I

00:20:52.920 was walking around, uh, at home, finally got home late last night and I was talking to Elise about it.

00:20:57.180 And, and at first I thought that the heaviness of it all was just because we were friends,

00:21:04.980 Charlie and I, I thought it was largely just personal. I don't think it's that because as

00:21:11.820 we'll get to it momentarily, there were tributes from everybody, every major, all the presidents

00:21:20.400 and Yankee stadium, Yankee stadium was the one that really got me. Yankee stadium had a moment of

00:21:24.520 silence for Charlie Kirk before the game. Heads of government around the world were, were sending

00:21:31.940 in eulogies and, and obituaries tributes to him. This is politically very significant

00:21:38.900 and, and coincidentally, however, it worked out today's nine 11 is one of the most significant

00:21:47.220 dates in American history. And there's an impulse when, when these significant events happen

00:21:54.100 to just go on as if nothing happened to go on as if nothing's changed. So I just don't want to

00:22:00.340 grapple with the fact that something's changed. Something's changed. Something has changed.

00:22:07.360 And I know it's, it's sad. It's another layer of sadness to add, to add to this event. But I, for,

00:22:20.660 for 10 years now, the right has endeavored in good faith to openly debate ideas in, in, when,

00:22:26.780 in the case of Charlie, just in a field, you know, in just in the open physical space,

00:22:31.740 it was totally open with ideas that were totally open. We really, really tried that and you killed

00:22:37.820 him. You killed him for it. And now we got to do something else. Now we, we, we need to react to 0.99

00:22:48.200 that. What you did, what you did is probably the end of that. As to the murderer, I'm not going to

00:23:01.540 get into speculation. As of the beginning of this show today, I'm sure my team would have updated me

00:23:07.020 if something had changed. The murderer was still on the loose. We don't know who it is. And I'm,

00:23:14.760 I'm not going to speculate that the closest update we have, this is via daily wire, is that the FBI

00:23:21.040 believes that it recovered the assassin's rifle and the authorities recovered what they believe to be

00:23:28.920 the weapon. This is according to Robert Bowles, the special agent in charge of the, in charge of the

00:23:33.220 FBI's Salt Lake City field office. He says it was a high powered bolt action rifle recovered in a wooded

00:23:39.720 area where the shooter had fled. The investigators are currently analyzing the rifle. The FBI is also

00:23:46.620 analyzing a footprint, a palm print, and forearm prints. That's it. They don't have the guy.

00:23:52.620 Now, analysis of the analysis has led the daily wire to conclude that the suspected assassin appears to

00:24:03.020 be college age. According to the Utah DPS commissioner, Bo Mason, the suspected assassin is a college age

00:24:12.160 person. They said that they have good video footage of the assassin, but they are not releasing the footage

00:24:18.720 to the public at this time. The quote is, we are confident in our abilities to track that

00:24:24.460 individual. So there are leads and there are leads that have come from the leads, but there's no person

00:24:31.680 yet. And I'm just not going to speculate on it. Charlie had enemies on the left, obviously. He should not

00:24:42.540 have. He was basically the nicest one of us. He was really, really gracious to his opponents. And yet

00:24:52.400 I won't even today get into the response of people on the left on social media and on the news networks.

00:25:01.560 That's for tomorrow. But they were not so nice to him. So I think most people assume this is a person

00:25:09.540 on the left and maybe that's the most likely. He did have enemies on the right or kind of on the

00:25:15.240 right, the fringy parts of the right. Plenty of enemies, plenty of people who've made it their

00:25:19.720 raison d'etre to ruin this guy's life and to go after him for years and years and years. So I suppose

00:25:27.000 that's a possibility too. And there's a third possibility. Because when you stop thinking about

00:25:34.620 this purely ideologically and you start thinking about it more politically, meaning more from the

00:25:40.760 significance of the person relative to power structures in the country, Charlie was really

00:25:47.060 big, physically giant, but really, really big. Part of the reason I think that this feels so

00:25:54.680 politically significant is we're thinking about him as a nice kid who would give speeches and have

00:25:59.020 debates. This is one of the most influential and important political figures in the entire

