Sean covers the tragic news of the shooting of Conservative talk show host Charlie Kirk. This tragedy has hit hard across all political spectrums!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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| Sean, if you want to be a part of the program, the video that I have just watched, this is very hard to talk about right away. | |
| Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA, is shot at an event in Utah. | |
| And I just saw a close-up video of it, and it was devastating. | |
| It looked like he got shot in his neck. | |
| And the level of the amount of blood that was, it was like right in the carotid artery. | |
| It was, it was, I don't even want to describe it. | |
| I've known Charlie for a long time. | |
| He is a great American. | |
| He's such a good, kind, wonderful person. | |
| We've had some of the best conversations in life about what he does and conservatism and media. | |
| We were actually scheduled to get together for dinner in the very near future. | |
| I'm praying we'll start out this program. | |
| If everybody could just say a prayer for Charlie, what I am seeing online is just devastating. | |
| And, you know, our hope is that obviously an event like this, that he does these events around the country. | |
| We have even had conversations about security in the past. | |
| And he's, you know, he goes into hostile environments on college campuses. | |
| Wouldn't expect it in Utah necessarily, which is definitely more conservative. | |
| And it's very painful to hear. | |
| It is painful to watch. | |
| It is painful to see. | |
| And our prayers are with him. | |
| And I just got off the phone is, you know, with Jason Chaffetz, he was at the event. | |
| He'll be calling. | |
| He's on Fox right now. | |
| He'll be calling in. | |
| As a matter of fact, let's put up Jason. | |
| He was a witness to this today. | |
| Let's put it up on the Fox coverage of this. | |
| Didn't happen. | |
| Charlie has some security in front of him, but you got the sense that the shot came kind of straight at him. | |
| And I don't think there would be many vantage points too far away because he was under an awning. | |
| It's a bright, sunny, beautiful end of summer day in Utah. | |
| And I just hope and pray that somehow, someway, he survives this. | |
| Jason, we're just looking at the video of Charlie tossing hats. | |
| It's a gorgeous day, as you just said. | |
| Huge smile on his face, which is his usual composure. | |
| And he's getting up onto that stage. | |
| This is the kind of thing, and everyone can see it in the upper side of the screen right now, that he does. | |
| He brings a lot of energy, a lot of vitality, a lot of very astute conversation and analysis of the state of the country. | |
| And he climbed up on that stage like he always does and started taking questions. | |
| I just want to give the full statement. | |
| It's a short statement, and I know we're going to hear more from President Trump as we get more information. | |
| But this is the full statement. | |
| He said, we must all pray for Charlie Kirk, who has been shot. | |
| A great guy from top to bottom. | |
| God bless him. | |
| And President Trump knows what it's like to be shot at. | |
| He was the subject of two assassination attempts that were thankfully averted. | |
| One obviously hit his ear. | |
| And in this case, we're seeing something that looks much more serious, I think is fair to say at this point as we wait for more information about how Charlie is doing. | |
| So give us a sense of this space, Jason. | |
| Were there security checkpoints on the way in here? | |
| What was it like in terms of who could get in? | |
| So in that shot, I was standing to Charlie's, or off to the right. | |
| I wasn't right next to him. | |
| Like I said, I was up on the balcony. | |
| I had traded messages with Charlie prior to the event. | |
| When he announced he was coming, I was excited, told him we want to come see him. | |
| Then I sent him texts saying, hey, hope I can see you afterwards. | |
| Our family loves Charlie. | |
| Wanted to see him again. | |
| Look, this is classes are now back in session. | |
| Kids can come and go. | |
| I would say that it's, if I had to guess, 95% local students. | |
| Like I said, it's our state's largest university. | |
| There were some members that weren't students that were there, but very few. | |
| No security checkpoints. | |
| It's a very open campus. | |
| It's very much a commuter campus. | |
| Come on, Oram, Utah is one of the safest places on the planet. | |
| And so we just don't have these types of things. | |
| We don't have murders, let alone shootings, let alone something of this magnitude. | |
| And like I said, there was a light police presence. | |
| I'm sure I hope there were some undercover people. | |
| Charlie has his own bit of security, but not to deal with, you know, a couple thousand people that were there to see Charlie. | |
| They had microphone challenges because there were so many people they couldn't get all the volume that they wanted. | |
