Charlie Kirk's Extraordinary Life and Legacy, and What We Know About the Assassin : AM Update 9/11

KPMG makes the difference by creating value, like developing strategic insights that help drive MA success or embedding AI solutions into your business to sustain competitive advantage.

KPMG drives brighter insights, bolder solutions, and better outcomes.

KPMG makes the difference.

It's Thursday, September 11th, 2025.

I'm Megan Kelly.

Charlie Kirk has died, the victim of an assassination on campus at the Utah Valley University in Utah.

He was 31 years old and a lion of a man.

Nine years ago at age 22, he was carrying Donald Trump Jr.'s bags and getting him sodas on the 2016 campaign trail.

Five years before that, he messaged Glenn Beck in a post on Twitter telling him, I am 17, a high school student.

Listen to you every day.

Fight liberal bias.

By 2024, he had become an inspirational orator, a happy warrior for Donald J.

Trump's policies, going from from college campus to college campus, an institution from which he proudly never graduated, engaging with young voters and converting them into Trump fans.

Can a 30-year-old person say, I'm now 14?

No.

Okay, so then if we don't affirm that mental delusion, why should we affirm the mental delusion where men who think they are women or women who think they are men?

Why don't you believe that white privilege exists?

I just want to get your understanding first and then we could go from there.

Is there anything that you can't do that I can do?

No, we could do the same things if we put our minds to it.

Good.

Then there's no white privilege.

What policy do you support to make it easier for young people to buy homes?

Get rid of BlackRock purchasing a bunch of homes and renting them back to us.

Okay, so like seize their assets?

Not seize their assets.

Make it illegal that asset managers over $500 billion can't buy single-family homes.

Okay, I really agree with that.

That's great.

Thank you.

He and the grassroots conservative organization he founded, Turning Point USA, organized right-leaning young people into a conservative force, creating a place of belonging and mission.

Turning Points USA growing into the largest youth organization in America, spanning across more than 3,500 campuses.

In 2019, he expanded its mission with Turning Point Action, a political advocacy group allowing the movement to get directly involved in politics.

A TikTok survey found that for Trump voters under 30 in 2024, Kirk was their most trusted person.

President Trump crediting Charlie with delivering the youth vote for him in in 2024 in numbers that stunned the nation.

Charlie himself gave the credit to God.

Host of a daily three-hour radio show and popular podcast, the larger-than-life figure became a gifted public speaker and debater.

He engaged the opposition with good humor and kindness and a willingness to listen.

And he did it understanding there was risk involved.

I love talking with people I disagree with.

Started an organization that's now on a thousand-plus plus campuses to save the greatest culture and country ever to exist.

Is it necessary?

Well, considering I've been assaulted, followed, stalked, and had things thrown at me, the greatest protection I have is cameras.

We record all of it so that we put on the internet so people can see these ideas collide.

When people stop talking, that's when you get violence.

That's when civil war happens, because you start to think the other side is so evil and they lose their humanity.

Marriages break apart when you stop talking.

Churches fall apart.

And I think what makes this country on the verge of going to a place we don't want it to go right now is we're afraid to go to places like this and have these conversations.

I'm not.

Above all, he was a man of faith and family.

He leaves behind wife Erica and two small children, a toddler girl and baby boy.

Beautiful pictures of the family at the beach abound.

Charlie is in a suit.

The man who liked to travel with his family once told me he didn't know what to do with himself on vacation.

He needed to move, to build, to do.

He built an empire of influence.

He talked politics, culture, faith, dating, marriage, fatherhood.

He saw a lost generation of American young men and spoke directly to them about their worth, their dignity.

He was shot down yesterday doing what he loved, speaking to young people about tough political issues.

It was supposed to be the first stop of the American Comeback Tour, a fall series featuring the Prove Me Wrong table, where Charlie invited anyone to step up to the mic and challenge his ideas in civilized, open debate.

The gathering began with Charlie greeting a large crowd surrounding his tent, a familiar sight seen many times before at college campuses across this country.