00:26:04.420 country. I've said, I might've said it with Charlie actually somewhat recently, that the guy like

00:26:13.300 runs the Republic, ran the Republican party, you know, ran like the American right in many ways,

00:26:19.460 other than Trump, you know, he was like one of the, one of the big guys. And so there is a question

00:26:26.120 of whether or not there's, it was not just some lunatic, most likely on the left, I guess it could

00:26:32.640 have been someone on the right, but then that maybe this was a more targeted assassination of

00:26:39.920 someone who wielded immense political power in the country, immense cultural influence, who had the

00:26:46.080 ear of the president of the United States for a decade, who, he was a big guy and who, who would

00:26:52.620 have been president. Those are the options. I'm not going to speculate. I, I, which is why I'm, I'm not

00:27:03.480 even invading today against the left or this or that. And it's just his enemies. Some enemy of Charlie's

00:27:13.480 got him. And that's significant enough. My friend Gaston Mooney, president of the Blaze, texted me

00:27:24.320 yesterday. He had a suggestion that Charlie should lie in honor the U.S. Capitol. He tagged Mike Johnson

00:27:32.540 in it. I think this would be fitting in many ways. Charlie was as thoroughly patriotic as any figure in

00:27:43.840 American life. He, he, he, he wasn't just another, another one, another talker, another organizer,

00:27:51.940 another, you know, he, he did something so generous, you know, he did something unique.

00:27:58.840 And I, I, I think it would be fitting if, if that is the wishes of his family who should, you know,

00:28:07.260 be considered first in all of this. And if, I think it would be very fitting because some people,

00:28:13.640 especially those who didn't follow Charlie too closely, they, they, they might recoil at that and

00:28:18.900 say, no, what are you talking about? He wasn't a, he wasn't a governor. He wasn't a senator. He wasn't

00:28:22.980 a president. He wasn't, why would he? Yeah, he, he was more important than most of those people. And

00:28:31.240 I don't know, other than the president of the United States himself, I, he probably had more

00:28:36.800 influence than, than any of those types of offices. I think it would be fitting. I think it's a really,

00:28:44.360 really good idea. Again, I, I have, I've really tried not to bother, you know, his family and,

00:28:50.620 and really closest friends just, just yet. But if, if, if they think it's the right thing to do,

00:28:57.460 I think it'd be a beautiful thing. And now as to the reaction that I mentioned,

00:29:01.600 to show you the significance of this politically, the president of the United States gave a somewhat

00:29:10.320 lengthy Oval Office address to, to speak to the nation about Charlie's murder.

00:29:18.360 To my great fellow Americans, I am filled with grief and anger at the heinous assassination of

00:29:26.460 Charlie Kirk on a college campus in Utah. Charlie inspired millions and tonight, all who knew him

00:29:33.940 and loved him are united in shock and horror. Charlie was a patriot who devoted his life to the cause of

00:29:42.900 open debate and the country that he loved so much, the United States of America. He fought for liberty,

00:29:49.980 democracy, justice, and the American people. He's a martyr for truth and freedom. And there's never

00:29:56.760 been anyone who was so respected by youth. Charlie was also a man of deep, deep faith. And we take comfort

00:30:06.360 in the knowledge that he is now at peace with God in heaven. Our prayers are with his wife, Erica,

00:30:13.880 the two young beloved children and his entire family who he loved more than anything in the world.

00:30:21.300 We ask God to watch over them in this terrible hour of heartache and pain. This is a dark moment for

00:30:29.680 America. Charlie Kirk traveled the nation, joyfully engaging with everyone interested in good faith

00:30:37.320 debate. His mission was to bring young people into the political process, which he did better than 0.95

00:30:43.880 anybody ever, to share his love of country and to spread the simple words of common sense. On campuses

00:30:53.680 nationwide, he championed his ideas with courage, logic, humor, and grace. It's a long past time for

00:31:01.620 all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of

00:31:09.160 demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and

00:31:16.240 despicable way possible. For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like

00:31:23.540 Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is

00:31:31.580 directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today, and it must stop right

00:31:39.400 now. My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to

00:31:47.380 other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who

00:31:53.940 go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country.