| People are having a hard time hearing. | |
| But I think when this story is written, I don't think it was a coincidence that the shot rang out when you get a question about transgender mass shootings. | |
| Maybe, hopefully I'm wrong. | |
| People are probably criticized for jumping to conclusions, but I'm just telling you, in the 30 minutes or so, I thought, wow, I don't think that's a coincidence, but we'll see. | |
| So, Jason. | |
| That's Jason Chase Chaffetz on the Fox News channel. | |
| He'll be checking in with us throughout the program today. | |
| By the way, if any of you listening on our affiliate that is out in Salt Lake City or any of our affiliates in Utah, and any of you were at the event, we'd love to hear from you. | |
| This is not a time, by the way, for people to call in and be jackasses. | |
| Our prayers are with Charlie. | |
| He's got two young children. | |
| He's been married, I think, about four or five years. | |
| He loves his family, loves his country. | |
| President Trump just put out, as you heard there, we must all pray for Charlie Kirk, who has been shot. | |
| A great guy from top to bottom. | |
| God bless him. | |
| Joining us now, our friend Rod Arquette. | |
| He's with the Rod and Gregg Show on our affiliate out there. | |
| Weekdays 4-7 locally, Talk Radio 1059 KNRS. | |
| We've been friends for a long time, Rod. | |
| I know you're on the ground there. | |
| I know you probably have talked to a lot of people. | |
| We've all seen, most of us that have any access to social media have seen that close-up shot. | |
| It is, I am, I'm in a state of shock right now. | |
| And really, to be honest with you, very upset for Charlie and his family. | |
| It's upsetting to see something like that. | |
| I know we talk about violence all the time. | |
| We read about violence all the time. | |
| We know evil exists. | |
| And to see it, you know, for it to hit home this closely is very painful. | |
| It is very painful, Sean. | |
| And, you know, you look at that video and you're just done. | |
| We just saw the video a couple of days ago about the attack in Charlotte. | |
| And now we see this today. | |
| And we asked ourselves, what on earth is going on? | |
| There was a huge, you've seen the video, a huge crowd of people there who wanted to hear what Charlie said. | |
| He is truly, I think, a pioneer. | |
| He has done more, I think, in many respects throughout this country to reach out to young people, to hear their concerns, to express his own conservative values as to what he believes in and what he thinks this nation should be. | |
| And to have something like this happen. | |
| Like I said, there was a huge crowd. | |
| It's a beautiful day here, you know, and he was doing what he typically does at these events. | |
| He's up in front of a microphone, taking questions from people. | |
| And as Jason Chapitz was just saying, you know, the shot came directly in front of him. | |
| So, you know, and with this side, this is a big campus. | |
| It's the largest in the state, as Jason was just saying. | |
| You know, there are a lot of people you can see in the crowd, people wearing Trump hats, MAGA hats, supporting him. | |
| But also the media over the last several weeks in this state, Sean, have been raising questions about him coming here and raising questions, calling him a controversial figure, as they do. | |
| And, you know, you don't know if that's connected in any way, but it is shocking just to see what has happened at Utah Valley University. | |
| As you said, one of the— Well, what's shocking, a conservative on a college campus? | |
| I mean, he's the founder of and CEO of Turning Point USA. | |
| It's a nonprofit, and it's dedicated to informing and giving options and information to young people, rallying, organizing, empowering students to advocate for principles of freedom, free markets, limited government. | |
| You know, if you look at the impact that Charlie has had, it's massive. | |
| I would argue it had a big impact on the 2024 election. | |
| You know, he's been to more than 3,500 high schools and college campuses in all 50 states. | |
| They have over 350 full-time staff members. | |
| I know he does have security. | |
| Jason even referenced that security was there, but in a crowd with that size, a couple thousand people at least. | |
| I don't know if you can ever really keep anybody safe. | |
| Yeah, really easily, a couple thousand people. | |
| And what a warrior this guy was. | |
| You know, going on these college campuses and most college campuses tend to be very liberal and willing to sit down and take questions and have discussions. | |
| And then to have something like this happen, I mean, it's tragic. | |
| This is not what this country is all about. | |
| But unfortunately, that's what it's starting to turn into. | |
| And you're right. | |
| He had security. | |
| The security was just off. | |
| I could tell to his right and left. | |
| And for this to happen, it's just, it's tragic. | |
