Western Standard - Charlie Kirk Assassination

00:00:00.000 Hi, today is

00:00:27.420 September 10th, 2025.

00:00:29.880 I'm Derek Phil de Brandt, publisher of the

00:00:31.340 Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:33.700 I'm joined by our usual

00:00:35.240 roundup of guests today.

00:00:38.040 Former Western Standard

00:00:39.240 opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford.

00:00:41.960 Hello, everybody.

00:00:42.940 Western Standard Senior Alberta columnist, Corey Morgan.

00:00:45.860 Good day.

00:00:46.880 And BC columnist,

00:00:50.060 Elise Mills.

00:00:51.440 Hi.

00:00:53.400 So, normally I start

00:00:55.300 these off a bit more chipper, but

00:00:57.000 uh today is i think going to be a bit more of a serious talk um i'm sure most or all of you have

00:01:05.320 seen by now uh the video of the assassination of charlie kirk uh the founder of turning point

00:01:15.000 uh usa a major figure on the american right probably best known for holding these kind of

00:01:24.840 prove-me-wrong

00:01:25.840 powwows on American college campuses

00:01:29.060 where he

00:01:30.560 likes to stream videos

00:01:32.880 of hapless

00:01:34.300 college socialists

00:01:36.900 getting shredded in debate

00:01:39.080 with him.

00:01:41.300 And, you know,

00:01:43.000 actually recently, he was

00:01:44.200 featured on South Park.

00:01:46.840 And they did a pretty good, fun job

00:01:49.020 poking at him, but I think

00:01:50.920 he took it well as a great actor to be

00:01:52.640 become one of the characters on South Park

00:01:55.080 so

00:01:57.200 he

00:01:58.540 was sitting

00:01:59.740 he was holding one of his prove me wrong

00:02:03.040 events returning point

00:02:04.580 at the University of Utah

00:02:06.900 today when

00:02:08.660 he was assassinated

00:02:10.040 shot right in the neck

00:02:12.020 we've seen

00:02:14.900 some of the videos we're going to show you

00:02:16.980 some video now so

00:02:19.000 definite

00:02:21.500 extreme graphic

00:02:23.780 content warning.

00:02:28.200 This is a tough one to watch,

00:02:30.120 but we're going to show you some of the

00:02:32.180 footage here right now.

00:02:35.280 Counting or not

00:02:36.080 kind of game-wise.

00:02:39.120 Oh my god!

00:02:49.000 um yeah uh we did not show you the the close-up video um which is significantly more graphic but

00:03:09.260 you can see him uh he the video has him and the last word out of his mouth was violence

00:03:17.620 he was talking about gang violence

00:03:19.740 we finished the sentence

00:03:21.680 with the last word, violence

00:03:23.060 and you can hear the crack of a shot

00:03:25.180 and you can see the bullet

00:03:27.580 enter his neck on the left side

00:03:29.520 and streams of blood coming out

00:03:31.620 and

00:03:32.980 yeah 0.85

00:03:34.840 we're assassinating 0.83

00:03:38.640 media funders

00:03:41.720 and political organizers now

00:03:43.760 not just presidential

00:03:45.840 candidates

00:03:46.880 It's, it's, it's a dark, I feel like America's headed into a really dark time right now.

00:03:56.600 People are extremely polarized.

00:03:59.740 People feel very strongly, you know, whatever I say is not, never may do an equivocate or in any of this, but, you know, at least one, both sides of America, I think,

00:04:16.120 feel that they're under mortal threat uh republican america uh sees itself as a mortal threat

00:04:23.960 from global threats mass migration replacing itself uh and liberal america sees it under

00:04:31.400 threat from trump uh but he is you know a dictator and uh all sorts of isms and phobes etc and

00:04:41.800 And people, at least some people now, feel justified in the use of political violence.

00:04:50.500 Elise, you know, I think you've met Kurt before, right?

00:04:54.420 I have. I have.

00:04:55.840 And I'm sure I'm one of hundreds of thousands of conservatives in Canada and the United States that have met him.

00:05:03.920 I wouldn't say that we were close by any measure.

00:05:07.600 Um, but if you've ever been to CPAC or, um, a turning point event, like I have, he obviously

00:05:14.860 turning point was his organization or is his organization.

00:05:18.600 I apologize.

00:05:19.800 Um, you then know, then, you know, Charlie and he's affable.

00:05:25.880 He is so amazing on his feet, um, love or hate him or, or, well, I guess, you know,

00:05:33.380 that that's the point uh but disagree with him or agree with him you cannot disqualify his

00:05:40.340 spectacular array of skills his ability to litigate debate his understanding of the constant the

00:05:46.500 american constitution his understanding of the society that he lives in his willingness to

00:05:51.060 engage with young people whether people like it or not i think changed uh the course of the

00:05:57.220 conversation many many times um he was never one to try and embarrass somebody he was simply there

00:06:05.220 even though i think some of the kids that came along that tried to debate him their intent was

00:06:09.860 to embarrass him they sorely misunderstood who he was and sorely misunderstood or underestimated

00:06:16.420 his abilities to see charlie kirk in action is quite spectacular a lot of people obviously have

00:06:22.660 seen what he posts on his social media and youtube but to actually see a debate with charlie kirk

00:06:29.220 or a charlie kirk presentation or speech and then his engagement with the audience

00:06:33.860 is something to behold i am very envious of his skill set i like to think i'm a good public

00:06:40.100 speaker and i'm good at a debate but he is in a whole other league and his heart is in the right

00:06:46.500 place he is not hateful uh unlike what some liberals or the left the extreme left want to

00:06:52.660 say he's not a purveyor of hate he is somebody that believes ultimately in the freedom of speech

00:06:58.740 um and he believes in the and that conversations and dialogue can change our discourse

00:07:05.380 and i support him in that i didn't always agree with him and and it would be strange if i did

00:07:11.140 um you don't always agree with even your best of friends your loved ones your families i mean we

00:07:15.620 all know that but i am incredibly impressed and um envious of his incredible skill set

00:07:23.600 his character and his ability to be strong enough to want to connect with young people

00:07:30.620 today in a way that politicians are too afraid to do um we should uh you know in here let's play

00:07:38.260 that clip from south park uh where he's uh he was enshrined as a character as i said earlier he

00:07:44.240 took it really well. He's like, I know I've made it now. I'm a

00:07:46.500 self-part character.

