Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA Founder, Dead at 31 after Utah Campus Shooting
Episode Stats
Words per minute
155.68556
Harmful content
Misogyny
1
sentences flagged
Toxicity
1
sentences flagged
Summary
Charlie Kirk was a hero whose legacy will live on for the rest of my life and probably after that. He was loved and admired by all, especially me, and now he is no longer with us. My sympathies go out to his beautiful wife, Erica, and his family. We love you.
Transcript
00:00:05.260
It is my great dishonor to be the person that says this and breaks this to you on television,
00:00:11.820
but President Donald Trump is announcing on True Social,
00:00:14.900
the great and even legendary Charlie Kirk is dead.
00:00:17.940
No one understood or had the heart of the youth in the United States of America better than Charlie.
00:00:23.680
He was loved and admired by all, especially me, and now he is no longer with us.
00:00:29.120
Melania and my sympathies go out to his beautiful wife, Erica, and his family.
00:00:35.220
This is a 47 Morning Update special edition with Ben Ferguson.
00:00:41.780
It is nice to have you with us on the 47 Morning Update,
00:00:46.400
and there's only one thing we're going to be talking about today,
00:00:48.880
and that is the life and the legacy of an incredible young man,
00:00:54.580
Charlie Kirk, who I've had the honor of knowing for over a decade.
00:01:05.540
He understood something that many others didn't,
00:01:09.500
which is the left had taken hold of an entire generation of young people in this country,
00:01:21.100
They were turning them against pride in this country.
00:01:28.920
They were turning them away from having children.
00:01:31.480
They were turning them away from marriage, being a husband or a wife, a mother or a father.
00:01:38.860
And he decided he was going to do something about it,
00:01:42.560
and he started an organization called Turning Point.
00:01:45.460
I remember meeting Charlie for the very first time,
00:01:48.160
and we had breakfast together when he was trying to start Turning Point.
00:01:53.660
There was people like myself and Ben Shapiro and others that had done kind of the college campus thing
00:02:01.860
and had been the young generation of conservatives,
00:02:05.500
and he wanted to be that next generation, and my oh my was he.
00:02:10.440
He's had more of an impact on the younger generation for conservatives than anyone I've ever met.
00:02:15.960
And I don't say that because he was assassinated by a cold-blooded killer.
00:02:24.080
Charlie Kirk was a hero whose legacy will live on for, I think, the rest of my life and probably then after that.
00:02:38.920
They're going to remember where they were when they found out that he was shot.
00:02:41.600
They're going to remember where they were when it was announced by the President of the United States.
00:02:52.420
I'm recording this at basically midnight Eastern,
00:02:55.840
and I've been talking to friends and colleagues who know him,
00:03:01.340
and all of us are so sad because we all knew him well.
00:03:07.120
I think the hardest part for me is the fact that I know that this is a man that loved this country
00:03:25.040
He loved celebrating that he was going back to traditional way of life with a mom and a dad and children.
00:03:33.820
I am so sad tonight for his family, for his wife, who is so sweet, for his children that are going to grow up without their father.
00:03:43.540
They're going to have videos for years that they can watch, and they can be proud of him,
00:03:47.920
and that may be the one blessing is that they so much of his life over the last five, six, seven years was put on tape.
00:03:54.860
I also get sad for this country because we lost someone that was so dear to us,
00:04:02.400
and I get sad that we've gone off this path so far to where the radical left,
00:04:07.920
and a part of it is a terrorist organization now, make no mistake about that,
00:04:14.180
is celebrating the killing of a man whose only crime was wanting to bring people together for a grand debate.
00:04:25.680
He wanted to debate the most important issues of our day,
00:04:29.580
and he wanted to sit down with people that disagreed with him,
00:04:37.500
because he was so effective and so powerful by bringing facts to a conversation,
00:04:45.340
and by the way, being kind to those on the left,
00:04:58.220
Trump's assassination attempt in Butler is that we were worried that they were going to do it again.