| And all we can do is hope for the best for certainly for Charlie and for his loving family. | |
| I know. | |
| And he's got two young kids. | |
| He's not been married very long. | |
| I looked it up. | |
| I think he's been married a little over four years, four and a half years, somewhere in that area. | |
| But they did have a very big impact. | |
| And I know, you know, I know the people in Utah really, really well. | |
| And, you know, I remember when the years that I was part of Stadium of Fire and I was the MC multiple years in a row, that there are people on the hard left that fought to get me out and kicked me out and they fired me. | |
| I wouldn't, you know, Utah is known as a very conservative state. | |
| And but evil exists everywhere. | |
| Yeah, can I correct that? | |
| I think someone referred to this a couple of weeks ago. | |
| I heard on another show, someone calling it the bluest red state in the country. | |
| And unfortunately, I think it's kind of headed in that direction. | |
| And we're doing everything we can to fight that and to share those conservative values, but things are changing here, Sean. | |
| And unfortunately, we've done an example of that today, unfortunately, a tragic example. | |
| Well, I don't know if you remember back in the day, but when I debated the mayor of Salt Lake, who was a Democrat, what was the name? | |
| Rocky, whatever. | |
| Rocky Anderson. | |
| Rocky Anderson. | |
| Right. | |
| I went out there, became the most watched debate. | |
| And I'm like, how did a Democrat get elected as mayor of Salt Lake City? | |
| So what you are saying, there are pockets of this in every state now. | |
| And one of the things that President Trump has been focusing on when he discusses crime and the issues of crime, you know, in Chicago and New York City and LA and San Francisco and Chicago, all these other places, he's like, okay, if you don't want the help and support, and we saw how effective the help and support was in D.C., then I'll send it to red states that have blue cities run by blue mayors, Democratic mayors, excuse me, and they want the help. | |
| They're asking for the help. | |
| Well, give them the help if you don't want it. | |
| But we know that lives can be saved, and policing is obviously critical. | |
| But I don't know how you ever really factor in the element of evil on the element of sick, twisted, ugly, you know, people with dark, you know, dark parts of their soul that could do something like this. | |
| Rod, if you can hang in there, Michael is in Utah, was at the university, saw what happened. | |
| Michael, thanks for calling in. | |
| By the way, if anyone did witness this, and by the way, please, this is not a time for prank phone calls. | |
| I'm asking you, for the sake of Charlie and his family, and for the sake of people that are looking for real information, I would just urge you to please restrain yourself and maybe do a little bit of introspection and thoughts and prayers. | |
| Some of the comments Linda's been reading online and telling me about are just atrocious. | |
| Michael, thanks for checking in with us. | |
| Hi, Sean. | |
| Yeah, we're in the UVU parking lot right now. | |
| Looks like they have the whole place on lockdown. | |
| We've been in the car for about an hour. | |
| Nobody's moving. | |
| We were about three rows up, my wife and I. | |
| It was one shot. | |
| They shot Charlie right in the neck. | |
| There was so much blood. | |
| And I grabbed my wife, and it was just a mad dash to get out of there. | |
| There is a very close-up video somebody was taking, and at the moment of impact, I mean, it was like a gusher. | |
| I mean, the blood came, I mean, just gushing out of his neck. | |
| And it's a frightening scene to see it. | |
| I can only imagine what his poor wife is thinking at this moment, knowing the seriousness of this attack against him and this assassination attempt against him. | |
| And that's why, you know, our prayers are with him and his family. | |
| And Did you notice if police were able to quickly get and paramedics, if they were there, were they able to quickly attend to him? | |
| Yes, they did. | |
| In fact, when we were running, we kind of went the wrong way, and we saw the man in custody. | |
| We accidentally went through the police entrance, kind of in the corner of the campus there, and they did have the man in custody. | |
| This is the older guy with the blue shirt that's online. | |
| Yes, that's him. | |
| We saw him. | |
| Well, you know, at this point, he's believed to be the shooter. | |
| I would imagine that there are eyewitnesses that will confirm that in the minutes and hours to come as we continue our coverage. | |
| Michael, I'm grateful that you called. | |
| Thanks for listening to KNRS. | |
| We appreciate it. | |
| Back to Rod Arquette. | |
| I know a lot of people that listen to KNRS out in Utah and listen to you and listen to me are big fans of Charlie's. | |
| I mean, young people really love him. | |