00:32:01.340 From the attack on my life in Butler, Pennsylvania last year, which killed a husband and father, to the

00:32:07.920 attacks on ICE agents, to the vicious murder of a health care executive in the streets of New York,

00:32:14.360 to the shooting of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and three others, radical left political

00:32:21.160 violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives. Tonight, I ask all Americans to

00:32:28.740 commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died, the values of free speech,

00:32:36.420 citizenship, the rule of law, and the patriotic devotion and love of God. Charlie was the best of America,

00:32:45.040 and the monster who attacked him was attacking our whole country. An assassin tried to silence him with a

00:32:52.220 bullet, but he failed because together we will ensure that his voice, his message, and his legacy will live on

00:32:59.800 for countless generations to come. Today, because of this heinous act, Charlie's voice has become bigger

00:33:07.420 and grander than ever before, and it's not even close. May God bless his memory, may God watch over

00:33:15.860 his family, and may God bless the United States of America. Thank you.

00:33:20.980 We've now gotten an update. Since that time, President Trump will award Charlie the Presidential Medal

00:33:28.000 of Freedom. He announced this when he was speaking at the Pentagon 9-11 ceremony. Absolutely

00:33:34.560 fitting honor. He deserved it before he was assassinated. He deserved it for years.

00:33:44.860 When Trump says, you know, Charlie's mission was to bring young people into the political process,

00:33:51.760 and he did it better than anyone ever, that might not have a hint of exaggeration to it.

00:34:01.100 Pericles, did he? I don't know. He didn't focus exactly on you. I mean, Charlie brought so many

00:34:09.480 young people into the political process, to the right side of the political process in the strongest

00:34:15.200 country in the history of the world. So much so that his side won the popular vote for the first time

00:34:25.040 in two decades, when Charlie was put in charge of a lot of it. Okay, so that's from President Trump.

00:34:32.840 He posted much, much the same, a truncated version of that untruth social. His wife, Melania,

00:34:42.600 had a really beautiful post. I don't have it here in front of me, but she said, you know,

00:34:47.220 she gave a very feminine take on it, a very motherly side of it, which is, you know, Charlie's

00:34:53.300 kids now are going to grow up with stories rather than memories. And they're going to grow up with

00:34:59.580 photographs rather than a father who bounces him on his knee.

00:35:06.960 I think for a lot of people, even more than the political significance, which is so great that

00:35:13.540 it merited an Oval Office address, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, and declarations from all of the

00:35:18.420 other presidents, which we'll get to in a second. Somehow, even, we're talking about the height of

00:35:24.540 political significance in the world, heads of government around the world. And yet,

00:35:32.040 Melania's observation is even worse. That's where your heart really breaks, is for his wife and

00:35:39.480 especially for his kids. That someone murdered those kids' dad because he wanted to have an open

00:35:50.020 debate about mainstream ideas. They took their dad away for that because they didn't want him to

00:36:00.400 debate ideas, ideas that virtually everyone agreed with like 20 years ago. Because Charlie wasn't some

00:36:09.920 fringe guy by any stretch of the imagination. He was the most mainstream conservative and in many ways,

00:36:17.780 the most mainstream young political figure in the whole country.

00:36:25.540 President Bill Clinton said,

00:36:27.000 I'm saddened and angered by Charlie Kirk's murder, and I hope we all go through some serious

00:36:31.800 introspection and redouble our efforts to engage in debate passionately, yet peacefully. Hillary and I

00:36:36.680 are keeping Erica. They're two young children and their family in our prayers. Nice statement.

00:36:42.620 Barack Obama,

00:36:43.360 We don't yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of

00:36:47.280 despicable violence has no place in our democracy. Michelle and I will be praying for Charlie's

00:36:52.200 family tonight, and especially his wife Erica and their two young children. It's good that he put out

00:36:57.020 a statement. Don't think we needed the preface before he expressed his statement. We don't yet know.

00:37:03.380 Just want to point out, we don't yet know. We don't yet know. Hey, hold on. Don't...

