Remembering Charlie Kirk & 9/11

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1:52All right, everybody, we're going to do something a little bit different today, and obviously you know why already. My friend and a great American father, a husband, a damn good fighter in the war of ideas is dead. Charlie Kirk died yesterday. You may note that this is a pre-tape. So as I'm taping this, this is actually, it's now 5.36 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday. You're watching this live on Thursday morning, September 11th, because I'm supposed to go to New York tomorrow morning to be at the Cantor Fitzgerald 9-11 Memorial now with so many things changing so fast and so much breaking news. It's unclear whether I'm going to go or not.

2:37So we wanted to tape this either way. And I'm only going to do two things today. The intention for our 9-11 show is to do what I usually do, what I've done for at least 10 years on this day, which is to recap 9-11. I was in New York City during 9-11. My father was working in New York City in Midtown and was in his office and saw the second plane hit. I can recap some of that story and some thoughts and we'll share a couple of video clips and we'll do that in a moment. It's gonna be a bit of an abbreviated show today, but obviously it's with an unbelievably heavy heart that I'm doing this today.

3:17Charlie was a good man. Charlie and I met about 10 years ago, and we were on opposite sides of the political aisle, and I was kind of waking up to some of the craziness going on on the left, and Charlie and I just kind of immediately hit it off. I actually can't remember. I was really racking my brain to try to remember the exact moment that we met, and I don't remember the exact first time that I was introduced to him. but i do know that in those first few times we we were kind of always measuring each other up like it was like can i trust this guy he's like a crazy right winger and charlie was kind of like can i trust this guy he's a wackadoodle leftist but there was something there there was some desire to have conversation and debate and all those things you're in the thick of a lot of the things obviously that we talk about here so first i just want to talk briefly about how we met because I think it kind of shows sort of how you operate and why Turning Point has taken off.

4:16So we had met about a month and a half ago at the Horowitz Freedom Center event in Palm Springs. Were you a panelist there? Yeah, I was a panelist and just kind of helicoptering around. I have a lot of friends that attend that conference. Yeah, so you were there and everyone was like, oh, you got to meet Charlie Kirk, you got to meet Charlie Kirk. We met for two seconds. You said a couple of nice things about me and you're like, you know, we're doing this, our gig in Palm Springs in a couple of weeks. Why don't you come down and talk? and immediately we worked it out and your guys sent me the paperwork the next day and it was done.

4:46And I think that does illustrate something because we're going to get into some of the issues that we agree on and some of the things we disagree on. But basically you were like, look, you're down for free speech. That's the main thing here. And I want my audience to hear you talk about it. Well, you're a rational thinker, which is really rare to find in California. I'm kidding. But no, I mean, I'm a big fan of the show and I watch a lot of your interviews And I know you're, you know, you have a huge following amongst young people. And I mean, I met you, I was like, yeah, let's get you on board.

5:14I've always been a gut player for better or for worse. It's got me into a little bit of trouble at times. Yeah. But I think, Nat, it's been positive. Charlie's been on this show, I don't know, probably two dozen times over the years. I've been on his various shows and radio show probably equal amount. We spent about a year and a half doing those college tours, just like the one at Utah Valley yesterday where he was, where he was murdered. murdered in cold blood um i never saw charlie be not respectful to a single person you know he'd get up there and he you know might say some controversial things right the truth is often controversial he would have his opinions never shied away from his opinions but i never saw him be mean to anyone never saw him put anyone down as a matter of fact i would see when things would be getting hot maybe with some students or there would be a q a and it was getting out of control and people were hurling insults he was always reeling it back he would always try to calm everybody down sometimes i would try to joke my way out of it and he was like a little more of the straight man trying to just calm everyone down i think that's why we like being on stage together beyond just a sort of mutual respect that we were trying to like heal some of this stuff even if we disagreed on things and we disagreed on an awful lot particularly at the beginning you know over the years we we kind of came together politically in many ways and i think there was probably not much daylight between us probably some doesn't even matter um but you know we debated abortion and we debated death penalty.

6:33We'd debate taxes and universal health care and marriage equality and all of these things. And then after the debates and after the Q and A's, one of the things we always did, and I always started doing this at all of my shows after I saw Charlie do it once, he always invited people that disagreed with him up first during the Q and A's. He would always say, hey, listen, if you agree with us, we don't need to just have like a, oh, you're so wonderful chat. And he always would do that. So we would take part in that together. If someone disagreed with either one of us or whoever else might be on stage with us, they would get to come to the line first.

