Charlie Kirk's America

Speaker 1 A manhunt is underway for Charlie Kirk's killer. Law enforcement officials spoke in Utah this morning and gave the latest information.

Speaker 2 We were able to make a few breakthroughs.

Speaker 2 We were able to track the movements of the shooter. Starting at 11:52 a.m., the subject arrived on campus, shortly away from campus.

Speaker 2 We have tracked his movements onto the campus, through the stairwells, up to the roof, across the roof to a shooting location.

Speaker 1 Authorities say the shooter jumped off the building and fled. They also say they recovered the weapon used by the shooter.

Speaker 2 It was a high-powered bolt-action rifle. That rifle

Speaker 2 was recovered in a wooded area where the shooter had fled.

Speaker 1 And they released what they say is a picture of a person of interest in the shooting. Coming up on Today, Explain from Vox the life and legacy of Charlie Kirk.

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Speaker 6 This is Today Explained.

Speaker 7 I'm Andrew Prokop, Senior Correspondent, Vox.

Speaker 1 Tell us what happened in Utah yesterday, Andrew.

Speaker 7 Well, we saw

Speaker 7 probably the most prominent murder of a nationally known political figure in quite some time in the United States of America when Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist,

Speaker 7 very influential, very popular commentator on the right,

Speaker 7 was speaking at a college event in Utah and was shot and killed.

Speaker 7 Charlie Kirk is kind of, his focus has been on young conservative

Speaker 7 mobilization, persuasion, activism, and he's always basically going, been going on college campuses and holding events, trying to debate people, trying to persuade people to his point of view.

Speaker 7 So this is just, you know, one in a very, very long list of events like this that he has done on college campuses across the country.

Speaker 1 What kind of reaction did you see after Charlie Kirk was killed in Utah?

Speaker 7 I think the mainstream reaction was shock and horror. Again, we've seen really nothing like this that has

Speaker 7 actually succeeded in killing a major political figure in quite some time. There have been many attempts.

Speaker 7 There have been others wounded, a kind of what people argue is a rising trend of political violence that you can trace back 10, 15 years or so. But this was a big, really shocking turn of events.
Just

Speaker 7 the video footage was extremely graphic and went viral on social media, spread everywhere.

Speaker 7 I think the reaction from the overwhelming majority of people involved in politics was to condemn this, to say it was terrible.

Speaker 8 It cannot be a question of political agreement or alignment that allows us to mourn.

Speaker 9 It must be the shared notion of humanity.

Speaker 8 that binds us all together.

Speaker 5 This is horrific. This is awful.

Speaker 10 And the the assassination of Charlie Kirk risks an uncorking of political chaos.

Speaker 11 This is not who we are.

Speaker 12 It violates the core principles of our country, our Judeo-Christian heritage, our civil society, our American way of life, and it must stop.

Speaker 7 Then, of course, there were other reactions

Speaker 7 on the right.

Speaker 4 They are at war with us.

Speaker 7 Whether we want to accept it or not, they are at war with us what are we going to do about it democrats own what happened today you had figures like christopher ruffo uh and other conservative activists including to an extent the president who before

Speaker 7 any killer had been identified uh

Speaker 7 decided to blame the radical left and call for a crackdown on radical what they call radical left groups and uh organizers of some kind.

Speaker 7 Remains to be seen what that will look like. We'll find out.

Speaker 7 Then on the left,

Speaker 7 I think, you know, there was this tension between,

Speaker 7 again, most of the prominent people, most,

Speaker 7 almost every prominent Democrat or

Speaker 7 left-leaning commentator that I'm aware of said this is terrible, condemn this.

Speaker 7 But there is a strain of,

Speaker 7 joking about this or cheering this on. Again, not typically from prominent people, but the closer you get to the sort of

Speaker 7 populist influencer space or

Speaker 7 just random people posting on social media,

Speaker 7 the more common it is. So

Speaker 7 the right is pointing to all of those comments and saying, oh, see, the left wants to murder us all and we need to do something about it.

Speaker 1 Aaron Powell, Jr.: The calls online for some sort of crackdown, you're right, they were not often specific, but there was a sense of,

Speaker 1 you know, the left has caused this and something must be done about the left. It's not language that we see every day.
You know, that was my read on it. This was a really

Speaker 1 freighted moment. Were you surprised at how quickly this became polarizing?