00:07:48.520 And then, you know, Eric Cartman

00:07:50.680 kind of essentially becomes Charlie

00:07:52.660 Kirk. He's a

00:07:55.060 master debater.

00:07:56.820 You can guess where that...

00:07:59.060 So, I won't

00:08:03.000 get much further into it.

00:08:04.580 Everyone who hasn't watched that episode of Self-Part,

00:08:06.780 it's just a couple weeks old, maybe

00:08:08.840 a month at most. I'd recommend

00:08:10.880 you go back and watch

00:08:12.760 charlie kirk slash eric hartman as the master debater it's uh it's it's good um they're playing

00:08:20.260 it on twitter right now it's a lot of people have posted that supporters of his i think it's a rally

00:08:26.300 something to rally around right now sorry to interrupt you jerek but uh it's it's rolling on

00:08:30.840 my twitter feed right now yeah it's it's i mean i think he saw no greater compliment than being

00:08:38.500 spoofed on South Park.

00:08:42.140 Nigel,

00:08:43.900 Kirk was

00:08:44.400 sitting, you know, he sits under his

00:08:46.340 kind of, have a little tent

00:08:48.080 set up thing to keep out of the sun

00:08:50.080 and it said, prove me wrong on it.

00:08:54.240 They couldn't prove him wrong.

00:08:55.920 This was,

00:08:56.720 you know, this was their only way.

00:08:59.680 It was the only answer they had.

00:09:01.800 You know, but I mean, first of all, I think we should just remember

00:09:04.340 there's a young widow and a 0.98

00:09:06.340 child here. Young child.

00:09:07.940 young child we still have to be careful it's looking very likely that he's passed but at this

00:09:14.180 point yes still i mean uh based on a close-up footage or something yeah i'm uh yeah just

00:09:21.140 that he survived can't fully presume yet well may it be so um so the left you look you know

00:09:30.120 about two months ago there was a guy by the name of luigi angione who decided they didn't like the

00:09:35.540 healthcare system. Went to New York, shot a healthcare executive in the back. Cold-blooded

00:09:43.400 murder. In the Wild West, you didn't, even in the Wild West, you didn't shoot somebody

00:09:48.120 in the back. But instead of being reviled, there is a very large portion of the American

00:09:58.880 population who think that he did something heroic indeed he is as he has inspired others to embrace

00:10:10.560 violence including the gunman behind last month's deadly attack on the nfl headquarters in manhattan

00:10:18.880 so the possibility that this kind of casual assassination of people with whom you profoundly

00:10:27.840 disagree is going to go mainstream in the united states i mean how many more did this have to be

00:10:34.160 before you say this is what it's like down there and if you are a public figure or a pundit uh

00:10:41.760 never mind a political candidate such as the uh republican guys who were gunned down at a baseball

00:10:48.960 match about what was it five during the first trump presidency i think yeah so or or right

00:10:55.120 before somewhere around yeah it was around a decade anyway they were politicians so

00:10:59.040 politicians are known for a long time that they've got a target on their back

00:11:04.640 journalists often do get killed in the line of duty but this is different this is saying i don't

00:11:10.720 like what that guy thinks so let's take him out and obviously the loss to the conservative moment

00:11:17.440 is considerable kirk is not irreplaceable but he was tremendously effective and a lot of people

00:11:22.480 really liked him and it did my heart good to hear at least praising him the way she did and the kind

00:11:27.920 of observations she made this is a very different world that we're coming into um corey i'm trying

00:11:37.440 to put myself kind of in the shoes right now of uh if maybe the situation had been reversed

00:11:44.160 where a prominent and effective figure on the left

00:11:48.560 had been assassinated, presumably by someone on our side.

00:11:54.080 That is an uncomfortable position to be in.

00:11:59.300 And it is generally unfair to blame everybody on one side,

00:12:06.500 any kind of shared guilt, shared responsibility.

00:12:10.100 Sometimes, not always, perhaps,

00:12:12.520 the rhetoric used by one side

00:12:14.420 could

00:12:15.300 incite people

00:12:18.540 to do something

00:12:19.440 the attempted assassination

00:12:22.540 of Trump

00:12:24.200 twice

00:12:25.060 must have been incited

00:12:28.400 in some measure

00:12:29.360 by Kamala Harris

00:12:32.260 and the Democrats saying

00:12:33.820 this man is the next Hitler 0.99

00:12:36.120 he is here to 0.53

00:12:37.720 slave America etc etc

00:12:39.860 I mean

00:12:41.480 Because if those things aren't true, then political violence would appear to be legitimate to stop this thing from happening.

00:12:50.540 But at the same time, you know, the Democrats didn't say, go out, pick up a gun and shoot Trump.

00:12:55.220 And ultimately, it's the person who pulls the trigger or clicks the button on a bond who is responsible for what happened.

00:13:02.840 So I don't know if there's any clear answer in this kind of thing.

00:13:05.920 But, you know, how how do you think? And this is just presuming it was a leftist who shot him.

00:13:12.000 But there is a suspect in custody. For all we could tell, it was just looked like an older white guy.

00:13:18.620 We we don't know anything yet.

00:13:21.880 So but we're making a broad assumption that is probably at least in some measure likely correct.

00:13:28.280 You know, Charlie Kirk was very strong on pro-life issues.

00:13:31.380 You know, he could have any number of things.

00:13:35.920 But, you know, presuming that this was someone on the other side, how do you think, you know, liberal and leftist America should be reflecting and thinking about what's happened right now? How should you be reacting?

00:13:48.740 Well, of course, they most definitely should condemn this as harshly as possible to make it clear that this is just not an acceptable approach in a modern democratic world.

00:14:01.280 I mean, torqued rhetoric, you know, we should try and say that we want to have less torqued rhetoric that works up somebody who's unhinged to go out and do something.

00:14:11.660 It's not unprecedented.