7:02That's something that I've incorporated into all of my Q &As since then. I'm much more interested in hearing someone that has a counterpoint or another view. And Charlie was very brave at that. Brave at a time when it was very hard to be brave. Thankfully, the culture has shifted a lot, in large part because of Charlie. And it's gotten easier to say certain things. Political correctness doesn't have the calcifying effect over all of us that it's had over these last couple years but it wasn't always easy to do that Charlie and I would do events where there'd be police escorts and we'd have to basically hide in rooms and have police bring us to the stage and we'd have to know where the emergency exit was and people would pull fire alarms and throw things at us and got hot coffee thrown at me once and you know chant crazy chanting and just all of this craziness and he just kept he would always double down he would double down and say I'm gonna go back I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna go back I don't do as many of those events anymore I do other things my fight is a different fight but Charlie really relished that fight and and outside of the political part of this like this was a guy who you know even if you look I'll do just a tiny bit more in the political part and then we'll do the human part if you look at even some of the things that I've been concerned about over the last you know six or eight months some of the fighting on the right Charlie was one of the guys trying to arbitrage that he was trying to make sure that the right wasn't going to snap in half the way that I'm trying to do it.

8:29He was trying to find, and he was someone that people on both sides of a lot of the fights would listen to. He really was trying very hard. He loved this country deeply. I only met his wife one time, actually was at a wedding. We sat next to them at a wedding. I only met her once, but he was a, I have no doubt, I just have no doubt that he was a great husband and a phenomenal father. and that has nothing to do with politics or public life or anything else and he did not deserve to meet his maker this way and we will see what lessons people take from this there there is a chance that we'll get a little more healing from this thing and some of us like some some spirit will speak to us and we'll be able to be a little bit better at all the things that we do and how we treat each other and everything else and then of course we know we know that that's not going to be everybody and there'll be people that that use this for their own political purposes or whatever else um but i think um we lost a good one we lost a good one and i don't know how many good ones there are a lot of people don't want to get in this fight you know people always say to me like oh you're in the fight it's so brave it's so brave you're doing it you're saying all these things so great and it's like i don't know i'm doing it i i had this idea and i'm doing something and I think Charlie kind of viewed it that way but maybe a little bit a bit on steroids like he really thought that he could start and ignite a movement that would get the country back on the right track and in some ways I think he did help do that and for whatever I can't honestly at the moment I can't really think what our what our remaining political differences are it's like it just didn't matter break bread after those events get into it on stage put it aside afterwards words and that spirit I hope is something that I'll continue here and that you'll continue in your own life that that to honor this man um as as of this recording we don't even know who did this or why they did it I don't feel like getting into all of the political part around some of the things they were saying about Charlie on CNN and other places just in the last few days related to the Charlotte thing that had nothing to do with Charlie like there will be time for all of that but to put a bow in it and then we'll talk a little bit about 9-11 for a minute we lost a good man for no good reason and we should all think about that and see if we can take a horrific horrific tragedy and and spin it into something better so let's leave that there I hope I did you right Charlie and and let's let's talk about 9-11 for a minute because what a weird this probably the strangest show I've ever done.

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11:39So I was in New York City during 9-11. It was 24 years ago. And I remember waking up, I had just got a little cell phone for the first time. I'd never had a cell phone before. It was early in the early days of the cell phone. I had a little Nokia black and white cell phone. I really never even used it, but it had snake on it. That's what I was mostly doing. I remember that old game snake. And my dad called on my cell phone. And I remember thinking that was very odd because I had just got this thing. nobody really called me on it. I didn't use it. I thought cell phones were kind of ridiculous. And my dad called me, must've been around 9.30 in the morning.

12:12I had just got laid off. I was doing standup at nights in the city. I had an office job. I don't even remember what I was doing, but I had just got laid off. So I was sleeping. And my dad who worked in Midtown saw the second, they knew that the first tower that had been hit, but at that point they didn't think it was a terrorist attack. Then when the second tower hit, then everyone started realizing what was happening. And my dad called me, told me what was happening. And then the world changed. in that moment and i guess in some ways that's kind of like what just happened with charlie it feels like the world changed there are moments that the world changes whether it's one man being assassinated or whether it's a horrific terrorist attack that kills you know two thousand plus people uh there are moments in in life so i thought we could spend a few minutes just diving back into some of the memories around that with a little bit of hope at the end and i'll tell you a little bit more of uh of my story and i've heard so many of your stories around this too every year when we do this.

