Speaker 1: Well, here we go. Welcome to the Big Podcast. It
is Wednesday. Today is the tenth day of September, year
of our lower twenty twenty five. My name is Tom Sullivan.
So we were sitting down getting ready to record this
podcast a couple of hours ago, so we're a little
bit late today, but it's because as we were getting
ready to start, we found out the news coming out
of ram Utah where Charlie Kirk has been shot, and
at this moment asked we're recording this. He's in critical condition.
We don't know any more than that, but he was
at He does these college He goes around to colleges
all over the country. If you're not familiar with who,
Charlie Kirk is, very influential young guy on the conservative
side of the isle. He was he started a Turning
Point USA in two thousand and twelve, I think it
was he was eighteen years old, and he reached out
to me shortly after that and we've been you know,
I know him, he knows me over the years, but
he knows everybody. I mean, he has the presidents here.
He knows everybody in the conservative side of the isle,
and very close to President Trump without any doubt. So
he goes out to colleges. He sets up an awning
and there's a sign that says proved me wrong. And
he has a crowd of college kids love this guy
or hate him, but they follow him.
Speaker 2: They show up.
Speaker 1: There was a couple thousand people at the Utah Valley
University is apparently it's the largest college in Utah, forty
eight thousand students and he has to sign proved me wrong.
Students come up to a microphone and they challenge him
on whatever they want to challenge him on, and he
debates with them and then they don't last too long.
Next person comes up, and so he gives a lot
of the people they are an opportunity to come up
and debate him on any topic that they want to
debate him on. So you may have seen him. He
was I think he was the first guy that Gavin
Newsom at this podcast and he decided he was going
to as a as a liberal Democrat, he was going
to invite on very conservative people to kind of debate them.
I think it was the first one, maybe the second,
but it was Charlie Kirk that he invited on and
they had a wonderful debate. So turning Point USA is
his organization. What happened at this gathering this afternoon. It
was twelve noon mountain time, and one person came up
apparently asked him a question. It was about religion, and
the second person came up and started to ask him
about how many transgenders have committed gun violence on university campuses,
and that is when a shot rang out. What we
have as we start this podcast today is that some
people say it was very very close, other people say
it was two hundred Well, the university says the shot
was from two hundred yards away. They took somebody into custody,
but there's even debate about whether or not that's the
person that actually pulled the trigger. It was kind of
an amphitheater where it is surrounded by buildings, concrete buildings,
and the echoes off of that. I mean, I can
see how people might get it wrong. So what I
want to do is I'll start with Kristen Holmes, who's
a reporter at the White House, talking about as the
news broke this afternoon.
Speaker 3: Not just had the President's here at times. I mean,
he is incredibly close with President Trump, they speak directly.
He also is close with members high level members of
the administration.
Speaker 4: You see the Vice.
Speaker 3: President tweeting there he knows and speaks to Charlie Kirk.
If you are talking to people within the administration, they
will tell you that Kirk is somebody who has the
finger on the pulse of the MAGA movement in a
way that sometimes even the people in Washington do not.
He has been such a force for President Trump, somebody
that they relied on at times that it was even
floated that he might join the administration. And I was
told during the transition that they actually believed that he
was more powerful not being part of the administration because
of the following that he has, because of this unique
ability he has to reach these specific young voters.
Speaker 4: And one of the stories we.
Speaker 3: Did on the campaign was how exactly they were doing this,
and this was by reaching out to people who hadn't
voted before, bringing them into the MAGA movement and getting
them to vote for President Trump. So it's not just
as though this is an ally of the presidents. It's
somebody who again has this enormous following, and that the
president pays attention.
Speaker 4: To, who is close to, who he listens to.
Speaker 3: We can recall that there have been issues and Charlie
Kirk has brought to the President's attention that people in
the base were upset of.
Speaker 4: This is something we've reported on extensively.