00:14:13.560 If you remember in the 80s, or maybe you wouldn't, but Alan Berg was a radio host.

00:14:17.880 He was a left winger and he was assassinated by white nationalists.

00:14:23.760 That wasn't the order.

00:14:25.100 Yeah.

00:14:25.460 And that wasn't a reflection of conservatism in general.

00:14:28.240 And anybody sane immediately would say that was just not what's to be done.

00:14:32.860 And thankfully that didn't snowball into something more.

00:14:35.620 Though the world is different today.

00:14:37.640 It is more polarized.

00:14:38.680 There is more for the people who really truly are the word fringe and extreme, I think is abused, but there really are people who are fringe and they are on the extremes. And there's more access, I guess, to the type of material or the type of discourse to set somebody off the edge.

00:14:58.660 I mean, whether it was the person who took a shot at Trump or in this case with this,

00:15:04.960 I, you know, just as for how the left can react, I mean, again, we don't know the motivation of

00:15:09.480 the shooter himself. They should just, again, watch for their own extreme because there's

00:15:14.520 going to be people dancing on the grave. We know that. We see that every time this happens.

00:15:18.900 And they best tamp it down. I worry. I mean, the United States is,

00:15:24.560 I don't see an open civil war coming out, but people are getting pressured.

00:15:28.660 and and i could see more people going off the edge um we're seeing some lesser known

00:15:39.780 online news outlets saying he's confirmed dead but uh no one major yet uh knowing that i would

00:15:45.940 have trust you should trust the mainstream media but i mean if you if they're reporting it it's

00:15:51.540 life through a little higher likelihood yeah um i just picked up something here from the uh

00:16:02.420 governor of illinois prisker just said this is all i've been able to find nearly an hour after the

00:16:08.980 attack of left-wing response to this and he says uh the attack on charlie kirk is horrifying

00:16:15.860 political violence has no place in this country and should never become the norm

00:16:20.100 i'm sending my sympathies to his family and friends at this time he said the right thing

00:16:25.060 so far he's the only one i see saying it i i expect we'll see fraud condemnation of it

00:16:31.380 from all sides and they'll probably be the odd nutter who who says something that's going to

00:16:37.620 get them in trouble um yeah i you know i i don't think uh it'd be fair to paint you know one side

00:16:45.060 broadly is favoring us.

00:16:47.320 That being said, the left has

00:16:48.960 tolerated political violence in its

00:16:50.980 camp to a greater extent

00:16:53.100 than I think the right for some time

00:16:55.080 now. You've got the Antifa times now.

00:16:57.360 Look at the protests, it's true. I mean,

00:16:59.040 when you get conservative-minded

00:17:00.820 protests, it tends to be marching

00:17:03.120 down the street, you know,

00:17:05.120 chanting, yelling, whatever, a typical protest, 0.73

00:17:07.420 and maybe some trash 0.97

00:17:09.260 will be left behind. Leftist 1.00

00:17:11.280 protests tend to be smashed windows,

00:17:13.060 turned over police cars

00:17:15.420 and not everyone, I shouldn't

00:17:17.240 I'm blanketing as well, but if there's a

00:17:19.340 propensity for that highly

00:17:21.180 charged approach

00:17:23.040 it seems to be more predominant

00:17:25.240 or Antifa types

00:17:29.180 that's a very small number of people

00:17:31.160 who actually engage in that kind of thing

00:17:33.300 the worry is though that

00:17:35.320 the broader left seems to turn a blind

00:17:37.420 eye to it, you know, most

00:17:39.260 liberals, socialists

00:17:41.560 etc, whatever you want to call them, they're not engaging

00:17:45.620 in acts of vandalism or violence, street violence, going up and beating

00:17:49.420 people. The overwhelming majority of people do not do this.

00:17:53.760 But they seem to turn a blind eye

00:17:57.620 very casually towards that problem in their ranks.

00:18:02.320 I think you see that less on the right.

00:18:05.700 I don't have the numbers in front of me, but there's polling in the last

00:18:09.520 year that is showing that the number

00:18:11.500 of Americans who approve

00:18:13.580 of the use of violence for

00:18:15.400 political ends on both ends of the spectrum

00:18:17.240 is getting dangerously high. And you

00:18:19.400 don't need a large portion of the

00:18:21.460 population

00:18:22.060 to engage in that kind of thing

00:18:25.260 to end up in a pretty bad situation.

00:18:27.780 You can think of, you know,

00:18:29.660 people only vaguely know of the Spanish Civil

00:18:31.480 War. The Spanish Civil War broke out

00:18:33.620 due to an escalating

00:18:35.720 there's a lot of reasons, but

00:18:36.960 in large measure to

00:18:39.440 an escalating tit-for-tat

00:18:41.460 of assassinations between

00:18:43.420 the Republican,

00:18:45.740 generally Communists on one side, and the

00:18:47.380 Nationalists and Catholics on the other. 0.54

00:18:50.460 And it was a tit-for-tat

00:18:51.800 of growing political

00:18:53.420 violence. Who actually started it?

00:18:55.440 No one can know. History will never

00:18:57.460 really decide that. But what really

00:18:59.440 broke out is when the rightist

00:19:01.040 nationalist presidential candidate

00:19:03.180 was assassinated, and

00:19:05.320 then the left

00:19:07.360 ended up winning the presidential election afterwards.

00:19:09.440 as the main nationalist candidate was assassinated.

00:19:12.320 The nationalist side said,

00:19:13.800 well, we don't accept that as a legitimate election outcome

00:19:16.500 because you killed or died.

00:19:18.180 And then you had civil war.

00:19:24.720 This kind of thing ends up in, you know,

00:19:28.980 what do you at least say?

00:19:31.360 Violent re-violence.

00:19:33.220 And it's very easy to say,

00:19:35.600 well, we're going to stay above that.

00:19:36.980 We're not going to engage in it

00:19:38.420 or we're not going to engage in reprisal.

00:19:41.460 That's not the way history normally works.

00:19:44.760 No, and the setup for what has made

00:19:48.900 some of our worst moments in history

00:19:52.220 is all on the table now.