13:04But here is the CBS News Live breaking coverage as one of the planes hit. It's 8.52 here in New York. I'm Bryant Gumbel. We understand that there has been a plane crash on the southern tip of Manhattan. You're looking at the World Trade Center. We understand that a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center. We don't know anything more than that. We don't know if it was a commercial aircraft. We don't know if it was a private aircraft. We have no idea how many were on board or what the extent of the injuries are right now. We have, I understand, an eyewitness on the phone right now. Sir, good morning.

13:40This is Bryant Gumbel. Could you give us your name? Yeah, my name is Stuart. Stuart, where are you right now? I'm working at a restaurant in Soho. All right, so tell us what you saw, if you would. I literally, I was waiting at a table and I literally saw a, it seemed to be like a small plane. I just heard a couple noises. It looked like it bounced off the building. And then I heard I just saw a huge like ball of fire. All right. So there were obviously a lot of clips we could have showed you there. I think what was interesting about that one is it's hard to remember that even on that day when it first started, people didn't realize it was a terrorist attack.

14:13Right. And we now know the stories of people that were told to stay in the building and everything else, even stay in the other tower, because there was no reason to think anything else was going to happen. Subsequently, not too long. I think it was less than a half hour later, the second plane hit and then the world was changed. forever um i lived on 90th and first in new york city so that's like upper upper east side and the tower is obviously downtown so we were sort of at polar opposite ends of the city um but i remember over the next few hours first off the the soot and the smell and the burning and the ashes and everything just wafting up it's hard to imagine because it almost sounds like a like a sci-fi movie or a science you know just like a zombie movie or something but the ashes and all that moving up the city and I remember I walked out I was glued to the TV like everybody else trying to make phone calls and everything and then I remember must have been maybe around 11 30 something like that I walked out to First Avenue and uh there were just hundreds must have been thousands of people thousands of people just walking up First Avenue in the middle of the street some of them covered in soot and everything else just everyone trying to get home utter state of shock everywhere.

15:25The man who deserves more credit than any human on earth for saving New York City that day and in the subsequent months, of course, is Rudy Giuliani, who was the mayor at the time. And here he is. He immediately, this man had his whole life from being attorney general and fighting the mafia and everything else, his whole life had led to this moment. And in horrible times, you need a great leader. And that was Rudy on this day.

15:54So people should remain calm, they should remain where they are, except if they are in southern Manhattan. If you're below Canal Street, you should walk out to southern Manhattan and walk north, what these people are doing right here. All right, that's cool. Do you know anything about any of these? All that we know right now is that two airplanes struck the two large towers of the World Trade Center. We spoke to the White House, there also apparently was an attack on the Pentagon. We asked that the airspace around the city of New York be sealed by military aircraft. We've been informed that it has been, and we've seen military aircraft on the air.

16:35So we're hopeful that right now things are secure. We need all of the open space we can get to evacuate people, to get people out, and we're going to have to move now and go north. I need all media to cooperate and make this cool. God bless that man. I love Rudy Giuliani. I'm so honored that I've become friends with him in my adult life. And he was, some people step into it exactly when they're supposed to, like their whole life led to that moment. And he was such an endless calming force. And you knew that someone was in charge who was competent and he was just absolutely incredible. And, you know, this is all sort of before social media, but there were still, there were still all rumors flying around, had all these other helicopters, had all these other planes, and they were talking about helicopters been hijacked, and were there going to be more attacks, and what else was happening, and had the president been assassinated?

17:25There was all this crazy stuff, and again, before social media, it's hard to remember what that is, and we got through that horrific, horrific time, and then days later, George W. Bush went down to ground zero, and this was sort of the moment that America started feeling like maybe it was going to come back. I want you all to know that America today is on bended knee in prayer for the people whose lives were lost here, for the workers who work here, for the families who mourn. This nation stands with the good people of New York City and New Jersey and Connecticut as we mourn the loss of thousands of our citizens.

18:18I can hear you.

18:26I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people...

18:35And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.

18:47USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! God, chills down my spine. That was the New York that I grew up in. That's the New York that I love. That's what I wish New York still was these days. But that's for another show. And George W. Wish, you know, regardless of what you think of him, regardless of what you think of the subsequent wars after 9-11 and everything else like talk about a guy who was made for that moment i mean that speech was just perfect there was a sense like something horrible happened but we are gonna be okay and we're all in it together and then just a few weeks later just one more video uh as america was healing and we finally you know all the sports games were cancelled all events were cancelled for a long time it was it was just we were in utter utter shock as a nation, but we really were coming together.

19:33And then a few weeks later, after they had delayed some of the baseball playoffs, this was George W. Bush at Yankee Stadium in New York, throwing out the opening pitch to World Series Game 3. Tonight's ceremonial first pitch. And please welcome the President of the United States.