Speaker 7 No, not at all. I think from the very first news report, I had the sense that it was going to be very, very bad.
Charlie Kirk is a very,

Speaker 7 like, he is very close to the Trump family. He is a close friend of Donald Trump Jr.
specifically. But he's also very well known among conservative media figures.

Speaker 7 He helped staff this administration. Like, everyone knows him in right-wing circles personally.

Speaker 7 And then millions more people know him parasocially through through his podcasts through his media appearances and feel like they know him personally.

Speaker 8 He has helped this nation advance.

Speaker 8 He's helped this nation ask questions to each other and he's helped us get along and do it non-violently and unfortunately somebody decided to do something very terrible.

Speaker 14 A guy who always stood up for his beliefs and never back down. I mean he was always so sweet.

Speaker 14 He had a loving family, his wife Erica and his two kids who are both under three years old, and he left them.

Speaker 14 You know, he's going to be remembered forever for always fighting for his beliefs and always fought.

Speaker 15 I hope that they remember him as not only an influencer, but as somebody who actually deeply cared about

Speaker 15 what our country was going towards.

Speaker 7 So, on the right, they have experienced this as a traumatic loss of someone they knew and cared for and are reacting with great anger and emotion about it. But I think

Speaker 7 we've been seeing our society becoming steadily more polarized between these left and right camps for years now.

Speaker 7 And history shows us that the end point of such polarization, such us versus them thinking, thinking that half the country is the enemy, the natural end point of it is repression or violence.

Speaker 7 And so there is now this kind of call. And again, we'll see whether it amounts to anything, but it is definitely something that more people on the right are feeling comfortable saying.

Speaker 7 They're saying the left wants to murder us, and so we need to crack down on them, and we'll see how far it goes.

Speaker 7 But, you know, history is replete with examples of situations like this going to a very bad place.

Speaker 1 Aaron Powell, what has President Trump said?

Speaker 7 Well, Trump released a video last night of him speaking in the Oval Office in which

Speaker 7 he adopted this viewpoint that the radical left was to blame and that he was going to do something about it.

Speaker 9 He said, for years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals.

Speaker 9 This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today,

Speaker 9 and it must stop right now.

Speaker 9 He said that his administration would 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.

Speaker 7 First of all, this is a very one-sided narrative of political violence, which has taken place from perpetrators on the left and on the right in recent years.

Speaker 7 It was just in recent months that a state senator in Minnesota and her husband were murdered by a right-wing activist. Another state senator in Minnesota was shot in that same incident.

Speaker 7 But the thing about it is that these events generally have been lone wolves or people who have perhaps been radicalized by rhetoric they've seen online, but they aren't part of any formal organization or taking any instructions.

Speaker 7 And we don't know anything about Charlie Kirk's killer yet, but you know, if past cases like this are any indication, then this probably is going to be another sort of lone wolf killer who's not part of an organized group.

Speaker 7 We'll see. But

Speaker 7 if that is the case, it is a jump to make the leap from, okay,

Speaker 7 people have been criticizing us in harsh terms. They've been saying mean things about us, and that's why people are trying to kill us.

Speaker 7 So what are you going to do? Are you going to prevent them from criticizing you? Is anyone who calls a right-winger who says they're like a Nazi is now going to be like

Speaker 7 in trouble for potentially inciting terrorism? I think there's some pretty big First Amendment barriers to something like that happening.

Speaker 7 But again, we're in the very early stages of this, so we'll see.

Speaker 1 That was Vox's Andrew ProCop coming up how Charlie Kirk Became Charlie Kirk.

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Speaker 1 Today Explained is back with Kyle Spencer. Kyle is a journalist and the author of the book Raising Them Right, the untold story of America's ultra-conservative youth movement and its plot for power.

Speaker 1 Charlie Kirk was one of the young people she profiled in that book, and in writing it, she got to know him.

Speaker 18 Charlie grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. He attended a public high school.
It was going from a mostly

Speaker 18 white school to a mostly black and brown school. He was in a school that was very supportive of Obama.
His classmates were generally very liberal. He was even early on a conservative.

Speaker 18 He had issues with what was being taught early on in his classes, believed that in history and economics classes, he was being taught from textbooks that were overly supportive of liberal policies and that students were not getting enough information on conservative policies.

Speaker 19 A lot of kids are feeling the effects of what we like to call, you know, with the Washington economy with a lot of debt plummeting small business with higher regulation and high taxes.