| And this took place, you know, this Utah Valley University. | |
| I mean, they had a very big crowd there. | |
| Yes, they did. | |
| You know, he was, you know, it had been talked about for quite some time that he was coming. | |
| As a matter of fact, he was scheduled to make a second appearance here, John, I think later this month up at the University of Utah. | |
| So, you know, he is very, very popular here. | |
| As a matter of fact, I just want to share with you, my co-host, Rick Hughes, just shared the video of Charlie being shot. | |
| That's unbelievable video. | |
| I had not seen it as of yet. | |
| And that's unbelievable. | |
| You're talking about the close-up shot that I'm referring to. | |
| Close-up shot. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Yeah. | |
| It's so. | |
| Rod, if you could stay with us, I do got to take a quick break here. | |
| We'll come back. | |
| If you're just joining us, Charlie Kirk has been shot during a Utah Valley University speech. | |
| We don't know his current condition. | |
| We do know President Trump has commented asking the country for prayers. | |
| We'll have more of our coverage as we continue. | |
| our prayers are with charlie his family and um you know hoping for his his survival and quick recovery sean hannity | |
| All right, for stations along the Sean Hannity Show Radio Network, please know that we are going to skip the bottom of the hour break. | |
| If you're just joining us, we have some very, very sad, personal, tragic news. | |
| Our friend, Charlie Kirk, has been shot. | |
| He was at an event at Utah Valley University giving a speech. | |
| There, when you look at the videos that are online, one in particular that was very close to the shooting, it is horrible to watch. | |
| And our thoughts are many, many prayers are with him. | |
| He's got a young family. | |
| He's been married about four or four and a half years. | |
| He has two young children. | |
| President Trump writing on Truth Social. | |
| We must all pray for Charlie Kirk. | |
| He's been shot. | |
| A great guy, top to bottom. | |
| God bless him. | |
| Eric Trump is with us. | |
| He knows him well. | |
| He wanted your father to win in the worst way. | |
| I mean, he was so passionate about everything he did, going to university after university, hostile environment after hostile environment around the country. | |
| He did so much to help get young people involved in the conservative movement. | |
| I just, all our prayers and thoughts are with him and his family right now and praying that he will be okay. | |
| Well, we're certainly praying for him. | |
| There's no better guy. | |
| I've spoken a thousand, I mean, a thousand turning point events over the years and other events with him. | |
| Sean, I remember the first time he came into the Trump organization. | |
| This was in 2016, you know, kind of mid-campaign cycle. | |
| And he had just started, you know, a couple years earlier. | |
| He had started from his college dorm room, what is now Turning Point USA and what's turned into one of the greatest kind of youth movements in American history, right on the back of my father and Make America Great Again. | |
| They were fighting for the same thing. | |
| And he was telling me about all his plans, how he was growing a campus by campus. | |
| And this was before Charlie was a know-hand name. | |
| And he was telling me about it. | |
| And I'll never forget the passion. | |
| I mean, I think I was the first Trump that met him. | |
| I'll never forget the passion the guy showed me in a small conference room in the back of our offices. | |
| Somebody made the introduction. | |
| And man, did that guy fight? | |
| He fought like hell every single day for our movement. | |
| He fought like hell for this country. | |
| He fought like hell for our thought, you know, for my father. | |
| He fought like hell for youth that were being indoctrinated in this country and being just steered in horrible directions by college campuses. | |
| And by the way, he built a following. | |
| I mean, you look at the event and you look at that horrible video that you just referenced, but you see the love out there with these young people who are cheering. | |
| They want to be a part of politics. | |
| They're wearing American flags and they love this country and they love our nation and they love everything about America. | |
| And this is the best of the next generation. | |
| They're there to see a guy that they admire, a guy who represented the youth of this country. | |
| And then some psychopathic guy puts a bullet in his neck and Charlie's obviously struggling for his life right now. | |
| It's unthinkable. | |
| I mean, it's absolutely unthinkable. | |
| And frankly, for me, and I think for our entire family, it's deja vu back to Butler, what was it, less than 14 months ago right now, where they tried to do the exact same thing to my father. | |
| I mean, this is the radical left. | |
| This is what they tried to do to my father, not once, but multiple times, including the one at the golf course in Palm Beach. | |
