Prominent conservative activist Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah

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• Geoff Bennett:

  One of the nation's most prominent conservative activists is dead after being shot during a political rally at a Utah college campus this afternoon. In a social media post, President Donald Trump announced Charlie Kirk, the head of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, died after being rushed to the hospital from an outdoor event at Utah Valley University.

  In the post, the president praised Kirk, saying — quote — "No one understood or had the heart of the youth in the United States of America better than Charlie."

  In the last decade, Kirk has grown as an influential political figure online and in organizing events on college campuses for conservative causes.

  Our Lisa Desjardins has more on the shooting.

• Charlie Kirk, Founder, Turning Point USA:

  OK, everybody, welcome back. E-mail us, as always.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Charlie Kirk was a MAGA superstar, a millennial hosting a daily and highly influential radio show on more than 200 stations that reached across generations.

• Charlie Kirk:

  That's a lot of people, Utah.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Video today showed Kirk speaking at his Utah event, the first in what he called the American Comeback Tour.

  As Kirk hosted a segment where he took audience pushback, a shot echoed.

  (Gunshot)

• Man:

  Oh, my God.

• Man:

  Go. Go. Run. Run.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Crowd events were a staple for Kirk. He regularly toured college campuses and was the founder of Turning Point USA, one of the largest conservative student and youth groups in recent years.

• Charlie Kirk:

  The side that believes in freedom of speech is the side that I believe is on the right side of history. Has there been an instance, guys, where a liberal has had an open mic on campus where conservative kids can ask questions and you guys feel respected?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Billed as the next Rush Limbaugh, this spring, the Salem Radio Network proclaimed Kirk had the number one conservative podcast in the country and number two in all of news. He drew listeners for his unapologetic style, proclaiming people should say outrageous things.

  And, indeed, his words like these on guns could be controversial.

• Charlie Kirk:

  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.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Kirk was married with two small children. He was 31 years old.

  For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Lisa Desjardins.

• Geoff Bennett:

  A university spokesperson said a suspect in the shooting was initially taken into custody, but police soon determined that person was not actually the shooter.

  Political leaders on the left and right have expressed their shock over Kirk's murder and condolences for his family. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said political violence is completely incompatible with American values. Republican Senator Ted Cruz called it an act of unspeakable evil.

  For more on Kirk and his influence on the political right, we're joined now by Dave Weigel, who covers politics for Semafor.

  Thank you for being here.

• David Weigel, Semafor:

  Thank you.

• Geoff Bennett:

  The kind of event that Charlie Kirk hosted in Utah with hundreds, potentially thousands of college students coming to listen to him, that was not at all uncommon.

• David Weigel:

  Not at all. The format is important. That format is going to be remembered, because Kirk did not pioneer, but he sort of perfected this idea of a conservative speaker going on campus and not just being in an auditorium with a guest list, going to the widest possible space, having his people film it, having everyone else film it, and debating students, ideally having somebody in the crowd say something silly that goes viral.

  But he took it very seriously. This is a man who he left college to start this organization was a very — self-taught in a lot of philosophy, a lot of religion, a lot of history, very confident in his beliefs, his Christian beliefs, and thought he was making converts. He was making converts.

  The organization grew massively every single year he ran it.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And he was no outside influencer. I mean, he was personally close to President Trump. They would go back and forth on issues, I'm told. When Charlie thought that things were important to the base, he would tell President Trump.

  There was this idea that he had his finger on the pulse of the MAGA movement more so than did some Trump advisers.

• David Weigel:

  He did. They influenced each other.

  Kirk started this organization when he was a teenager and it was much more Tea Party-focused, focused on the debt, the debt as a threat to generations. He did not love Trump at first in 2016. But Don Jr. loved his attitude. The Trump family and the Trump Organization elevated Kirk. Kirk elevated Trump.