Speaker 3: So this is again, I just think it's really important
to note here, Well, he's not a government official. While
he is not a member of the administration, he's essentially
the closest thing you could get to that position without.
Speaker 4: Actually being in the government.
Speaker 3: He's influential in Washington, he's influential in the Republican Party,
and he's certainly influential with President Trump and influential in
the election twenty twenty four that brought President Trump to
the White House.
Speaker 1: So I've got a lot of commentary from people on
the right, people on the left, law enforcement, you name it.
Brian Stelter, who is a big lefty, the media reporter
for CNN, this is his reaction.
Speaker 5: And from every indication we have so far, this was
an appalling act of political violence, something very specifically targeting Kirk,
who was underneath a small tent in the middle of
a college campus, a quad sort of environment, surrounded by
hundreds of his fans and supporters, college students, maybe other
people from around the community who wanted to see him
up close because he is such a celebrity.
Speaker 2: Look, I know Charlie personally.
Speaker 5: He is one of the most prominent, I would say,
the most successful MAGA media personality of his generation.
Speaker 2: He is just thirty one years old.
Speaker 5: He's a little bit like a new era Rush Limball,
you know, of the digital age. But unlike someone like
Rush who hosted a radio show at his home, Kirk
is out and about. He's known for doing these public events.
As David Challion others have mentioned on here in the
last few minutes, one of the appeals of Charlie Kirk
is his accessibility. That he's on the road, that he's
on campus, that he holds these events, and that he
also debates strangers and opponents. Now, at this particular event,
there were hundreds of his fans gathered around, and then
there were also some protesters who were holding up signs
against fascism.
Speaker 2: That were much further away.
Speaker 5: So in these online videos, from what we've seen so far,
a beautiful day is suddenly shattered by a single gunshot.
And that's about all we know so far.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the details are still still trying to be put
those together. John Miller, former NYPD. This is his early reaction.
Speaker 6: Well, it's coming together a bit at a time. There
is obviously been the shooting. It appears he was shot
in the neck or near the neck. An individual is
in custody. It appears that that person may have been
grabbed by people in the crowd and held for police.
We are still looking into an identity on that person
and their background, and it's going to be a little
bit through the fog of this event. But as was
pointed out here, there are videos purported to be of
the shooting on social media that we're working to verify, obviously,
but a lot of witnesses, hundreds and hundreds of witnesses.
There's a large crowd there when the shooting happen, and
many of them are recording it. So I think we're
going to end up seeing a good deal of imagery
about what happened in a relatively short time. But as
has been discussed, we don't have a lot of information
on his condition. But it does fit into this pattern
of individuals with grievances disagreements showing up and taking this
kind of violent action. And you can pull out the
file whether it was Luigi Mangioni stalking and killing the
head of United Healthcare, or an individual creating a massive
car bomb to blow himself up and a fertility clinic
in California, for any of these other targeted acts of violence.
We saw the individual with molotov cocktails attacking protesters in
protesting and so of the Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado,
or the individual who showed up posing as a police
officer to shoot elected officials in Minnesota, and all of
that that we're talking about in these recent incidents are
now packed pretty tightly together where we're seeing one of
these things unfold literally every two weeks at this point.
So this is a really serious concern, and it obviously
goes across the political spectrum.
Speaker 7: And John talk to us about the challenges of securing
an event like the one that Kirk was hosting, in
part because he's obviously a controversial figure and he has
these debates where a large crowd is in close proximity,
but there is a notable time and place that anyone
out there who may have animosity and the twisted urge
to do something like this, they would know exactly where
he is. So that I imagine for Kirk and his
team presents challenges.
Speaker 6: Well, it does, and we've seen this in the past
with other controversial speakers, particularly on college campuses. And you know,
most college campuses of this size have their own police
departments and their own security. But what we're looking at
in this case is you have a large, open air,
outdoor event. You know, it's an event that probably has
little or no screening. And you know, when you go
from one state to another, the laws and the rules
rules by venue, laws by state about who can carry
a weapon in what circumstances and what kind of places
get more open or looser, you know, as you go west.