00:19:54.680 And I'm not moving away from

00:19:57.260 what's happened to Charlie personally

00:19:59.380 because his beautiful wife,

00:20:02.080 his beautiful baby boy,

00:20:03.700 his beautiful baby girl.

00:20:05.740 Oh, I'm sorry, guys.

00:20:06.660 it just i'm horrified second anyway i apologize um but everything's on the table for civil war

00:20:18.920 or for increased violent acts as we're seeing today and i and i mean people will probably

00:20:27.580 wonder why i'm bringing up job numbers when you look at the economic conditions of the united

00:20:32.200 States, and they've been veiled. And President Trump's camp, you can't deny, has tried to make

00:20:39.700 the situation look a lot better than what it actually is. But almost a million jobs are off

00:20:46.100 the table today in the United States. And those are not C-suite. That's not Jeff Bezos. That's

00:20:51.800 going to be hardworking Americans that voted for Trump. You're seeing rapid decline of Trump

00:20:57.820 supporters in the hispanic community but across the board with young men and they are not going

00:21:03.660 left they're going further right they're going into their trenches and that creates uh i think

00:21:10.220 that that level of social and economic chaos is the perfect recipe and i also let's bring our

00:21:16.060 attention back to what we saw last month and i i know it feels like many moons ago but what was

00:21:21.980 happening on the streets in california and especially in los angeles that wasn't just

00:21:26.620 turned over cars that was that that was molotov cocktails that was weaponry that should only be

00:21:33.340 in the hands of the armed forces or certain police departments um that was mexican immigrants 0.80

00:21:41.100 or illegal or going through the process be not being arrested while committing crimes the message

00:21:48.620 is really loud and clear if you're saying anything against trump you're off the hook tell i don't

00:21:54.620 don't know if any of you can tell me how many people were actually arrested and are facing

00:21:59.380 serious jail time for the absolute destruction of downtown Los Angeles. It was horrifying.

00:22:06.060 California is a breeding ground for this. I don't think it's a coincidence that Charlie was very

00:22:12.020 vocal about ICE and President Trump's use of the military. And I think that could be what just sort

00:22:21.380 have lit this all off i think it might have just been the final straw that broke the camel's back

00:22:25.600 so to speak charlie had been extremely vocal in the past few months about that his support for

00:22:32.860 president trump's actions uh for ice coming in and and picking people up um there was a lot of

00:22:40.760 chatter on social media uh that was i don't want to repeat some of it obviously very against what

00:22:46.780 Charlie was saying, I, I supported some of those policies, I know what I got in return,

00:22:54.180 you know, but you sort of that you move it along, because if you're someone like Charlie, even,

00:22:59.220 even myself, you're used to getting veiled threats or direct threats. And it's just it's

00:23:05.400 really disconcerting. But somehow, it's not as important when it's the person on the right of

00:23:10.480 the political spectrum. But when it happens to somebody on the left, even the most, you know,

00:23:15.620 asinine comment becomes headline news and uh i would say that just circling back for poor charlie

00:23:22.420 and his family i think the table was set for this disaster today this horrendous event today and

00:23:28.660 and um i i pray with all my heart that he is not he has not passed that he's going to get through

00:23:35.700 this somehow um and sorry to get emotional guys i just am so sickened by the violence

00:23:43.220 i'm so horrified even the pile up of of the violence that we've seen in canada especially

00:23:48.500 in the last few weeks innocent fathers murdered uh men defending their property put into jail

00:23:54.740 it's upside down world and i think for me this is just a very scary time for both the americans and

00:24:01.060 for canadians you shouldn't apologize for feeling emotional about the young father getting shot

00:24:07.300 is life in danger that's uh the sad thing is that it is now happening more frequently and people are

00:24:16.340 prepared to excuse it you know the thing that at least you're referring to the los angeles riots

00:24:25.940 i do not understand the logic that is used to say it is a bad thing to enforce the law

00:24:35.540 You have illegal immigrants, you take them out. 1.00

00:24:38.300 What's the problem with that?

00:24:39.940 You have riots or you have a severe crime problem in a major city.

00:24:46.060 The local authorities aren't doing anything about it.

00:24:49.420 Somebody comes along and does it.

00:24:51.300 They're the good guy in the situation.

00:24:53.460 The left does not get that, does not want to get that.

00:24:56.800 And I think this is where the divide that you're speaking of is.

00:25:00.700 I think one thing that's so terrifying about this is there is no practical protection against what's happened here.

00:25:09.220 When I was in politics, I got a fair number of death threats.

00:25:14.320 I wouldn't report most to the Sergeant-at-Arms of the legislature unless they were more serious.

00:25:19.760 Most of them just...

00:25:20.800 And they weren't all death threats.

00:25:22.260 They'd just be threats of attack and whatnot.

00:25:24.260 But I applied. I didn't want a security detail. It costs taxpayers a bunch of money and it intrudes on your privacy.

00:25:33.280 So I applied with the RCMP for a concealed carry permit. They denied me.

00:25:39.040 So, no, I wasn't allowed to carry. But I thought that was a very reasonable thing. 0.99

00:25:46.800 And it shouldn't be just the politicians allowed to carry.

00:25:49.060 Right. Everyone who's got a clean criminal record and is trained in the use of firearms, doesn't have, you know, psychological issues going on, should be allowed to carry and protect themselves.

00:25:59.740 But in this circumstance, I think Charlie Kirk could have been carrying and it would not have saved him.

00:26:05.120 He this looks like it was a sniper. I mean, if you've seen it zoomed out, I guess it was a very large gathering.

00:26:12.560 It looks like thousands of people around and someone it was a sniper shot.

00:26:19.060 There's very little defense from that.

00:26:21.240 Even President Trump, you know, that was a sniper shot.

00:26:27.420 And that was what the Secret Service ran.

00:26:29.140 Although I have a feeling that was not the Secret Service at its very best.

00:26:34.900 Sorry, Derek, can I just add that Charlie had very limited security.

00:26:42.380 I think even those who haven't seen him in person can see from the videos that it's very limited.

00:26:47.540 And the whole point that Charlie, what Charlie was committed to was face-to-face verbal combat, right?