20:04Thank you.

20:35Thank you, Mr. President.

20:41It chills up my spine again. It's just an absolutely electric moment that it was in New York City and that it really, we all started to come together. And I guess maybe that's the touch point between the horrific event, Charlie's assassination, what a horrible thing to even have to utter, and 9-11. Like, do we just, will we only really come together after horrible things? Now, I don't know that the country will come together because of Charlie. Obviously, huge swaths will not, huge swaths. I'm not even going to get into some of the things they were saying on MSNBC before it had even been reported that he was dead.

21:21between the moment that he was shot and being declared dead. But there was a real togetherness in America after that. And we probably made some mistakes along the way and Patriot Act, okay, a whole bunch of stuff. But I remember that America. And that America, I think, was probably a lot stronger than this America. You know, if we had a terrorist attack, the likes of which were comparable to what happened on 9-11, And if that happened today, would we come together? Portions of us would, but like, could we do it again with social media and all of the bad actors on there and the bots and the foreign actors and everything else?

22:00Like, could we do it with all of the new forces that have confused us about freedom and what America really is that have emboldened terrorist sympathizers to march in the streets and have made our children confused about their gender and whether the project of America is fundamentally good or not or anything else like I'm not so sure and I hope we never have to find out right because we don't want something horrific to happen and yet we're stuck in a position where it sometimes seems like the only way that kind of glues us together I'll share just a couple other thoughts about 9-11 and I would love to read some of your thoughts if you were in New York City or even not you know just how it affected you and your family where you were when you heard about 9-11, all of those things.

22:45I remember, this must be about two or three weeks after 9-11, where we basically were just in our houses. Everyone just stayed in their houses and their apartments and just watched TV all day long. It was before CNN really went off the deep end. And I was glued to CNN. And actually, a few years ago on this show on 9-11, I interviewed Aaron Brown, who was anchoring their coverage during 9-11. And he was excellent. He was a real excellent, well I don't know I don't even know if he considers himself a journalist but he was a he was an excellent anchor in a really horrific time so we put that up a couple years ago you could you could check that out a few years ago we had Ari Fleischer on who was George W Bush's spokesman and we've done a couple other shows like that but I remember we were all sort of glued to the TV and then one day I was just like I was going stir crazy I was like I've got to get out of the house like the only time I was walking out was to get pizza or something it's like I got to get out for a little bit.

23:35And I grabbed my basketball and I walked over to Gracie Mansion and that's the mayor's mansion. And about a block from that is there were some basketball courts. And I went and I had no idea if anyone was going to be there. You literally could still taste the soot in your mouth if you were outside. And I remember I showed up at the basketball court. It was so weird. It was like an eerily weird day. It was late in the afternoon, like kind of dusky. And there were like a couple of guys playing on the court and we just started playing pickup. up I didn't know anyone on the court I don't know if they knew anybody and we're playing and it's just kind of normal like they were like this like fleeting moment of normalcy on the court and then at one point two guys uh one guy fouled another guy pretty hard and they got into it on the court like they immediately were like ready to kill each other because it was just like all of this pent up stuff and I kid you not this seems like it was out of a movie they were right in each other's faces and they both started crying at the exact same time and hugged each other I mean it was I'm is gonna have to tell you that story like that was what we had i remember one of the things it was it sort of became a joke in new york city there was less honking of horns you know you go to new york city now there's honking of horns all the time and it's not honking of a horn like oh watch out you're gonna hit me it's talking of corn it's just like a guy releasing stress from his life and that's why it's blaring all day long in new york city but that even stopped for a little bit like Like something really good came out of that.

24:57Like everyone was kind of reevaluating everything. I suspect a lot of us are gonna be in that mode because of Charlie, because of the anniversary of 9-11. And my commitment to you, I suppose, is that I will double down on trying to do what I do here all the time, which is communicate the things that are important, that free people to the best of my ability, hopefully in a little more of a humorful way than I did today, but in a way that will de-escalate this. Because yes, a lot of us are ready to figure out ways to get out of this, but there's a lot of forces. Again, some of them are in the country and some of them are out of the country that wanna keep everything disastrous and messy for their own reasons, whatever that might be.

25:37And that's the great challenge for a free society and for free people. So Charlie, I will miss you. I have a feeling you're gonna be with us for a long time, one way or another in this country. There's not a feeling, I absolutely know that. And I'm honored that we played this game of life together while we did. So we'll miss you, Charlie Kirk. I hope that the throwback to some of the 9-11 stuff was meaningful to you. As I said, I'd love to read some comments about that and we will be back tomorrow. All right, thanks.