So it is possible, and we'll dive into this in
a couple of minutes and get the solid answers. But
it's possible that anybody have shown up for the event.
Don't know if it was ticketed or not, but it
appears to be a large open outdoor area.
Speaker 1: Well it was ticketed, but some of the people that
were there said that there really wasn't any screening for
the tickets. It was basically a free event. Show up.
The crowd size that people are talking about hundreds, there's
others in to me. I looked at the aerial video
many videos of this. There must have been at least
a thousand, possibly two thousand people that were in this
Amphitheater outdoor Amphitheater area where Charlie Kirk was appearing. The
Cole Parker is a former FBI agent and she has
an eyewitness statement that may be disturbing. Here's Nicole Parker.
Speaker 8: So, first of all, everyone needs to pray. That is
all we have right now. We have the power of prayer.
I'm just going to tell you exactly what this witness
told me. I have his permission to share this information,
so I'm just literally going to read notes. He was
very close by when it occurred. He is a sophomore
at Utah Valley University. The witness, he thought that there
were around three hundred to five hundred people. It filled
up the entire courtyard. He saw one shot go through
Charlie Kirk's throat. He saw the shot go through in
the witness fell to the ground. He was there with
two of his friends. It was outside under a tent
area and Charlie Kirk was sitting in a chair and
it was a single pop. He described it as a
single pop and he dropped over immediately as I'm sure
that everyone is seeing there's a video out on social media.
It is absolutely horrifying and I do not recommend people
to see that, but that is going to be key
for law enforcement to have all of that video as evidence.
So he was about twenty to thirty feet away. The
event was from nine am to four pm, and Charlie
started speaking at around twelve pm MISSUS Mountain standard time,
and it was about, you know, a few minutes into it,
he said. It was about an hour into you know,
what he was witnessing. And it was a question and
answer and again we've heard but they someone asked about
the school shootings, and they asked how many school shootings
have been committed by those of transgender LGBTQ and approximately
the last ten years. And then the next thing, you know,
the witness heard a gunshot. This one has said that
you could not see where the shooter was and that
they you know, they are very very shaken up by this.
Right now, obviously it.
Speaker 1: Will okay, So here's where we get into. Nobody saw
the shooter, she said. But Jason Schaffuzo will get to
in just a minute. The former congressman from Utah was
there with his family and he thinks it was a
close up shot. Now, the crowd around the awning that
Charlie sits under at these events probably ten to fifteen
feet back. They have they have barricades, but it's close,
but it's not right up next to him.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: The university, like I said, says that it was from
two hundred yards away and uh, on a high powered rifle.
So let's start with Jason Shavitz and what he saw
there in Utah.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's he's one of a kind.
Speaker 9: I mean, I really thought that years from now we'd
be saying yeah, President Charlie Kirk because for a generation,
he nobody speaks to them like he like he does.
He has built a coalition and it's based on policy
and argument, and it's and it's based on on on
a belief and challenging people. And he was stimulating a
younger generation who wasn't getting it in the classroom. He's
getting it online and he was getting it going on
on television and doing on campus things. I've been to
a couple of his on campus and he literally will
say there and answer questions from anybody, and and and
and challenge them and not always agree with him and
take sometimes a controversial position, but that's what he believed
in America, and there is nobody, but nobody in senior
Republican politics that didn't admire and interact with Charlie Kirk's.
He is a political force that transformed the last couple
of elections and moving forward, I mean incredibly influential because
he won the argument and that's what we hadn't seen
in a generation. I can, I can, I just want
to add this thing. When Charlie Kirk first started, the
first speaker came up and the question was about religion,
and the guy wanted to debate the religion. Now, the
community in Utah is very much members of the Church
of Jesus Christ, the Latter day Saints, and he went
out of his way to say, I'm not here. I
am here as a supporter of Jesus Christ. I am
a supporter of God. I want people to pray, and
we may disagree on certain things, but I love the
LDS people, I love Mormons, and if you think that
I'm here to debate your religion, I'm not.