00:37:06.580 Kamala Harris put out a statement. I'm deeply disturbed by the shooting in Utah. Doug and I

00:37:13.660 send our prayers to Charlie Kirk and his family. Let me be clear. Political violence has no place

00:37:17.840 in America. I condemn this act, and we must all work together to ensure that this does not lead to

00:37:24.600 more violence. That's good to hear from them. We're hearing different things from other

00:37:32.660 mainstream elite people on the, not just the fringe, but the mainstream elite people on the left,

00:37:39.820 which we'll get to tomorrow. I don't have it here for some reason, but Joe Biden issued a statement

00:37:44.320 as well. So you have every living president. Here we are. Here's Joe Biden. There's no place in our

00:37:49.900 country for this kind of violence. It must end now. Jill and I are praying for Charlie Kirk's family

00:37:53.880 and loved ones. This was relatively early yesterday when Biden released his statement,

00:38:00.220 when it was still a little bit unclear. Oh, George W. Bush. I don't have his printed out here either.

00:38:06.800 George Bush said, today, a young man was murdered in cold blood while expressing his political views.

00:38:11.240 It happened on a college campus where the open exchange of opposing ideas should be sacrosanct.

00:38:15.720 Violence and vitriol must be purged from the public square. Members of other political parties

00:38:19.760 are not our enemies. They are our fellow citizens. May God bless Charlie Kirk and his family and may

00:38:25.140 God guide America towards civility. One can look at all of these statements pour in, and there will be

00:38:34.820 others, not just from around America, but from around the world, and say, wow, what an honor.

00:38:40.800 What a tribute to this guy's life. Obviously, this guy really mattered. This guy was really

00:38:45.660 significant. 31 years, and he mattered more to the political world, to society than, I don't know,

00:38:56.040 however many people in however many lifetimes. And yet, that's little consolation, isn't it,

00:39:05.180 to his family and to his friends and even to his many admirers. And this gets to a truth that Charlie

00:39:10.840 really got. And it's kind of funny that Charlie got it. It seems almost paradoxical because he was at

00:39:17.440 the very heights of politics, the very, very heights of politics. Other than sitting behind

00:39:22.620 the resolute desk himself, which most people thought he would do someday. He was at the very,

00:39:29.060 very height of politics. And yet, he paradoxically understood how little all of that ultimately

00:39:36.800 matters. It matters a lot in a contingent way in our life here to allow people to flourish and to

00:39:44.080 point them toward the good and to conduce to their natural happiness. He got all that. And that's

00:39:47.840 really important. I'm not saying politics doesn't matter. But ultimately, he saw that's not what

00:39:54.520 matters. And we're seeing this now. All the statements in the world, all the heartfelt statements

00:40:00.740 from all of the presidents, I strongly suspect, are not going to alleviate Charlie's family suffering

00:40:09.500 one iota. Or his friends or his admirers. It doesn't, there's got to be something deeper

00:40:21.920 that will ground your activity in the world, that will direct your energies and direct your purposes,

00:40:29.960 and will ultimately console you. And that's one of those three theological virtues I talked about

00:40:37.500 earlier, point to faith, hope, and charity. That's religion. It's knowing that the point of life from

00:40:42.320 the old Baltimore catechism is to know God, to love him, to serve him in this world, and to enjoy him

00:40:47.300 forever in eternity. That's really what we're after. And I know Charlie believed that. And I know that

00:40:58.540 that is a real consolation. And they, well, they say that all the way to heaven is heaven.

00:41:05.280 You could see that bear fruit in his life. And that, knowing that that's what he thought,

00:41:11.620 and that's how he believed, is a great consolation to me. The rest of the show continues now.

00:41:15.440 We will see you all in the member block.

00:41:23.280 Thank you, sir.

00:41:26.300 Okay, we're not going to do any games or anything today, obviously, but let's chat a little bit in

00:41:41.780 the member room segmentum on the iPad. Patterson Family says, I couldn't watch the video. There

00:41:47.960 should be nothing normal about seeing a real human being murdered on your iPhone. I did not watch it.