00:26:56.340 I don't know if I could say it like that on a day like today, but he wanted you to see him.

00:27:00.860 He would even say those who were wearing masks or trying to hide their identity under the guise of COVID, he'd say, drop the mask.

00:27:06.840 I'm okay. I'm back today. I'm good.

00:27:08.980 I, you know, he, that's the whole point of Charlie Kirk.

00:27:13.420 Yeah, he couldn't, he doesn't have the Secret Service around them.

00:27:16.560 And even the Secret Service has a hard time stopping snipers, it seems.

00:27:22.000 So, you know, like, what hope do the rest of us have?

00:27:26.180 If someone decides to assassinate you as a sniper, there's just not a ton of defense against that.

00:27:34.540 Unless you're going to be in, like, a polvovil under bulletproof glass constantly.

00:27:38.440 Normal people with normal budgets, and yeah, he probably makes pretty good money,

00:27:41.880 but he doesn't have Secret Service level budgets for defense,

00:27:46.040 for protection, Corey?

00:27:47.180 No, there's no protection for that

00:27:50.400 unless you just stopped all public appearances,

00:27:52.260 which is the intent, I think, of some people.

00:27:54.600 And then I think dedicated people to their causes

00:27:57.060 aren't going to stop those appearances.

00:28:00.800 Everybody else who does things like this

00:28:04.400 is now going to be thinking long and hard,

00:28:06.400 and it's going to become less economical for them to be able to do it.

00:28:09.120 He's going to have a chilling effect.

00:28:10.000 The only preventative thing I can think of, it has to be social and I don't see it happening.

00:28:14.240 And that's stop having everything always treated as an existential threat.

00:28:18.160 That sort of rhetoric.

00:28:19.340 Every time somebody doesn't disagree with, you know, or doesn't agree with me, the social media rhetoric from people, from some pundits, from others, as you said, that person is literally Hitler or that person, the environment, you're all going to die.

00:28:30.220 Because if we don't change that, we're all dead.

00:28:32.580 And if this doesn't happen, we're all dead. 0.89

00:28:34.100 And it's a genocide in schools because trans kids can't play in other sports. 0.60

00:28:38.560 It's like every single subject is being framed as something that's going to cause death and misery.

00:28:43.400 It's so torqued.

00:28:45.180 And again, still, most sane people will never pick up a firearm and take it out on somebody.

00:28:52.480 But the ones who are sitting on the edge and when they're constantly barraged with that, but I don't know what's going to stop that.

00:28:58.220 That's the environment of discourse these days.

00:29:01.540 And we've got social media platforms where, unfortunately, the most unhinged and, you know, inflammatory of people can really get their messaging out there.

00:29:10.720 We've been seeing this on colleges for a long time where the radical mob storms the lecture theater and prevents the visiting speaker who they don't like from speaking.

00:29:24.280 This is just upping it one notch.

00:29:27.000 Well, certainly.

00:29:27.420 I mean, you know, we do a lot of...

00:29:29.460 So the damage is not only to, but it's also to free speech and the idea that we have a society where you can actually hash things out and make a good decision.

00:29:41.420 That's not what people who shoot speakers are all about.

00:29:46.120 No, and as Derek was saying, you can't help but have a little bit of chill.

00:29:49.900 I mean, you know, we do a lot of public events.

00:29:51.940 We do a lot of places where we're speaking in front of a crowd.

00:29:54.300 we stir up some some pretty crazy people at times you can't help but have that thought maybe in the

00:30:01.020 back of your head a little if you're standing on that stage and who's that over in the background

00:30:05.340 over there who's doing that and for some people they might just say you know what i'm just not

00:30:09.500 going to do those anymore and that's that's tragic so you know in terms of we have to be careful not

00:30:16.300 to overly incite people and i mean we're in the news business and you want to get people engaged

00:30:22.860 in the issues that you care about and sometimes an issue might be existential i mean the left

00:30:29.340 genuinely believes the global warming is existential we will all die i disagree with

00:30:35.100 them but many of them believe that genuinely in their hearts and it is an existential issue to

00:30:41.020 them and so you know they might use some existential rhetoric and most people will not

00:30:47.100 who are receptive to that rhetoric, are not going to engage in violence,

00:30:51.600 but maybe someone will go out and knock off the head of an oil company, etc.

00:30:55.840 But on the other side, there are issues that I believe are existential.

00:31:02.100 I think immigration, particularly in Europe, is an existential issue.

00:31:09.260 Most people on our side are not going to engage in political violence over that,

00:31:13.120 But, you know, someone, someone might. People do.

00:31:17.960 A really good example of this is you'll think of Greta Thunberg heaving with tears, crying.

00:31:27.720 And then you think about the report that was issued today.

00:31:31.460 I believe it's by doctors and nurses and First Nations leaders where they're they're targeting oil and gas companies saying that they're going to be the cause of death.

00:31:42.340 or the cause of your cancer in very recent years to come.

00:31:47.680 Then again, there was another report today by another environmental organization.

00:31:51.960 And remember that all of these groups, including Greta and her crazy flotilla,

00:31:56.960 all require a level of torque to be able to make the hundreds of thousands

00:32:02.360 and millions of dollars that they do.

00:32:05.100 Today's report actually named the companies that they believe

00:32:08.460 are killing the earth and killing human beings. 0.88

00:32:11.600 they named the ceos they named the board of directors that to me is ultimately a crisis

00:32:18.540 of morality considering what we're seeing and i and people may wonder how i'm connecting this to

00:32:24.580 charlie kirk charlie kirk's the crime against the the crime against charlie kirk is a case of

00:32:32.540 twerking and exactly cory everything you said i absolutely agree with you that is the number one

00:32:38.880 problem this call to war that we have over a very reasonable discussion um this idea that if trans

00:32:47.040 kids cannot or a trans a trans woman cannot pay play in my daughter's soccer league that it's a 1.00

00:32:55.280 national disaster i apologize that was my golden retriever puppy putting her little face in there 1.00

00:33:01.040 um but i think we need to think about we need to read these reports and what these organizations

00:33:06.880 are putting out through a very different lens at least it's the lens that i've been viewing it

00:33:11.160 through for a while and when you ask the regular citizen a regular canadian what do you see with

00:33:15.680 those reports if you really explain to them what this is about it's a environmental industrial

00:33:21.300 complex consider it consider the dangers associated with that the names the addresses

00:33:26.900 people have been doxed today well if they're putting i mean if putting out addresses that's

00:33:32.200 Completely doxing.