Speaker 19 We're just trying to reinstitute the founding principles, free market, fiscal responsibility.

Speaker 18 He slowly

Speaker 18 began to create a following by starting a small organization of his high school students and of students from other high schools around him, a place that they could come to if they had conservative ideas and were feeling kind of left out.

Speaker 18 That was the beginning of Turning Point USA, which he officially launched after he graduated from high school.

Speaker 21 I mean, we're starting chapters nationwide with Turning Point USA. And on our website, turningpointusa.net, you'll see the unbelievable positive support we're having from my generation.

Speaker 21 Using these memes, we're able to engage them in such a unique and exciting way.

Speaker 18 At the time, the Tea Party movement was coming alive and he was going all over the state and neighboring states to talk to Tea Party folks and to raise money.

Speaker 18 So first he made allies and then he began very quickly to understand what he needed to do was raise money.

Speaker 18 And he proved to be very, very gifted and skilled at finding both people who supported his cause and also people who wanted to financially donate.

Speaker 1 Tell me about Turning Point USA and how much of a following it grows to have.

Speaker 18 Charlie Kirk was always a political junkie,

Speaker 18 and he was always conservative. But what he cared about originally were economics.

Speaker 18 He cared about what he thought of as a bloated budget deficit, of a government which was spending too much money, of taxes that were too high, of a China that he felt was overwhelming the economic markets around the world and bullying the United States.

Speaker 22 The great industrial towns of the American Midwest that we decided to close, and then we sent all of the capital overseas to China so that they could industrialize, so then we become a vassal state at their own beckoning, that we are subservient to the Chinese Communist Party.

Speaker 18 And he became very involved in 2016 in Trump's election and also in the Republican Party at the time.

Speaker 18 And that's when he evolved his views into a lot more of the kind of culture war issues that we knew him for.

Speaker 18 Issues around diversity and equity programs.

Speaker 23 DEI is the forceful implementation of racial standarding practices and racial quotas.

Speaker 23 DEI is basically saying we are going to build a college and organization based on hyper-racialization, not on the pursuit of excellence.

Speaker 18 Issues around reproductive rights.

Speaker 20 Birth control like really screws up female brains, by the the way. Every single one of you need to make sure that your loved ones are not on birth control.

Speaker 20 It increases depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and it creates very angry and bitter young ladies and young women.

Speaker 18 Second Amendment rights.

Speaker 3 I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal.

Speaker 3 It is rational.

Speaker 18 And how important was he to Trump's success?

Speaker 1 Like, what role did he play in getting Trump elected?

Speaker 18 What Charlie really brought originally to President Trump was an ability to communicate very effectively, energetically, passionately, and charismatically with young people who Charlie and Trump and other conservatives really wanted to bring into a movement that was seen before Trump and before Charlie as very stodgy and old school.

Speaker 25 Donald Trump is on a rescue mission to revive your birthright.

Speaker 25 One your grandparents and those before them gave everything to hand down to you. And listen carefully, everybody.
This is why young men are the most conservative that they have been in 50 years.

Speaker 18 So he branded the GOP and MAGA to young audiences. That was originally his gift to Trump.

Speaker 25 To all the Gen Zers watching this convention on TikTok right now, I have a message just for you.

Speaker 25 You don't have to stay poor. You don't have to accept being worse off than your parents.
You don't have to feel aimless and unhappy.

Speaker 25 You don't have to support leaders who lied to you and took advantage of you for your vote.

Speaker 18 Eventually, Charlie was able to show that he was an excellent strategist, that he could think about ways to bring in older audiences, more diverse audiences.

Speaker 18 A lot of the diversity that we're seeing and reading about that the Republican Party has developed inside its follower base. A lot of that was imagined by Charlie Kirk in 2012, early, early on.

Speaker 1 He didn't have a formal role in the White House, but that doesn't mean that he wasn't very powerful.

Speaker 1 I remember a couple months ago when the Epstein files were kind of tearing at President Trump and at the MAGA base.

Speaker 1 He was the guy who came out and he calmed things down by saying, I'm done talking about the Epstein files. And many people seem to say, okay, if Charlie's done, we're done too.

Speaker 18 Yeah, I mean, Charlie has millions and millions of followers who pay attention to him and what he says.

Speaker 18 On the one hand, Charlie had very radical views, a lot of views that were very far from the moderate positions that are held in this country.