| And this is what you get. | |
| This is the tolerant left in this country who just fires rifles at people in large crowds when they don't like somebody's voice. | |
| It's really unthinkable. | |
| We've had conversations privately, and I'm not going to bring all of it publicly, but we have talked a lot about if you are in the public eye and you are a conservative, you take a strong position. | |
| And it can transcend politics. | |
| I mean, you have some lunatics on either side of the aisle, in all fairness. | |
| But, you know, unlike the left, we're not going to rush to judgment and say, oh, this is because of so-and-so said this. | |
| That's the game that they play. | |
| But, you know, the reality is, and you've experienced it more than others. | |
| I know you're in the process of writing a book, but I don't know when you're going to release the book of all that you and your family have been through. | |
| And I watched it up close and personal, Eric, and they wanted to destroy you and your father and your family. | |
| You have a prosecutor and a DA running on one platform to get one man, your father, one family, the Trump family, one organization, the Trump organization. | |
| And it was nobody, nobody, nobody said a word on the left. | |
| This is just unacceptable. | |
| Nobody ever speaks up and says, you know what? | |
| That's not how justice is supposed to work in America. | |
| All they knew is they had this rage and they justified their rage just because they disagreed with your father politically. | |
| And all that you've lived through, all that your wife has lived through, all that your brother has lived through, your brothers, your sister has lived through, Milani has lived through. | |
| You guys have been through hell and back. | |
| Sean, I talk all about this in my book. | |
| I just released it two days ago. | |
| It's called Under Siege. | |
| And this is exactly what it is. | |
| It's we are under siege. | |
| I mean, they tried everything they could to destroy our family, bankrupt us, put us out of business, right? | |
| And then they tried to kill my father multiple times. | |
| And look what they tried to do to Steve Scalise, right? | |
| You know, the majority leader for the House of Representatives, right? | |
| I mean, they shot him as well. | |
| And now look what they did with this unbelievable young guy who had his entire life ahead of him. | |
| We know his wife. | |
| We know his kids. | |
| You know, they put a bullet in this guy's neck. | |
| I mean, this is what they're doing. | |
| And you still have Joy Reid and other people out there who are saying that the whole Butler thing, you know, or trying to somehow suggest that the whole Butler thing is rigged, was a setup, was a sympathy play. | |
| I mean, every single day you hear another one of these conspiracy theories from these people. | |
| I mean, it's hard to believe it's real. | |
| But this is exactly, I mean, this is exactly why I named my book what I named it, Under Siege, right? | |
| Because that's what they do to us. | |
| They put us under siege. | |
| They try and surround us. | |
| They try and destroy us. | |
| They try and come after families. | |
| They try and come after influential people. | |
| They, you know, under every imaginable scenario, right? | |
| They'll try and impeach you. | |
| They'll try and pull you off of ballots. | |
| They'll wage legal lawfare. | |
| They'll weaponize DAs. | |
| They'll weaponize AGs in states. | |
| They'll silence you. | |
| They'll try and strip away your voice. | |
| They'll throw you off of Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and all the other platforms. | |
| And then when all of that doesn't work and when they fail time and time again across every district in the country, guess what they try and do? | |
| They resort to physical violence. | |
| And you've seen that. | |
| I mean, you saw it again at the golf course where somebody was hiding in a bush trying to shoot my father with an AK-47. | |
| You saw it in Butler, Pennsylvania. | |
| You saw it with Steve. | |
| And now you're seeing it with Charlie Kirk. | |
| And I mean, these people will stop at absolutely nothing. | |
| And I know what you're saying. | |
| I mean, I never like to prejudge who people are and what their motivations and intentions, but you don't really see it on the other side. | |
| It feels like over the last several years that this is very one-directional. | |
| And frankly, that's scary as hell. | |
| You know, we've had many, many discussions because I've been very upfront with you. | |
| And I've had many conversations with other family members about your personal safety and security. | |
| And I know that you go through great pains to stay safe and secure, but it's horrible. | |
| I mean, it's not like we wake up every day and thinking, oh, okay, well, I'm a target and I'm going to change my lifestyle. | |
| Certainly, you're not like that. | |
| Laura's not like that. | |
| Your father's not like that. | |