Speaker 2: I love the LDS people. And the crowd cheered.
Speaker 9: Not everybody in that crowd is going to be a
member of the Church of Jesus Christ the Latter day Saints.
But he tackled that right away from the first question,
and I think he gave it the right. When we
go back and play the video and you listen to
his answer, he says what he's always said, which is,
get on your knees pray. And he talked about your
spiritual journey. So even though the person he was speaking
with disagreed with him, he talked about your spiritual journey
like my spiritual journey. And it was so well received.
And then the second person came up to speak and
was given the mic, and that's when the question was,
do you know how many people and I'm not getting
it for but do you know how many people of
transgenders have participated in gun violence and and mass shootings
versus non transgender And as Charlie Kirk was getting ready
to answer that and have this discussion back and forth,
that's when the shot rang out. And and that's that's
why we're sitting here now talking about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Jason Shavis was right there. He's from Utah.
He used to represent the third District of Utah, and
he was at the Chartaker event. Chris Wecker, former FBI,
like the second guy in command of the FBI, weighs
in on from the law enforcement angle.
Speaker 10: And listening to the coverage with great interest. And of course,
you know, Charlie is an iconic personality and an iconic
figure in conservative circles and beyond that. Even as you
mentioned he you know, he wants to hear from everybody.
My mind goes immediately to the fact that this, because
of who he is and where he was, this feels
like political violence to me. And it's no it's no
consolation to his family or his friends or anyone else
for that matter, but it does matter in the sense that,
you know, when it's political violence, it's terrorism, and terrorism
is a unique type of crime, if you will. It's
trying to intimidate the public or a certain you know,
a certain group of people into seeing their point of
view or making some sort of political change. So you
know that it's gonna the f guy is going to
come in fast and hard on this one, and they're
gonna they're gonna they're gonna work it like it's political
violence or terrorism until we see facts otherwise. So you'll
see them on the scene very quickly and very prominent.
Speaker 11: Do you have a sense, Chris we have you know,
Jason Chafis who was on the scene and understands the
terrain of the areas sort of an amphitheater setup and
the tent was at the base of it, and then
the ground goes upward. As you can kind of see
in this image, there are some balconies from around the
outside which I've seen people walking on. You can see
one of them to the right there. That is part
of this. This This is moments before this happened. This
is Charlie Kirk's own video from Turning Point that has
been sent out of him getting ready for this big event.
But the Universe the school has suggested that it came
from two hundred yards away this shot from a building.
Jason Chafitz felt that it came from closer. In any
thoughts on that, Chris.
Speaker 10: Wecker, Yeah, I mean I've looked at the layout as well,
and I can say this. I was talking to a
university today about organizing a security around an event something
that would be similar to this, and that's not an
optimum security situation where you're you know, you're down you're
in a situation where pretty much anyone in this this
sort of make amphitheater type arrangement can shoot down on you.
Speaker 12: You know, facts are.
Speaker 10: Still still coming in. We don't really know where these
shots came from. But it's what I'm looking at and
what I've seen and what i've heard described. It looks
like a security nightmare to me.
Speaker 11: And as Jason Chafis was saying, I'm talking to the
former FBI director, as his director, Chris Wecker, he said,
you know, there really isn't much security in this environment.
Speaker 2: It's seen as a very friendly environment.