Speaker 18 But the way in which he discussed those issues and presented them to his public were very folksy, no nonsense, relatable, conversational.

Speaker 26 Strong men built the West and won the wars and built the building that we're in right now.

Speaker 22 And without strong men, then you all of a sudden see civilization unfold upon itself. And we're seeing that happen in real time.

Speaker 18 So when Charlie would say things, people would listen to him because he often made a lot of sense to them.

Speaker 18 He was controversial.

Speaker 18 A lot of the views he held were views that people found really challenging and dangerous, but he also was able to convey those views to other people in ways that made them say, hey, I think this guy really knows what he's talking about.

Speaker 18 I trust him. And what was interesting was that as his views became more and more conservative, became more opposed to LGBTQ rights.

Speaker 27 I was born as a man and now I'm a woman.

Speaker 28 Okay, no, but you don't become a woman just because you dress like a woman. So let me ask you a question.
If I wear a disguise or a costume, do I become that thing?

Speaker 28 For example, if I dress with a sombrero and start talking with a Mexican accent, do I then become that culture?

Speaker 18 He became more opposed to diversity programs. He became more convinced that white men were really the victims of racism in our country.

Speaker 24 They're coming out and they're saying, I'm only here because of affirmative action.

Speaker 13 Yeah, we know you do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person's slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.

Speaker 18 He became more and more invested in traditional marriage, in a role for women inside marriages that was very 1950s-esque.

Speaker 24 Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor.

Speaker 13 You're not in charge.

Speaker 18 The more he moved to the right on these issues, the more he became interested in a kind of biblical leading of our country, a merging of church and state, the more that he held more conservative views.

Speaker 18 He actually grew his following with more moderate audiences. And that was really his genius:

Speaker 18 he got young people at a time when they have increasingly turned to podcasters and to social media influencers for friendships. Charlie became their good friend.

Speaker 27 So I'm not really asking much of a question, but I'm looking for advice. I want to run for Congress in a few years when I become of age.

Speaker 27 And I'm just wondering if you have any pointers or direction you can help guide me.

Speaker 28 You should run. We need more young people to run.

Speaker 28 We have Turning Point Action, which is not represented here tonight, which is our political arm that would love to help you and train you and pour you.

Speaker 18 And now what you'll you'll see is that young people that were supporters knew Charlie, were inside Turning Point USA, worked for him, they are absolutely devastated because he had a kind of cult following.

Speaker 18 People really, really adored him and looked up to him. As much as he was feared and disliked outside of his movement, he was just absolutely adored inside and they remained very loyal to him.

Speaker 1 How do you think Charlie Kirk will be remembered?

Speaker 18 Charlie Kirk has a stamp on the modern Republican Party that is really extraordinary. It is, for many of his followers, a terrible, terrible tragedy that he has passed.

Speaker 18 However, they can find solace in knowing that Charlie Kirk's beliefs, his understanding of how the GOP ought to motivate around the country and how it ought to acquire followers, those ideas, those tactics, those strategies, they are embedded in the party now and that's not going away.

Speaker 1 You've seen that there is a tremendous amount of politicized rage and fear right now.

Speaker 1 What do you think we should be prepared for?

Speaker 18 I think right now you're seeing two sides.

Speaker 18 You're seeing one part of the country trying to tone down the rhetoric. This was a horrifying event.

Speaker 18 And we're going to see a big, big push, as you're seeing right now, to tone down the rhetoric, to tone down the violence, and to understand what it means to live in a civil society with rules of law.

Speaker 18 You have another side that is very enraged, very angry, kind of looking for a fight. Unfortunately, this sad, sad turn of events is going to be one of the events that ignites more rage.

Speaker 18 And we're seeing already online with some of those folks already calls for this is war,

Speaker 18 this is clearly our enemy that has done this. We need to fight back, we need to attack, even as we have no idea actually how this tragedy happened and who is responsible.
And

Speaker 18 I don't think any of us know how this is going to turn out, but the fact that you have the number of folks who are saying, Let's go to war should be very, very alarming to all of us.

Speaker 1 Kyle Spencer is a journalist and author of the book Raising Them Right. Today's show was produced by Avishai Artsi and Rebecca Ibara with help from Jolie Myers.
Amina El Sadi is our editor.

Speaker 1 Our engineers are Patrick Boyd and Adrian Lilly. Laura Bullard and Miles Bryan fact-checked.
I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.

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