00:41:53.980 I had just gotten back to the office. Mr. Davies came in, said, Charlie has been shot at an event.

00:42:04.540 And, you know, in my mind, I said, well, that's very bad. I was quite concerned. You know, I was

00:42:10.900 looking up information. And I said, I hope they didn't get him. I hope they didn't hit him. And if

00:42:15.780 he was hit, I hope, you know, it was just a minor hit or something. I hope they didn't get him too bad.

00:42:19.960 I hope his recovery won't be too tough. I hope he'll be back in the gym playing basketball or

00:42:24.500 something soon. It did not penetrate that it was even a possibility that he could have been killed.

00:42:32.540 I know. I know. In retrospect, of course, it just didn't. Sweet little Lisa said the same thing.

00:42:41.440 We got him. It didn't. It didn't. And she saw the video. She said, even seeing the video, she said,

00:42:46.520 it just cannot be possible that he was murdered. And so I saw the far away video. There was a video

00:42:53.480 that was a little far away. I saw that he had been hit. That looked bad enough.

00:42:57.120 Then I heard that there was another video going around that was closer up. And I'm very,

00:43:05.180 very grateful that I heard about that before I had to see it on social media. I didn't watch it.

00:43:12.220 Don't need to watch it. I know he's dead. You don't have to convince me that he's dead.

00:43:17.640 And I hope that I think that video has been taken down. I hope it's been taken down.

00:43:21.960 If you haven't seen it, you don't have to. 0.93

00:43:27.120 Hope Cass, those people are fascists, Nazis, and threats to democracy. Someone takes them 0.96

00:43:32.560 seriously. Why would somebody do this? Yes. If you can't read the quotes in there, that's true. I

00:43:37.260 mean, you know, for goodness sakes, to call Charlie Kirk a fascist, as some of his enemies on the left

00:43:45.380 did, many of them, to call Charlie Kirk a radical, a reactionary, violent. Are you kidding me?

00:43:54.060 He was like the nicest one, the most mainstream, center-right. I don't mean that in any disparaging

00:44:04.760 way. I mean that in a really mainstream way, in moderation as the mean between two extremes. I

00:44:10.900 mean it in a, and his views evolved and changed and he adapted with new information. But

00:44:16.240 that guy was as mainstream as it gets. And I do think that's also part of the political significance.

00:44:26.400 If Charlie Kirk is so outside the bounds of what the left believes to be political discourse,

00:44:33.700 if that is the case, if that is how that went down, then that means that they want to murder all of us.

00:44:43.840 Because he, he, he was, he was the mainstream one. I think that's, that's what a lot of people

00:44:51.860 have in their minds right now, whether consciously or unconsciously. Man, if they're gonna, if they're

00:44:57.140 gonna shoot that guy, they'd shoot all of us. If they're gonna shoot that guy, wait till they hear 0.99

00:45:00.540 about, you know, my uncle or me or that. I think that's what that, I think that is a little bit of

00:45:07.700 what, what is nagging people right now as well. Uh, Wolverine222 at Waffle. Yes, please don't watch

00:45:16.400 it. Instead, take time to pray for the Kirk family. Yep. Yep, for sure. Screw destiny. I will say if I

00:45:28.480 lost my husband tomorrow, my world, uh, would be torn apart, it would be some small comfort to know

00:45:33.740 that millions upon millions of people were also grieving with me. Yes. Though, again, even on,

00:45:40.320 even on that side of things, uh, there are some people who are not grieving and we're not gonna

00:45:47.380 give them any attention today. But Charlie's family has to deal with that too.

00:45:55.020 And so, I, I just think, you know, it's not that, you know, well, the, the, the mourning voices are

00:46:01.660 outweighing the despicable voices or it's not, it's not, it's not any of that. It's just vanity,

00:46:08.540 vanity and all is vanity. You know, it's seek transit gloria mundi, thus pass the glories of this world

00:46:15.660 that the only consolation is eternal, which Charlie knew, which Charlie, you know, that,

00:46:23.120 that in itself is a consolation. The fact that Charlie knew that unlike statistically everyone

00:46:29.940 in politics, Charlie actually knew that Charlie got that. I watched the clip. I had to see the

00:46:42.620 ugliness of the left with no veil, says Honest Abe. Yeah, I get it. I get that perspective. I have

00:46:47.140 friends who did that. Chris Perez, nice Calvinist council of Westminster touching there, Michael.

