Rest In Peace Charlie Kirk | Episode 123

24:38Dan Bongino:I was wrong. Whatever whatever concern I had about that was allayed very quickly because you suddenly you discovered very quickly that Charlie Kirk had one of the most unique generations. generational talents for both communication and organization that anyone has ever been given by the Lord above. And Charlie built a behemoth. We see the public side of it. We see the public side, all the social media videos, all of the college visits, all of the massive events that he put together. You see the public side of it. Behind the scenes, though, Charlie was our spokesman. Charlie was the guy who was able to get into the room with the people who made the decisions to represent the rest of us.

25:29He was the one who was reminding people what this is all about, that we're here for Americans.

25:34Dan Bongino:We have to see to their needs. He was the one who was forcing them. I can't tell you how many politicians I've seen in the last 24 hours that he would go to and he would tell them, OK, good. Now what? What are you going to do next? How are you going to win this race? Where are you going to concentrate your time? How are we going to get these votes? J.D. Vance, the vice president of the United States, reflecting on his friendship with Charlie Kirk in the last 24 hours, posting to social media, saying that they became friends. And J.D. Vance, of course, is so thankful for that. And Charlie said, you take care of Wisconsin.

26:07Dan Bongino:I've got Arizona. it's pretty big for a guy just turning 30 31 years old to be able to help the president and the vice president of the united states win an entire state and return to the white house but that's the kind of influence that charlie kirk had charlie kirk maintained close friendships with some of the biggest names and people that you and i are aware of including people who really disagree with each other from time to time charlie Kirk was the bridge between so many of the factions of the right that exist today. He was the bridge, actually. He maintained a very close relationship with Don Jr., who we've heard, of course, loved Charlie like a little brother, adored him, in his words, little brother.

27:01He was very close to J.D. Vance. As I said, the two had a very good friendship. He's very close to Tucker Carlson. Very close. Tucker and him were great friends. And by the way, it wasn't always that way. There was a time period you can find years ago where Tucker went on a debate stage with Charlie and the two of them squared off. And it was wild to watch.

27:24Dan Bongino:But what it was was dialogue. It was dialogue. And you could see over the years the influence that they had on each other, and certainly that Tucker had on Charlie and that Socratic impulse that Tucker became famous for, which is to simply just ask the core questions. How is this good for the country? How does this serve the American people well? And Charlie

27:53embodied that thought process as well as anyone. Also, speaking of Tucker, I mean, it's no secret that Tucker and Mark Levin have been at war with each other. Well, you know, at war, meaning they've just been fighting with each other publicly. Charlie is the bridge between those worlds. Both men love Charlie Kirk. Both men are so sad that he's gone. Alex Jones expressing his condolences and outrage now about what happened to Charlie Kirk. Just all of these, this whole universe of people all coming together around this one man who brought us all together.

28:32Dan Bongino:I saw Matt Walsh say in the last 12 hours that it's time for the infighting to stop on the right. We have a mission. We have a mission to move forward together.

28:44The left has elements that want to kill us. There is no question about this. I mean, how could anyone question it? You just saw it happen yesterday. The left has elements that want to murder their political opponents. It's because they're incapable of engaging in the dialogue that Charlie Kirk represented. Charlie Kirk was a guy who just said, hey, let's have a conversation.

29:13Dan Bongino:The people who would pick up a rifle to kill him are the weak-minded lefties who've been inflamed to take out the people who want to have that dialogue. I use weak-minded very intentionally because, one, it's true. It's absolutely true. Another thing to remember about all of this is it's not the first time we've seen this in American history. Remember, these things happen. If you know history, you can detect the elements here. And there's a chaos that the United States has experienced before, certainly in the middle of the last century. But I want to take you back a little over a century ago and remind you of the words of Teddy Roosevelt.

30:01Dan Bongino:Teddy Roosevelt on October 14th of 1912 was shot in the chest by a would-be assassin on his way in to give a speech. Now, Teddy, by virtue of the folded up speech in his pocket and the spectacles that he also kept in his pocket, was able to survive the shooting, but with a pretty serious wound to his chest. And he walked in and he gave the speech anyway. And when he walked in to give the speech, he announced to the crowd that he wasn't surprised that an assassin had tried to kill him. And here are the words that he used back then, And I think they're instructive for us now. He said, now, friends, of course, I do not know, as I say, anything about him.