  And the image that Donald Trump has with young people has improved over the years. Lots of people are going to take credit for that. But part of that was Kirk aggressively organizing on campuses, in the media and not just the media that we're on, but on phones. He was one of the most popular figures with people who were looking at the debate on their phones, scrolling through.

  I want to see a video of something interesting. I want to see interesting debate. He was open with what kind of guests he'd have. That was his theory, which Trump really adopted in 2024. That comes from what a lot of Kirk was doing. Go anywhere, talk to anybody, make a convert from somebody who might think they hate conservatives.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And how did he influence the GOP's posture toward culture war issues, especially on college campuses?

• David Weigel:

  Yes, he said in a few of those clips, but think of the time he was coming up in. On college campuses, this is one of the most — big issues of our time. There have been restrictions on what you can say about various identity groups, sexual groups, sexual identity groups, minorities, et cetera.

  The conservative position has been, no, complete free speech, you're not allowed to do that. So he had these traditional conservative views, and he framed them as somebody coming in from outside to say, you are being misled. Your minds are being shrunk by what is happening on your campus. You should have an open mind.

  And he would think, if you talk to me long enough, you're going to agree with me. But in terms of the culture wars, very aggressive on transgender rights, but on the entire kind of left-wing critical theory that had grown up over the last 40 years, he was very comfortable debating that.

  And in the last nine months obviously with Trump and power winning on that, a lot of these ideas are informing how the Trump administration and — and there are people in it who worked for Turning Point USA at some point in their careers — how they view the left, which is, don't apologize, endless combat.

  There's some of Trump in there, but Trump was never as comfortable in conservatism as Kirk was.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And how does his work compare with earlier conservative youth movements like Young Americans for Freedom or anything that we saw during the Reagan era?

• David Weigel:

  Right, well, it was modeled on some of that, but the times had changed.

  And, look, William F. Buckley in the 1950s and '60s, for example, did not have to say so much about how it was good to get married. It was good to go to church. It was good to have children. Kirk saw part of his role as combating change in the culture. And a lot of this is, feminism, is things that have been very mainstream in American politics for quite a while, and saying, no, they're actually making your life worse.

  And he had different ways of coming at that. Some were more combative, some were more welcoming. But that was what changed. And he came into the conservative movement at a time where marriages were falling, people were having children later, pop culture had changed the way it covers these life facts.

  And that was part of it. There's a lot of influencers in this space, the manosphere, you could even call him. He took some of that and moved it into politics, saying, look, you all shouldn't just vote Republican because you want a tax cut. You should vote Republican because look how happy your life is going to be with this family compared to how you will be angry and left-wing and finding enemies online.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And his brand of activism in many ways fit within the broader trend toward politics as performance.

• David Weigel:

  Oh, it completely did, just the populist — we talked about other concerns the past. William F. Buckley was a big cultural figure and had his weekly show. But Kirk, like I was saying, was in people's phones all the time.

  He was — he wrote his way, talked his way into the halls of power, had the influence of the president of the United States, first time and more so this time. Trump has — who had mastered the media in his own way, has elevated these figures and had an understanding that a lot of people are — people who didn't used to vote, didn't take politics very seriously can come into politics through culture, through commentary.

  So Turning Point USA, again, was growing, and Turning Point Action, the political arm, growing every year, but a lot of what it was doing was saying, all right, you're interested in our content because of this debate we had on campus, this viral video we had, this documentary we had, this reporter who was at a protest. Here's how you can get involved and help Donald Trump get elected.

  Very successful in 2024. And I saw some of this up close, finding people who never would have cared about politics 10, 20 years ago, but they did care. They had some issue that got them interested and Turning Point Action was getting them information on their ballots to turn out.

  So this is an operation. You have seen this from people in the White House already saying people will carry on his legacy. That's some of the legacy that's going to be carried on is this combination of constant contact and attention and political action.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Well, our thoughts are certainly with this family.

  Dave Weigel, thanks so much for being here. We appreciate it.

• David Weigel:

  Thank you.

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