00:33:33.740 If, you know, and I'm trying to be as objective as I can,

00:33:37.820 how would I think about it from my own side?

00:33:40.820 You know, if, you know, when I was at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation,

00:33:45.340 you know, the organization had been fighting to scrap or reform

00:33:49.020 the Member of Parliament pension plan for decades,

00:33:52.020 hadn't been working because they'd always release pensions of people

00:33:55.460 who were defeated or retired.

00:33:57.100 And we decided, no, we need to put the pressure on the guys who are in office.

00:34:00.680 So we calculated the pension eligibility of every single individual MP, and then we emailed it to everyone.

00:34:05.960 We had an email address.

00:34:06.680 We're in there writing to say, here's how much your MP is eligible for, because we wanted to put the political pressure on the individuals to force reform.

00:34:14.520 And it worked.

00:34:15.200 We actually did get reformed.

00:34:16.300 The MP pension plan, still rich, but it's reformed and more reasonable now.

00:34:22.280 That is putting the pressure on people with positions of power or privilege.

00:34:28.900 and I don't think there's anything wrong with that

00:34:30.900 but it obviously does come with the

00:34:33.180 danger then that another is going to see

00:34:35.180 this and come after them

00:34:37.060 now in the case of Charlie Kirk

00:34:38.140 that didn't take anyone necessarily pointing out

00:34:40.800 look at this guy Charlie Kirk

00:34:42.600 he was already well known

00:34:44.180 everybody knew who he was

00:34:46.060 no one needed to publish a list like that

00:34:48.820 but you know he had some

00:34:50.940 hardcore critics and they said he's a hateful person 0.99

00:34:53.140 he hates women he hates minorities 0.99

00:34:55.100 he 0.97

00:34:55.780 uh exactly yeah um i i to be then self-censor you know and again trying to think it from our side

00:35:06.920 to be then self-censor ourselves from hard criticism where we feel hard criticism is

00:35:12.900 warranted i i don't think so i think we self-censor from not dehumanizing the opponent or or trying to

00:35:20.440 justify that i mean again i think most rational pundits and media will do that even we're ramping

00:35:25.120 people up, sure we are, we stir people up with headlines

00:35:27.300 we, you know

00:35:29.020 especially when it's commentary

00:35:30.460 you know, you raise it up, but I don't think

00:35:33.240 we go out to

00:35:34.920 try and cast the other person

00:35:37.100 as a

00:35:37.780 less than human, or you know 0.95

00:35:40.700 worthy of dying

00:35:42.680 that's a whole different level. Let's think of this

00:35:45.140 maybe

00:35:45.440 for 10 years

00:35:48.120 Justin Trudeau has been hated by a large

00:35:51.360 portion of this country

00:35:52.400 and especially in the latter years

00:35:54.840 hated by most

00:35:56.900 of the country.

00:35:58.920 Yet there was not a single

00:36:00.740 serious attempt to assassinate

00:36:03.460 him, at least that we know of.

00:36:05.380 I mean, you know, I'm sure there was always a couple 0.99

00:36:07.380 of jerks trying to get too close to him or 0.99

00:36:09.200 do something. 1.00

00:36:10.900 Those don't get reported as much.

00:36:13.060 But there was, no one got shots off at him.

00:36:15.460 No one got close to him with a gun

00:36:17.040 that any of us are aware

00:36:19.320 of. Ten years, and that man

00:36:21.340 was hated. And yeah,

00:36:23.060 I consider him an existential threat to Canada.

00:36:26.820 I think he actually succeeded.

00:36:28.080 I think it's already done.

00:36:29.800 He has left this place a smoldering ruin

00:36:32.180 that it is unlikely to ever recover from,

00:36:34.900 no matter who's a power.

00:36:36.680 But no one tried to kill this guy in 10 years.

00:36:41.660 Honestly, I'm kind of shocked

00:36:43.320 that no nutter got it in his head to go do this.

00:36:46.600 And happily so.

00:36:47.500 Maybe we should examine some of that.

00:36:48.900 What are the social differences?

00:36:50.060 What's going on?

00:36:50.860 Because the areas where it didn't happen,

00:36:52.640 we should be looking at yeah i i don't know but i'm glad it didn't i mean i got no love of trudeau

00:36:58.240 but i would never of course never wish so no i don't think that trudeau pressed the button on

00:37:05.080 the volatile demographics and their communities the way that someone like pierre polyev would

00:37:11.220 or the way that someone like me in a limited way does or what cory or nigel or you derek do 0.55

00:37:18.380 we talk about issues that trudeau never talked about really anything the argument was get your

00:37:26.000 hands off my guns then it really got into serious territory uh the most that we saw was the truckers

00:37:32.300 convoy and even then it was really peaceful and the conversations were economic issues people

00:37:38.060 fearful that they couldn't pay their mortgage or they would have to sell the family farm um but we

00:37:45.300 he what those communities are not the communities that we press the button on i'll be very frank we

00:37:51.860 talk about immigration some of the harshest abuses that i receive is when i talk about the muslim

00:37:57.540 community not show it not issuing a statement when um when the woman was attacked in the ottawa or

00:38:03.700 the jewish woman was attacked in the ottawa grocery store for example i will get tens and tens of 0.84

00:38:09.380 messages of hate um or threats to rape me sexually assault me that's been going on since i started my 0.68

00:38:16.100 pundit career charlie kirk pressed put his finger on the button of all well all the hot buttons

00:38:22.820 all the communities and i will say this to our viewers this is the difference between what i

00:38:27.940 call the pros and the trolls not one of us out of the four of us here and the tens of other pundits

00:38:33.940 that we all have in common or that we personally know what may hate someone like justin trudeau

00:38:40.020 but i can tell you if justin trudeau had needed my attention or my help pulling you know picking

00:38:46.100 him up if he tripped or was in danger i'd be right there but the trolls don't under the lines get

00:38:52.500 blurred the hate is fanatical it's crazy and when you add religion and you add something like the

00:38:58.820 ICE detainees or the sort of like religious crusades that some some American groups are

00:39:06.500 pumping millions into and it's happening in Canada those are the hottest hottest of the buttons and

00:39:12.100 Trudeau was silent on every bit of social decay and economic decay in this country I am I'm not

00:39:19.620 surprised that there was never a serious threat to his life he was ballless from the beginning 1.00

00:39:26.500 I mean, we had God knows how many churches burned to the ground, and the man didn't even condemn it.