30:43Dan Bongino:But it is a very natural thing that weak and vicious minds should be inflamed to acts of violence by the kind of awful mendacity and abuse that have been heaped upon me for the last three months by the papers in the interest of not only Mr. Debs, but of Mr. Wilson and Mr. Taft. In other words, what Teddy Roosevelt was saying at the time is. My political opponents have lied about me so viciously and so thoroughly and so disgracefully. That there are weak and vicious minds who are being inflamed, who are taking up arms against me, not for legitimate purposes, but instead to eliminate me at the urging of the people who run my political opponents parties.

31:39Dan Bongino:That's what Teddy Roosevelt announced back then. And here we are doing this conversation again. We had this conversation last year. We as a country, we had this conversation last year when the president of the United States, Donald Trump, was almost assassinated, one time wounded multiple times. multiple times. When is it going to stop?

32:07Dan Bongino:And now a vicious, weak-minded, radical lefty has decided to take these shots at a softer target, a very influential target. But when I say a softer target, I mean a less protected target. Murdering Charlie Kirk yesterday. day. This is a part of a long string of left-wing violence in our country. You are witnessing right now in the media some attempt to suggest that this is a, quote, both sides problem. It is not. Are there people on the right who are driven to do awful things beyond reason? Yes, it happens on occasion. But it is nowhere near where the left is in terms of it's sheer out-of-control violence.

32:55Dan Bongino:Just dating back to the first year of the first Trump presidency, 2017, we had the Alexandria baseball shooting. Steve Scalise was grievously wounded on that field by a Bernie Sanders campaign volunteer who not only shot Scalise, but shot several others as well. Of course, last year, we had multiple assassination attempts against President Trump, one of which wounded him, a shot to the head that he survived by the grace of God. we saw an assassination attempt on Justice Brett Kavanaugh in order to compel an outcome in a case that was designed to prevent the murder of the unborn. We just watched the murder of a healthcare CEO in cold blood in a city street, and the left lionized the assassin, treated him as if he was a king.

33:47Dan Bongino:In D.C. recently, we had the murder of those young Israeli diplomats, Just a young, just young people in the prime of their life. Gunned down, killed. By a radical lefty. We saw the terror attacks on Teslas earlier this year. All of the Tesla stations, Tesla dealerships attacked by radical lefties, angry that President Trump and Elon Musk were working together for the betterment of this country. We've seen the endless assaults on law enforcement, including in Washington, D.C., where left wing grand juries refuse to indict the people who commit these acts of violence. We've seen the attacks on ICE agents themselves, an explosion against members of members of immigration and customs enforcement because of the words and the encouragement of the leaders of the left and the activated, weak, vicious minds of the radical left.

34:36Calling ICE agents Nazis, people like Tim Walls and Michelle Wu. Hakeem Jeffries. The list is endless and unfortunate. Now, the left has been very activated to violence. There's no question about it. And the data support exactly what I'm telling you today. And by the way, what the president told you in his address to the nation last night. We knew and Charlie Kirk knew, to be clear, that the left has been overtaken by something

35:12Dan Bongino:that we unfortunately have to refer to as an assassination culture. look at this this is from april of this year here's charlie kirk

35:25Dan Bongino:assassination culture is spreading on the left said charlie 48 of liberals say it would be at least somewhat justified to murder elon musk 55 said the same about donald trump in california activists were naming ballot measures after luigi mangioni The left is being whipped into a violent frenzy. Any setback, whether losing an election or losing a court case, justifies a maximally violent response for the left. This is the natural outgrowth of left wing protest culture, tolerating violence and mayhem for years on end. The cowardice of local prosecutors and school officials have turned the left into a ticking time bomb.

36:13Charlie knew what was going on Charlie is now a victim of that assassination culture on the left and those numbers that Charlie was reciting those came to us from something called the Network Contagion Research Institute and of course he was right about that 55 % of so-called left of center people said that they could at least somewhat justify the murder of President Trump.