00:46:59.960 Well, yeah, glad, glad you caught that.

00:47:09.220 I feel hopeless for America. I wouldn't do that. You know, Charlie wasn't hopeless and he was right.

00:47:14.200 I don't even mean that as well, you know, folks, we, uh, Charlie would have wanted us to just be

00:47:20.400 happy clappy. No, that's not, that's not what it is. I'm saying he wasn't hopeless. I'm not saying he

00:47:25.180 wasn't optimistic or pessimistic or I'm saying he had hope. Hope is a theological virtue grounded in

00:47:31.600 the fact of the resurrection, which really happened and which is recorded in acts of journalism.

00:47:36.960 So journalism these days has a bad connotation, but like reliable journalism that this thing

00:47:42.400 actually happened. So you have to have hope. Despair is a sin actually. And it's irrational.

00:47:49.180 That's the hope. But, but this is why somebody say, well, are you optimistic about the future? I

00:47:54.020 think, no, I know how it ends and it's going to get pretty bad there for a while. You know,

00:48:00.340 I don't know how history begins. I know the pivot. I know how it ends. I know the ending is good,

00:48:05.100 but it's going to get a little rough there for a while. But, but I have hope because hope is not

00:48:10.660 a mere sentiment or a feeling like optimism and pessimism, but it's a, it's a virtue grounded in a

00:48:17.760 fact. So you really need to have hope. It's crazy not to just got back from work. Still shocked,

00:48:29.000 says Catherine. Yeah. Yup. This is pretty weird. I gotta, I gotta tell you, you know, we gotta be

00:48:38.500 tough guys. We don't want to be blubbering on TV. We don't want to be, you gotta, for the men out

00:48:44.140 there, especially the men, you gotta be a tough guy. Come on. No blubbering. You gotta be tough. But

00:48:50.080 I will confess, this one is pretty weird. This one really just doesn't, this, this doesn't get out

00:49:01.020 of your head. Uh, Ruben Gonzalez, Michael, lead us in prayer for Charlie. Sure. Sure. Uh, and I'll say,

00:49:14.260 you know, Charlie and I would all, all the time, we'd be debating about religion. Though, uh, people

00:49:20.360 aren't really privy to our off-camera conversations, but it wasn't, we kind of razz each other, you know,

00:49:25.100 and especially in public. But Charlie, Charlie thought very, very deeply about religion. And

00:49:30.480 anyway, one of his last religious, uh, clips to go viral is he said, we need to venerate Mary more.

00:49:35.320 And Charlie was an evangelical Protestant, obviously. And he said, we need to venerate Mary more. And,

00:49:39.680 uh, which I was touched by. I thought that was a wonderful, uh, development. But so anyway,

00:49:46.040 sure. That's, uh, so, you know, there's, uh, you know, so Danny boy, you know, come, you know,

00:49:51.740 song about, you know, come to my grave after I've died and come and say an Ave there for me. So

00:49:56.000 I'd say an Ave. In nomine Patris et fili et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. Ave Maria, grazie plena

00:50:01.460 Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus. Sancta

00:50:06.540 Maria Mater Dei, ora per nobis Sancta Dei Genitrii, ora per nobis Mater Dei, nunc et in ora

00:50:12.800 mortis nostre. Amen. Sorry. I'm so, uh, so overcome. I went into another Marian prayer there. Okay.

00:50:18.840 Uh, well, everybody hope you, uh, keep your chins up, keep praying for Charlie, uh,

00:50:26.780 mourn as it's appropriate to mourn and then pick up that virtue of courage, the prerequisite of all

00:50:34.840 of the other virtues and keep on, keep on going. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles

00:50:39.800 Show. See you tomorrow.

00:50:48.840 See you tomorrow.

The Michael Knowles Show - September 11, 2025

Ep. 1812 - Charlie Kirk Would Have Been President

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