00:39:32.960 People close to him even condoned it, in a sense.

00:39:36.900 That it was understandable.

00:39:38.440 Yeah. I think that was Gerald Butts who said that one.

00:39:41.600 But he never condemned it himself, really, in any kind of serious and forceful language.

00:39:47.940 No question that I'm aware picked up a gun or a knife to get him.

00:39:51.960 We had a man who was passionately hated by many, particularly in the West, and then later on across most of the country.

00:40:00.920 There was just no violence, and many probably wished him ill, but no one actually did anything.

00:40:12.920 I was going to make a comment about Joe Biden, but he's old enough.

00:40:17.280 People thought maybe he'd just go on his own any day.

00:40:20.720 But anyway, I don't want to say or act like...

00:40:26.820 Well, to your point about Biden, nobody actually took a run at him.

00:40:31.280 No, but I mean...

00:40:32.580 And there are lots of people on the other side of the political spectrum who are good shots.

00:40:37.980 Yeah.

00:40:39.160 But, you know, okay, Barack Obama was not at any risk of dying of nephra causes any day.

00:40:43.940 As far as I know, there was no real shots at him.

00:40:47.180 but even take George Bush who waged

00:40:49.820 wars, one of at least

00:40:51.920 is broadly considered

00:40:53.460 by most to have been unjust in hindsight

00:40:55.840 no major assassination

00:40:58.200 attempts, we haven't had actual

00:41:00.040 shots fired I guess, a presidential candidate

00:41:01.940 since Reagan

00:41:03.060 to be fair too though, the amount

00:41:06.320 and levels of protection, we don't hear about

00:41:08.220 what they've prevented quite often

00:41:10.220 since Reagan

00:41:11.600 yeah, they haven't been shots fired

00:41:14.260 that's where the Charlie Kirk thing you mentioned earlier

00:41:16.280 is a little more distressing on top, too,

00:41:18.360 because pundits don't have that sort of

00:41:20.420 protection. They don't sweep an area

00:41:22.320 before they get there. They don't screen people

00:41:24.420 coming to the event. They don't have that

00:41:26.280 ability.

00:41:27.980 And it's not feasible.

00:41:29.780 The United States cannot provide

00:41:32.240 a secret surface detail

00:41:33.740 to everyone with a podcast.

00:41:35.740 Okay, Charlie Kirk's is not just any podcast.

00:41:38.960 It's amongst the biggest

00:41:40.300 ever.

00:41:41.940 Okay, fine. Joe Rogan gets one now.

00:41:45.360 Theo Vaughn.

00:41:46.280 but then obviously that it'd get into partisan fine one side gets protection the other there's

00:41:50.120 no practical way to do this there is there is no defense there is no defense against this

00:41:56.760 actually you know there is one case of a political violence in uh gun violence in canada it's 2014

00:42:05.160 the deranged individual i mean he was deranged in the leftist kind of way yeah but he was a

00:42:12.440 there's a nutter and uh he shot it shot the soldier in the back standing there on guard 0.89

00:42:18.840 at the war memorial he drove his car across the road ran away from it entered the uh entered 0.67

00:42:26.360 center block and started firing and eventually it was the surgeon at large and alarms that brought

00:42:32.840 him down now the point being that uh even in canada when you are looking around and say well

00:42:40.040 are we like this could this happen here and the one example of something where you could say well

00:42:45.880 there was that again it turns out to be somebody who is against the system uh the the people who

00:42:54.920 who hated what trudeau did sucked it up and waited for the election that's our system

00:43:00.760 so i guess we have enough uh update um cbs news uh reports that occurred according to turning

00:43:08.280 point, USA, Charlie Kirk's organization.

00:43:10.680 He's in the hospital, but it

00:43:12.140 quote, it doesn't look good.

00:43:14.820 I mean, that's not really

00:43:16.300 new. It's just finally

00:43:17.800 some kind of official statement from his organization.

00:43:20.960 But anyone who saw,

00:43:22.240 and we didn't show it here, because it's just

00:43:24.360 it's too damn graphic.

00:43:26.000 The close-up video.

00:43:28.220 I

00:43:28.580 would be shocked if he was alive

00:43:32.180 when he was put in the ambulance.

00:43:34.160 I've hit my quota of bloody graphic

00:43:36.240 videos this week, but that just

00:43:38.020 that that's the new change for today too you know we didn't we don't we didn't even see it like you

00:43:42.880 know a generation ago you didn't see that and yeah we haven't gotten to it but that horrible horrible

00:43:47.120 murder on the train and i keep seeing that video over and over again and now i've seen this and i

00:43:52.240 just you know i i'm a a harsh tough talking pundit but i still have no use for for seeing

00:43:58.980 humans murdered and and abused and and hit and maybe that's something else to study too though

00:44:05.100 Because we didn't get the exposure to this sort of thing 30, 40 years ago.

00:44:08.560 Not as regularly, not as graphically, not as instantly as we do today.

00:44:12.560 You see it for real.

00:44:14.440 It's for real.

00:44:15.300 And it's got to be.

00:44:17.440 I think that's why I agree with you, Corey.

00:44:19.600 I think that's why I broke down.

00:44:21.180 It's just being, you know, seeing the story of the father in Vaughn that, was it Vaughn, that defended his family and to actually see family, just his home videos.

00:44:31.160 That somehow touched me today.