36:40Dan Bongino:Forty eight percent of left of center. You heard what I said, left of center people, people who consider themselves somehow moderate take these radical extremist positions on the American left. This is a massive cultural cancer on the American left. It's huge. It's not a small thing. It's not a concentrated number of radicals. It is a massive contagion. That wasn't the only survey that found that. Scott Rasmussen found in September of last year the following shocking data. 17 % of people in the United States said that Trump would be better off. America would be better off if Trump had been killed.

37:22Dan Bongino:If Trump had been killed, 28 % of Democrats say that America would have been better off if Trump had been assassinated. Another 24 % were not sure. fewer than half of Democrats could bring themselves to say that America would not be better off if the opposing party's candidate for president had been assassinated. These numbers really lay out in vicious and unfortunate detail just how crazed the left has become, how disinterested in dialogue they've become. I've got one more piece of evidence on the data side that shows this, and I've shared this from time to time. This comes to us back in 2022.

38:02The Southern Poverty Law Center, I highlighted it at

38:04Dan Bongino:the time, a poll done by the left wing and out of control Southern Poverty Law Center, who, by the way, has inspired violence against people like Charlie Kirk on a routine basis. They were the source of inspiration for the attack on the Family Research Council years ago. The Southern Poverty Law Center found in their own survey that nearly half of young male Democrats approve of assassinating a politician who is harming our country or democracy.

38:33So I'm sorry, when I see tweets from Barack Obama, when I see tweets from Joe Biden and

38:43Dan Bongino:Bill Clinton and Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer and Gavin Newsom saying things like violence is not the answer. Violence has no place in our democracy. As Obama said overnight.

38:58Here he is, 526 p.m. yesterday. Despicable violence has no place in our democracy, said Obama. I'm sorry. I don't believe you.

39:16You knew what you were breathing life into. We've seen it growing for a very long time. it is not enough for any one of these Democrats. All of those high-profile Democrats, the list I just read off to you, all of them saying that violence is not the answer overnight, all of them rushing to suggest that there's no way they had anything to do with this. No, no, no, we could not have inspired any of this. It's not enough for you to say political violence is not acceptable. If there is decency anywhere to be found, anywhere to be found, And I'm addressing now the American left. You have to pull yourself out of this dissent.

40:06You have to recognize the humanity of Donald J. Trump. You have to recognize the humanity of Charlie Kirk. You have to recognize the humanity of the people that you share a country with.

40:24the dehumanizing has to stop and you need to get control of your own house this is not a message for everybody it's a message for

40:37Dan Bongino:the half of democrats who say it is justifiable to assassinate the president of the united states if you were anything close to serious you'd be involved in cleaning it up but they've shown no signs of that. Joe Biden spent his presidency saying that Donald Trump was a threat to, quote, democracy.

41:00Obama has done this very thing as well.

41:03Dan Bongino:Hakeem Jeffries has done this very thing as well. Chuck Schumer threatened the United States Supreme Court in the lead up to the assassination attempt on Brett Kavanaugh. The reality is every single one of these guys should have no influence on our politics, actually. Should not be engaged in this at all. And let me extend this critique to the media. Again, in the last 24 hours, the media have demonstrated the same kind of poisonous instincts that they have every time something like this happens.

41:39Dan Bongino:We've got attacks on Charlie Kirk in the wake of his assassination. nation. They're calling him a right-wing extremist, far-right, on and on and on, designed to, of course, prejudice the audience into believing that he deserved his fate, that it was his fault that he was shot.

42:01Dan Bongino:On MSNBC yesterday, there was a person called Matthew Dowd, a paid employee of MSNBC, cut three, And here's what he said on the air yesterday, saying that Charlie had it coming. But following up what was just said, he's been one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this, who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups. And I always go back to hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions.

42:38The reaction to that was immediate and intense all across our country yesterday. Matthew Dowd was not the only person who went on that network to say something completely poisonous. Matthew Dowd has been fired as of this morning by NBC. But that's not enough.

42:57Dan Bongino:NBC as a network should not exist. these networks have squandered whatever credibility they ever established in the past if at all and they should be sued into oblivion these are these are not news channels these are propagandists who've made our country more dangerous, who've used their perches to pit Americans against one another. They shouldn't exist. Remember, Fox News had to pay like a bajillion dollars, like an epic, epic settlement in a case about questioning the results of the 2020 election. And yet you have entire cable networks where they dignify the assassination of of attempts on Donald Trump or people like Charlie Kirk.