| But you do have to take measures in this environment to protect yourself and your family. | |
| And it's just unbelievable. | |
| When is the book coming out? | |
| Because I think people really need to know the inside story. | |
| I was talking to you and Laura one night, and you were describing, you just spent hours, you know, going over and writing a chapter. | |
| You're writing every word yourself, which is kind of rare for people that write books. | |
| And you were just going through every single detail of every single thing you had to live through and then watch your father live through it. | |
| I mean, how you haven't aged a thousand years, I don't know. | |
| I really don't. | |
| Well, Sean, my father sent me the forward. | |
| He did the whole foreword to the book, and he read it, and he sent it to me Larry 15 minutes before this happened. | |
| I mean, it's just kind of hard to believe. | |
| And I do. | |
| I go into the backstory of Butler. | |
| I mean, you know, I've grown up in the competitive shooting world my entire life. | |
| It's something that I know probably better than anything else in my life. | |
| And I go into a lot of Butler and how I think it's an absolute travesty that that could possibly happen. | |
| I mean, how does a madman get on a roof at 130 yards? | |
| You know, I mean, talk about a failure of the eighth floor of the Secret Service and Kimberly Cheadle and DEI and everything that you've been talking about, your show. | |
| Well, you mean when she said it was a slope roof? | |
| That's not a slope roof. | |
| We're going to put everybody on the inside, not on the outside perimeter. | |
| I mean, you can't even, it's unimaginable how stupid scale in two seconds. | |
| The point of everything that I'm saying when I write about this in Under Siege, I mean, the point of everything that I'm saying is this is exactly what these individuals want. | |
| I mean, they would love my father to be Joe Biden. | |
| They would love Charlie Kirk to be Joe Biden where he hides in a basement totally out of sight and totally ineffective. | |
| You know, the only reason we won is I was on every stage in Iowa and South Carolina and Nevada and New Hampshire. | |
| I was out there in mosh pits of people no different than the ones that you just saw Charlie Kirk in every single day. | |
| And it was the only way we could communicate our message to the masses. | |
| They want us to be petrified. | |
| They never want us to see the light of day. | |
| They never want us to go out and stand on stage and make our voices heard. | |
| You know, this is exactly what these people want. | |
| And this is part of them silencing us. | |
| This is part of us being under siege. | |
| This is point in case the book that I just wrote and that we just published two days ago. | |
| Exactly this. | |
| This is the siege, Sean. | |
| This is the intent, right? | |
| Silence people by any means humanly possible. | |
| And it's freaking tragic. | |
| The guy's got young children. | |
| He's got a beautiful wife. | |
| He just got married. | |
| You know, the guy would have been one of the great political leaders in this country for decades to come. | |
| And a madman shoots him, you know, in the middle of. | |
| I'm praying that he still will be. | |
| We don't know. | |
| Breitbart did give an update saying a well-connected source telling Breitbart News that Charlie Kirk is alive at the hospital receiving a number of blood transfusions. | |
| By the way, the FBI Director Cash Vatelle, the Attorney General Pam Bondi report FBI and ATF are on the scene. | |
| You know, and I will tell you, I'm not going to really give it any. | |
| I don't want to give attention to people that are attention seekers, but the vile, horrible, nasty, you know, evil messages. | |
| I mean, social media is like a cancer. | |
| I mean, these keyboard warriors and the naked or in their underwear in their basement with anonymity and the things that they will say. | |
| I don't know if they think that they're funny. | |
| I don't know if they really experience joy when somebody gets shot like this. | |
| He's got a family. | |
| He's got a young wife and two young kids. | |
| And I will tell you, he's fearless. | |
| Every single event that Charlie has done, he goes into hostile environment after hostile environment after hostile environment, which you often did as well, which all of us do. | |
| Sure, that's what makes everybody love him. | |
| But look at so many of the people on the other side. | |
| I mean, it was, what, two years ago that Kathy Griffin was holding my father's, you know, an image of my father's severed head and posting that all over the place, right? | |
| She was holding it by the hair and a cutoff image of that's what these people do. | |
| Half of them promote this violence every single day. | |
| And that's what's so scary. | |
| I mean, we need composure in this world. | |
| We need young people to go out and voice political opinions on both sides of the aisle without getting hurt, without bodily harm. | |