Speaker 11: Campus environment, friendly to Charlie Kirk in Utah. So he said,
you know, we don't There wasn't really much security at
least as much as far as he could see.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean that is that's what we deal with
in the academic environment. You know, they don't want to
see a lot of security at events like this because
they feel like it inhibits, you know, the dialogue and
the atmosphere. And you know, I'd like to advocate for security,
visible security as a deterrent, but much of your security
you may want to keep out of sight in this
type of setting. But you know, this again, I don't
know what the circumstances are here and what the security
setup was, but at least the photos that I've seen
and the layout that I've seen on the news reports,
I don't see any security at all, which is kind
of unusual. I mean, I'm sure there is some somewhere,
but it doesn't look like there was a whole lot
of visible security, which is to me, is a deterrent.
You know, we're seeing so much, so much of this
that you have to really overplan events like this and
then hope that things go better than what you plan for.
Speaker 12: You know.
Speaker 11: I know we touched with Tommy larn earlier and she
was saying that at certain college events that she does,
and she's done many of these alongside Charlie Kirk over
the years, as they were coming up in this you know,
conservative speaker industry, for lack of a better word, over
the last couple of decades, that there was security on
a lot of campuses, but it seems that you know,
at this one, perhaps they felt it wasn't necessary. And
on the left hand side of your screen is one
of these debates, the prove me wrong debates that Charlie
Kirk has become famous for. Let me just ask you this, Chris,
there were they say that a suspect is in custody.
You know, what's the process in terms of investigating.
Speaker 4: On this property.
Speaker 11: Pam Bondi is saying that FBI and AHTF are on
the scene.
Speaker 10: Yeah, they're going to have to set up a unified
command post. And most of the police chiefs and the
first responders and the federal agencies all know what that means,
and so they gather up and very quickly will they
will sort of have a joint unified command sharing the
FBI with the local police chief. I doubt the campus
chief would be in that role. I think would be
the local police chief. And I think at a very
beginning of this, at the front end of this, the
FBI is going to run the show. This looks very
much like and there's almost a presumption that this is
an act of domestic chroism. We can always back off
from that if we need to, but that's where they're
going to start from, and they're going to start with
that unified command post.
Speaker 1: So one of the issues of doing the podcast is
you don't listen to it live. It's not like a
radio broadcast. So I don't know what time you're going
to hear this, but we just got word moments ago
President Trump on true social said, the great and even
legendary Charlie Kirk is dead. No one understood or had
the heart of the youth in the United States of
America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by all,
especially me, And now he is no longer with us.
Melania and my sympathies go out to his beautiful wife,
Erica and family. Charlie. We love you. Yeah, Charlie Kirk.
So he is at the age of thirty one. He
was born in nineteen ninety three, died twenty twenty five,
wife and two small children. So the political violence shows
its ugly head one more time. Well, I don't know
what to say. Now. We have a bunch of people
from earlier that I grabbed. This is kind of a
strange one. There was a local Utah television station that
was talking to some man that was at the event
and he claims that he knows who the guy is
who did the shooting or was arrested for doing the shooting,
but he claims the guy isn't guilty of it. Listen,
to this apologize.
Speaker 13: Let's go to this witness on the same a little
bit backstage, and I turned a look and they were
arresting a guy by the name of George Zim. Yeah,
I know the guy. I don't think he did it.
I think they arrested the wrong guy. I think whoever
did it was a good shooter, a sharp shooter. It
was run shot right directly to the heart, and we
need to find out who did this. I think there
should be a research that completely done. Take that took
place hours, maybe a day before anything went on. Who
could be there and pull that trigger into it? And
I don't think it was George Zim. He was poured broke,
he maybe was on medication, a little bit of looney boon,
maybe a perfect person to pick and say they did it.
Speaker 2: But I don't think he did it at all. So
at this point, but did you see him take it
into custody.
Speaker 13: Did you see him with any kind of thing in
his hand, any device in his hand, or anything like that.
I saw when they when they actually put the handcuss
behind his back.
Speaker 2: I followed him and they.
Speaker 4: Go to Jason Chafitz. You know, obviously there's going to be.