00:44:32.840 um you know we have out here the lapu lapu uh murderer there's no other way to say it his court

00:44:40.920 appearance has basically eclipsed most news stories and then of course we have to see the

00:44:45.660 footage over and over and over again which is horrifying um and then to see this and it just

00:44:51.780 the list goes on and i feel like maybe as i'm getting older i'm getting more emotional i i

00:44:58.040 understand what the meaning of life really is the gift of life is and um and but then to also know

00:45:04.920 how little his band his children are as well and Charlie Kirk is so young and he has a young wife

00:45:11.720 and little tiny children you know it's it's unbelievable to me and I think that just to me

00:45:18.000 is so heartbreaking to see a good father a good man go down as we saw and I believe uh it was Vaughn

00:45:23.900 a good father defending his family went down and uh it's violence no matter how you what

00:45:31.140 wrapping paper you use it's all about violence uh yeah i saw this earlier uh but you you got

00:45:38.020 something yeah just something to feed into it here i mean we're talking about the difference

00:45:42.460 in the way we perceive things the way things are reported the left the right msnbc which of course

00:45:47.900 a prominent... One of the pundits

00:45:49.760 on episode 2. One of the pundits

00:45:51.820 says, Charlie Kirk

00:45:53.680 Shooter might have just been a supporter

00:45:55.560 who was firing off his gun in celebration.

00:45:58.960 Why do we...

00:45:59.920 You know... He should be fired

00:46:01.780 for that.

00:46:03.020 Well, with modern

00:46:05.420 online swarming, chances are that pundit might...

00:46:07.980 Yeah.

00:46:10.400 Unbelievable.

00:46:11.420 I mean, I don't know if he was

00:46:13.240 on Alec Baldwin and he'll be set.

00:46:16.500 These events have

00:46:17.660 a tendency to bring, these events have the tendency to do us one courteous favor, is to

00:46:25.720 bring forward the people in the media, because we've seen this even as soon as October 7th

00:46:31.900 happened. We saw this with reporters from CBC, Global, CTV, CTV and CBC being the primary

00:46:37.940 problem. We saw the anti-Semitism. We saw what their political beliefs were. We saw

00:46:43.440 their inability to support the Jewish community and understand that this was a crisis of real

00:46:49.840 hate and terrorism, this situation will also bring those forward. And I think you're right,

00:46:57.000 Derek, there will be online swarming to have that person fired. And there'll be more,

00:47:03.760 other people will fall to the same demise as well. It's the one favor that a terrible event

00:47:09.620 like this gives us well um we're i guess we're we're pretty much out of time uh we had and we

00:47:18.220 spent all this time coming up with show notes to talk about all these different topics today i mean

00:47:21.880 that's done uh so uh i don't know i'll just i guess we include with real rice editorials

00:47:30.240 yeah um don't know what we think but i think uh you know it's not a term often used in our culture

00:47:38.200 and I think it's over-abused in

00:47:40.200 some other cultures or faiths

00:47:42.180 but I think Charlie Kirk

00:47:44.440 has been martyred

00:47:45.460 he is someone

00:47:46.920 assassinated

00:47:49.180 not just for doing but while he was doing

00:47:52.240 what he loved, debating

00:47:54.160 the cut and thrust

00:47:55.960 the combat of ideas

00:47:57.640 as Elise put it

00:48:00.640 literally

00:48:02.240 sitting under a sign that said

00:48:04.160 prove me wrong

00:48:05.720 and there is no greater evidence

00:48:08.960 that someone could not prove him wrong

00:48:11.500 all they could do was silence him

00:48:14.040 and when you do this kind of thing

00:48:17.260 I don't think

00:48:19.320 when people engage in this kind of thing

00:48:21.320 they often don't think about the martyr they create

00:48:24.180 you create many more who come after them 1.00

00:48:28.060 you have to kill us all 0.99

00:48:30.760 unless they're prepared to do it, they can't win 0.92

00:48:33.760 so uh anyway uh so cory nigel at least thank you for uh being a part of this cheery episode

00:48:44.500 um please invite me back for this ever another one i'm joking yeah i can i just say that i think

00:48:53.200 we all agree it's very unlikely charlie will survive this so i just want to say this charlie

00:48:58.900 Charlie was in a galaxy to his own in the world of pun entry, debate, litigating, as we were talking about the combat, the verbal combat that went back and forth.

00:49:09.580 He was a champion. He was respectful. And again, I didn't always agree with him.

00:49:14.980 But if you saw him in person, if you do what we do or come from the world of punitry like I have, you will, as we as we all have, you will see how extraordinary his skill set was.

00:49:29.360 He could call facts up and he was so polite and careful with those he was debating.

00:49:36.040 I saw him hug many people at the end of it.

00:49:38.740 Those who came in as adversaries left with a handshake or a hug.

00:49:43.620 and the media is never going to tell that story but it's all there on youtube to see so thank you

00:49:49.580 for letting me just say that because it has this has really shocked me today um so we're not going

00:49:55.720 to do regular parting shots today uh don't seem to be in poor taste um but i'm going to put nigel

00:50:03.600 on the spot and ask you uh maybe just to say a brief prayer very good and that's how we'll close

00:50:10.500 today happy to do it we often talk about thoughts and prayers heavenly father dear lord we do love

00:50:15.500 you and we we come to you in shock and horror at the at that the attack on this decent man

00:50:23.500 father even if he was not a decent man we would still be shocked and horrified by the attack and

00:50:30.240 so we we pray first for him you don't know he's dead yet we pray for his survival we pray also

00:50:36.260 for his uh his wife and his children who are going to be devastated but above all we pray that there

00:50:43.060 will be a revival of respect for life and for for liberty but for life and for your name in this

00:50:53.860 country because people who who are truly committed to following the ways of jesus don't do things

00:51:01.140 like this lord we just pray that that spirit would come across that land and this land in the name of

00:51:08.100 christ amen amen amen well guys i hope that we see each other under better circumstances next week

00:51:16.100 thank you for letting letting me join you again this week okay okay thank you well thank you

00:51:22.020 everyone. God bless

00:51:24.320 and amen.

Western Standard - September 12, 2025

Charlie Kirk Assassination

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