Speakers lining up to pose questions to Charlie, doing their best to stomp the unstumpable.

On the second question, an audience member asking Charlie about transgender shooters when a single shot rang out, striking Charlie in the neck.

His security team quickly springing into action, whisking Charlie to a nearby hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

As of midnight last night, the perpetrator still at large.

FBI Director Cash Patel announcing early Wednesday evening that a quote subject was in custody, but hours later, Director Patel announcing the individual's release following an interrogation.

Officials saying the shooter fired from a rooftop approximately 200 yards away from the courtyard where Charlie was hosting the event.

The assailant captured on surveillance video, appearing to be dressed in all-dark clothing.

In the chaotic moments following the shooting, law enforcement arresting an elderly-looking white man, that video circulating heavily on social media, officials later confirming that the man was not a suspect.

However, he was booked on obstruction of justice charges.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox yesterday addressing the tragedy.

This is a dark day for our state.

It's a tragic day for our nation.

And I want to be very clear that this is a political assassination, this great experiment on which we embarked together 250 years ago, that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights.

The first one of those is life.

And today, a life was taken.

If anyone in the sound of my voice celebrated even a little bit at the news of this shooting, I would beg you to look in the mirror.

and to see if you can find a better angel in there somewhere.

I don't care what his politics are.

I care that he was an American.

We desperately need our country.

We desperately need leaders in our country.

But more than the leaders, we just need

every single person in this country to think about where we are and where we want to be.

To ask ourselves,

is this it?

Is this what 250 years has wrought on us?

I pray that that's not the case.

Charlie's legacy cannot be overstated.

He will stand as one of the most important messengers of our time, changing hearts and minds, intellectually grappling with anybody and everybody on the most divisive issues.

Amassing nearly 20 million combined social media followers, he was beloved by so many who watched him grow up from a kid into a man of profound integrity and consequence.

Statements of condolence came from every living former American president.

President Trump ordered the flags to be flown at half-staff.

Yankee Stadium honored Charlie on its stadium screens.

Don Trump Jr.

described Charlie as more than a friend, like a little brother to me, he said, and one of the most courageous, principled men I've ever known.

Charlie, he said, dedicated his life to something bigger than himself.

He changed the direction of this nation.

And President Trump releasing this video last night from the Oval.

It's long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible.

For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals.

This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.

My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country.

Tonight, I ask all Americans to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died.

The values of free speech, citizenship, the rule of law, and the patriotic devotion and love of God.

Charlie was the best of America, and the monster who attacked him was attacking our whole country.

An assassin tried to silence him with a bullet, but he failed because together we will ensure that his voice, his message, and his legacy will live on for countless generations to come.

Last year, Charlie was asked on the George Jenko podcast how he was able, despite death threats, to continue his work on college campuses.

He spoke of his wife Erica and their joint resolve.

I mean, my wife is the best person ever, and she's a patriot and she's a believer, and we don't want to have to be accountable to God when this life passes.

And he asks, why did you not trust in me?

and not fight evil?

Because we as Christians are called to fight evil.

It's one of the lesser known scriptures, Psalm 97, 10.

For those of you that love God, you must hate evil.

Yep, amen.

And again, everyone is called to something different in the body of Christ.

Some people are called to heal the sick.

Some people are called to mend broken marriages.

Some people are called to do outright hot gospel teaching.

My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth.

That's it.

And that'll do it for your AM update.

I'm Megan Kelly.

Join me back here for the Megan Kelly Show for more on Charlie's extraordinary life and legacy.

Live on SiriusXM Triumph channel 111 at noon East on youtube.com/slash Megan Kelly and on all podcast platforms.

KPMG makes the difference by creating value, like developing strategic insights that help drive MA success and embedding AI solutions into your business to sustain competitive advantage or deploying tech-enabled audits to deliver more accurate and transparent outcomes, brighter insights, bolder solutions, better outcomes.

It's how KPMG makes the difference every day.

KPMG, make the difference.