Speaker 1: Kind of a very excitable guy that said he knew
the guy and that he was a looney bird, but
he wouldn't have shot Jari Kirk. Let's go to more
on Jason Shavitz.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think at this hour, I mean I'm looking
at my clock here and it's you know, barely been
what an hour and a half hour and forty five minutes.
I think this video, some of the videos and shots
that are coming off on social media jump into conclusions.
Please don't do that. You're going to disparage people, and
the shooter will come out. We'll there's too many cameras rolling,
too many people there. But there's some people that the
police may have, you know, hey, let's detain this person
real quick. That probably and maybe have nothing to do
with it. So just be careful. I think that energy
is probably better spent in prayer and for Charlie and
his family.
Speaker 1: One more look at it from the law enforcement Agle,
Paul Morrow had these comments about the shooting this afternoon.
Speaker 12: Well, I apologize for the background noise. I just landed
here in West Palm Beach to cover four the Ryan
Ruth trial, and you know, the irony of that has
to come home to all of us, because that was
the second or third potential attempt on the life of
Donald Trump and more political violence. And now we have this,
I can tell you as part of the investigation. The
first thing, of course, is just to do everything you
can for the victim. We hope that there was an
evacuation plan set up, that there was a way to
get him out of there rapidly so that you can
get him to the nearest trauma center. So that's the
first thing that I'm thinking. But then after that, so
partedly there is somebody that is in custody. I've got
some sourcing on it. I hesitate to say more because
right now, you know, as we've learned so many times, Martha,
of the first hundred reports ninety nine or row. But
the person that is in custody, you know, we have
to start to look at him and go backwards from
there and make sure he's not part of something else.
And you also have to recognize that this is going
to be part of a prosecute. Sudn't, so you have
to proceed that way. So this has to be considered.
There'll be a command post set up, they're going to
be pulling video, they're going to be doing all the
stuff that we talk about all the time, but in
a crowd situation, which is what we had here, it
was very, very difficult. And you know what, can you say,
it's just another event like this that brings home to us,
that's this political violence that seems to be endemic these
days among the left. I have to say it. It's
just on and on and on, and I'm waiting to
see what the excuse is for this one will be Look,
there is going to be a ton of video. And
again I go back to the instance in Butler, right,
because there are some commonalities here, a crowd, a shot
that may have come from a ways away. It shows
you how lucky we got in Butler when you consider
the horrific video that's going around relative to poor Mistic Kirk.
And you know, what can you say about the fact
that this seems to be ultimately where all of I mean,
he was an influential figure. He was somebody who knew
how to go out and speak to the youth. He
was in colleges and that made him, I am sure of,
are major irritant to a lot of people out there
that don't agree with him. So as Chris Weker said,
this is almost certainly going to be looked at as terrorism.
Now it's likely domestic and so there isn't really a
charge for that. But they're going to proceed from here
as if this was a political thing, that this was
obviously quite targeted, and it's going to be a vlumitus investigation.
We just hoped that for Charlie Mace's well.
Speaker 1: That was from earlier and Charlie did not make it.
Charlie Kirk passed away at the age of thirty one
after being shot at Utah Valleys University in orm Utah. Today,
we don't know about the shooter yet. I'm sure we will.
Like I said, there where everybody and their brother had
a camera. It was it was ninety nine percent college students,
so they all have their phones and their cameras and
we'll find out more about that. SES today goes on,
let me wrap this up with the standard wrap up.
Will tell you what happened on Wall Street today. I
know it seems petty compared to the loss of Charlie Kirk. Today,
the Dow did finish down two hundred and twenty after
setting the record yesterday forty five thousand and four ninety
SMP was positive. By nineteen, the SMP was up barely
up six, gold fell just two dollars down to thirty
six seventy nine, and the price of oil went up
over a dollar today is now sixty three dollars or
a barrel of oil. We thank you for coming by,
say a prayer for Charlie's family, and we'll see you
again tomorrow