00:05:04.440
Whether I was on stage doing an event and so many others that do what Charlie does in the conservative movement,
00:05:17.020
and what they wanted to happen to Donald Trump and Butler
00:05:21.480
is exactly what happened in Utah to Charlie Kirk.
00:05:29.400
They wanted to put fear in the hearts and the minds of other conservative fighters,
00:05:38.120
I have talked to some of the most influential conservative leaders today on the phone and in text messages,
00:05:50.400
and one thing I can assure you from all this is,
00:06:05.260
and what he thinks before he goes on college campuses,
00:06:25.240
what is God's plan when I go on a college campus?
00:06:31.920
The specific teachings of Christ is go make disciples of all nations.
00:06:38.000
because this nation impacts every other nation on the planet.
00:06:40.800
You cannot impact the world without impacting America.
00:06:43.260
That's the way that God has designed the universe in this particular being,
00:06:52.680
Jesus called us to contest in the public square for his purposes.
00:06:57.520
I'm far more interested in what God wants of me than what I want from God.
00:07:02.520
And what God wants from me is a life fighting for truth.
00:07:05.540
That is going to be a large part of Charlie Kirk's legacy.
00:07:16.220
Hours after he announced that Charlie Kirk had gone to see his Lord and Savior in heaven,
00:07:26.160
And I want you to hear what the president had to say about Charlie Kirk and his legacy.
00:07:30.680
To my great fellow Americans, I am filled with grief and anger at the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk on a college campus in Utah.
00:07:43.580
And tonight, all who knew him and loved him are united in shock and horror.
00:07:49.920
Charlie was a patriot who devoted his life to the cause of open debate and the country that he loved so much,
00:07:59.260
He fought for liberty, democracy, justice, and the American people.
00:08:06.900
And there's never been anyone who was so respected by youth.
00:08:15.240
And we take comfort in the knowledge that he is now at peace with God in heaven.
00:08:21.540
Our prayers are with his wife, Erica, the two young, beloved children,
00:08:27.400
and his entire family who he loved more than anything in the world.
00:08:32.020
We ask God to watch over them in this terrible hour of heartache and pain.
00:08:41.100
Charlie Kirk traveled the nation, joyfully engaging with everyone interested in good faith debate.
00:08:48.600
His mission was to bring young people into the political process, which he did better than anybody ever,
00:08:56.400
to share his love of country and to spread the simple words of common sense.
00:09:02.260
On campuses nationwide, he championed his ideas with courage, logic, humor, and grace.
00:09:09.580
It's long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder
00:09:16.720
are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year,
00:09:24.660
in the most hateful and despicable way possible.
00:09:27.860
For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis
0.95
00:09:35.140
and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals.
00:09:39.420
This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today,
00:09:50.080
My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity
00:09:56.620
and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it,
00:10:02.480
as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials,
00:10:07.780
and everyone else who brings order to our country.
00:10:11.860
From the attack on my life in Butler, Pennsylvania last year,
00:10:15.480
which killed a husband and father to the attacks on ICE agents,
00:10:19.920
to the vicious murder of a health care executive in the streets of New York,
00:10:24.700
to the shooting of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and three others,
00:10:30.140
radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives.
00:10:36.960
Tonight, I ask all Americans to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died,
00:10:43.820
the values of free speech, citizenship, the rule of law, and the patriotic devotion and love of God.
00:10:52.960
Charlie was the best of America, and the monster who attacked him was attacking our whole country.
00:10:59.840
An assassin tried to silence him with a bullet, but he failed,
00:11:04.080
because together we will ensure that his voice, his message, and his legacy
00:11:08.700
will live on for countless generations to come.
00:11:12.200
Today, because of this heinous act, Charlie's voice has become bigger and grander than ever before,
00:11:22.920
May God bless his memory, may God watch over his family,
00:11:27.040
and may God bless the United States of America.
00:11:37.720
I am so sad for Charlie's family and his colleagues and his friends.
00:11:46.480
I'm angry that the left has gotten to the point where they're inspiring people to do this with no accountability.
00:11:53.700
I'm angry that they have normalized this type of political violence.
00:11:59.320
There will be more to be said about that moving forward, I can promise you.