44:00Dan Bongino:And there are no consequences for the entirety of the network. That's insane to me.

44:08And in a moment, the fellows tell me I've got some news to share with you, so we'll do that in a second. But let me let me just finish on a point here. And this is about Charlie. Charlie called all of us to our better angels. I get it. This is also infuriating. And if you are a gun owner, be well-trained on your weapon, protect your family, defend yourself. That's all very important. We have no idea what the future holds. But I do know what we can control. And that's ourselves. Charlie Kirk has called all of us to appeal to our better angels, to engage in dialogue, to believe in this country, and to believe confidently in his future.

44:55It would be an utter tragedy for us to reject the mission that he's given the rest of us. It would be an utter tragedy to let the bastards win the kind of person who would open fire

45:09Dan Bongino:on Charlie Kirk in the hope of creating the kind of chaos that brings this country down.

45:18Don't give those assholes what they want.

45:23Dan Bongino:Look after your country. Speak up. Be better in every single way that you detect that you're not good enough yet. Do it. Charlie did. Charlie spent every waking hour pursuing excellence. I of the things he accomplished in his young life. He's already inspiring me to tap into every last second and every last resource I can to be better. And I intend to do that to honor Charlie and to be inspired by Charlie, which I am.

45:55We've got more in a moment. But first, Justin, you say we've got some some breaking news from the president now. Before we begin, let me express the horror and grief. so many Americans at the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk have felt. Charlie was a giant of his generation, a champion of liberty, and an inspiration to millions and millions of people. Our prayers are with his wonderful wife, Eric, and his beautiful children. Fantastic people they are. we miss him greatly yet i have no doubt that charlie's voice and the courage he put into the hearts of countless people especially young people will live on i'm pleased to announce that i will soon be awarding charlie kirk posthumously the presidential medal of freedom the date of the ceremony will be announced and i can only guarantee you one thing that we will have a very big crowd very, very big.

47:06God bless the president.

47:10God bless him.

47:16Yeah, you know, what a world in which we live. It was the president of the United States who told most of us yesterday, actually, the tragic news. He – you could tell the president knew already. It was just a matter of time before he would make the announcement about Charlie's death. You could tell just ahead of it. The reason I know that is because there's a reporter for the New York Post by the name of Deanna Nerozi. She used to be my White House correspondent. She was – her maiden name, Deanna Globova, and she tweeted this out yesterday at 4.19 p.m. This was ahead of the president making the announcement on Truth Social.

48:00She said she asked the president, how is Charlie Kirk doing?

48:03Dan Bongino:He said he's not doing well. It looks very bad. And then she asked him how he was feeling, the president, that is. And the president responded, not good. He was a very, very good friend of mine. And he was a tremendous person.

48:23you could tell that the president was on the verge of making the announcement that he did moments later that he knew that charlie kirk had passed um

48:36Dan Bongino:this is a really important moment for our country obviously uh i would and and people are looking figure trying to figure out what to do about all of this well let me just begin with the most obvious thing that i know charlie kirk would urge you to do which is definitely to to to lift your eyes, to lift your heart, to lift your soul in prayer on behalf of our country, and that we can keep this entire thing going. That's the thing. Another would be, I do think that it is worth paying attention to the words that are coming out of the White House right now and the President of the United States. This is a moment where the President is being called once again to be the leader of the nation.

49:11Dan Bongino:And I know he's receiving condemnation already from the left overnight, and who cares, but just to make a basic point, they're attacking him for pointing out the excesses of the radical left and how dangerous everything has become. What the president is doing is the thing that all of us need to do every single day, which is just say the truth out loud. Just tell the truth out loud. The only way anything improves is if you can tell the truth out loud. So the president of the United States has been doing that. So I'm gonna keep paying attention to every word he has to say on this subject. um also i i personally in my house i lowered my flag to half staff last night um i i don't have one of those huge flagpoles i just have one of the ones that lean outside the house but i was able to lower the flag down the pole and to the extent that you can show your love for your country in that way and send the message that this has to end um i encourage you to do do that i think sometimes conservatives feel like they're they're living in isolation especially if they live in in blue communities, it's okay to indicate that you love your country.

50:16And in fact, sometimes you bring people out of the woodwork who maybe you didn't realize they too do love their country. That's an important piece of this. And then the other big lesson here is hold your family close. As a father and as a husband, I was thinking a lot yesterday after all of this went down. what were Charlie's final moments like with his family did he kiss his kids on the head as he walked out the door for the last time assuming of course that he would see them imminently was it a rushed goodbye did they dwell I mean I'll never know the answer to that question it's not mine to know but it's the kind of thing that I thought a lot about and it reminded me just as a person By the way, I'm not saying any of this is like a conservative media person or anything like that.

51:12All I'm saying is just as a human being, you just really never know when God's going to call you back. And to treat every moment like it's the blessing that it actually is. So that's the plan. That's the plan for me anyway. Let me – yeah, don't get dead. Exactly right. Oh, and I do want to let me offer one other thing. I know Dan Bongino.

51:39Dan Bongino:I know you and I know instinctively that there are I almost. My instincts tell me that Dan Bongino is working more fervently to capture this killer than maybe anybody in the FBI right now. Now, Dan is a dedicated warrior on behalf of this country. And he is doing this job because he loves it. And I don't have a single question in my mind about his resolve to see this through. And I will say with utter unimpeachable confidence that he is moving right now with aggression to his great credit. And he's doing exactly the job he has to do.

52:29and I did send him a message this morning he's busy so he hasn't had a chance to respond to it maybe he won't I don't need him to but I did tell him Dan I'm preparing to do a show that you should be doing

52:47because I want to see what Dan Bongino has to say on this subject

52:56look, I want to end today with Charlie. I want to end with Charlie and what he has had to say and why you should be inspired by him. They are not going to be able to take away his influence. They're not going to be able to take away his impact because you and I have an obligation to keep that alive. There's a lot of video of Charlie Kirk that we could dwell on. There's a lot of, a lot of things he said through the years that I could share with you, but I'm going to instead share with you something that he told the Deseret News just a month ago. It's a quote that I have obsessed over all night long, because I think it represents the essence of the mission that God placed Charlie Kirk on this earth to perform.

53:53And here's what he said.

53:57Charlie Kirk told the Deseret News last month, my job every single day is actively trying to stop a revolution this is where you have to try to point them towards ultimate purposes and towards getting

54:18Dan Bongino:back to church getting back to faith getting married having children that is the type of conservatism that I represent. And I'm trying to, trying to paint a picture of virtue, of lifting people up, not just staying angry.

54:46Dan Bongino:Charlie Kirk called all of us to live up to our God-given potential.

54:55Dan Bongino:Charlie Kirk is asking you and he's asking me to be the absolute best versions of ourselves. God didn't give you the talents and blessings that he gave you for you just to let them waste away. He gave them to you on purpose so that you could use them to glorify him, to care for the souls around you who God also created. And each of us are unrepeatable and irreplaceable. And that is totally true in the case of Charlie Kirk. The world is a better place for getting 31 years from Charlie Kirk. 31 years. 31 of the most effective years that any man has ever given. And he died using the blessings that God gave him.

55:49And his death will absolutely not be in vain. You and I refuse to let that happen. God bless you. And God bless Charlie Kirk. Rest in peace, Charlie.

56:07What advice do you have for me as I move into adulthood in order to become a more informed and involved citizen? Well, first of all, thank you for being here. And I have hope thanks to people like you. How old are you again? Thirteen. Thirteen. Here's a couple of things I want to encourage you to do. Learn something new every single day. and focus on what it means to be a good person and a person of strong character. Aristotle said that courage is the ultimate virtue. Without it, there are no other virtues. If people aren't courageous, you don't have honesty. You don't have justice. You don't have beauty.

56:41You don't have wonder. And so at age 13, I want you to commit yourself to a life of courage. Courage is doing the right thing when you don't know how it's going to work out. Courage is committing yourself to the correct course of action, regardless of the cost associated to it. Every human being, I believe, is made in the image of the divine, is sacred, is unique. And if we get away from this principle as we have, we not only have moral degradation, we not only have the collapsing society around us, but it's bad for that being itself. That being itself is unique. That being has rights. And who are we to say just because we're older that we get to murder it?

57:13Thank you.