| I mean, we're so much better than this as a country. | |
| And it's just hard to believe that this is what we're seeing in modern day politics. | |
| There's too many of these. | |
| Again, I can count four off the top of my head in the last 24 months between Scalise and my father twice. | |
| And obviously, this today. | |
| And it has to stop, Sean. | |
| It's un-American, and it's impossible to believe that this could possibly be the state of the greatest superpower anywhere in the world. | |
| You know, it is, you know, this is Charlie. | |
| And Charlie showed incredible courage and bravery by doing all the events that he's been doing. | |
| He's a real patriot. | |
| I know he loves you, and he loves your family, and he loves your dad a lot. | |
| When I went to interview your dad at the White House, I ran into him. | |
| We spent quite a lot of time together. | |
| We converse with each other, text with each other. | |
| We're scheduled to have dinner in the near future. | |
| Your dad, if you're just joining us, by the way, Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA, has been hit with a bullet from a range as he was beginning a speech at Utah Valley University. | |
| And there is a video of a close-up video of the shot that's hitting him, and it looks like a gusher coming out of his neck, which scares the living daylights out of me because blood is pouring out of you that quickly. | |
| The only, if there's any silver lining in it, it's that there were a lot of, there was a big law enforcement presence. | |
| He did have security. | |
| Hopefully there were paramedics there, people that could do triage, because that's what he would need in a situation like that. | |
| Eric, we really appreciate your time. | |
| Did you say you published the book? | |
| Because we were just talking a week and a half ago that you had finished a chapter. | |
| We announced the book. | |
| It's on pre-order right now on Amazon, everywhere that you buy books. | |
| And you know everything the New York Times and everybody's going to do to hold it back. | |
| But it's amazing. | |
| I put my heart and soul into it. | |
| But it speaks directly to where we are right now when we watch this about Charlie. | |
| It speaks, this is what the siege is all about. | |
| This is what the radical left does. | |
| This is what they've done to us, our family, and what they're doing to people in our party. | |
| And it's disgusting. | |
| And our heart has to pray for Charlie and his family because he's got an amazing family. | |
| Look at what your dad has been trying to do. | |
| Your dad was able to drop violent, you know, the homicide rate dramatically. | |
| All the crime in D.C. goes down dramatically. | |
| There's ways to restore law and order and safety and security, which I argue, Eric, is a prerequisite if you want to pursue happiness in America. | |
| And here your father is offering to help out violent cities like Chicago. | |
| In the last two weekends, nearly 80 people shot and nearly 20 people dead. | |
| And all he gets back in return is anger from a bitter mayor who's never lifted a finger to stop the violence and an angry wannabe president, governor, do-nothing governor that is angry that your father will do the job that they themselves won't do. | |
| They just don't seem to care. | |
| And I don't understand the mindset. | |
| Sean, my father did in Washington, D.C. what no Democrat has been able to do in an 80-year period of time. | |
| In three weeks, he cleaned up the city, not only the graffiti, not only the homeless camps, but literally stopped all murder. | |
| I mean, think about in Chicago, how many moms, how many dads, how many brothers, how many sisters lose their sons and daughters and brothers every single week. | |
| Think about the tragic toll, and you have Pritzker who doesn't give a damn. | |
| He doesn't give a damn as he lives in his mansion, you know, somewhere in the suburbs. | |
| It's so horribly tragic. | |
| And yet my father's saying every single day, listen, we can stop the senseless killing. | |
| We can stop what just happened to Charlie. | |
| You know, let us do it. | |
| Let us help. | |
| You know, this isn't a Republican issue. | |
| This isn't a Democratic issue. | |
| Let us come in. | |
| Let us help you. | |
| We've proven the recipe. | |
| We've seen the story. | |
| We've seen this movie and how it works and how we can be effective. | |
| Let us help you. | |
| And they turn it down. | |
| They turn it down because of their egos. | |
| They turn it down because they don't want to be embarrassed. | |
| They turn it down because, I mean, it's so tragic. | |
| It's so sad and it's so tragic because every single weekend, when 15 people die in the streets of Chicago, 99% of those deaths are 100% avoidable if they just let my father go in there and do what he's done in D.C. | |
| And they don't give a damn. | |
| They don't care about their citizens. | |
| They don't care about the residents. | |
| They care about one thing, and that's power and maintaining positions. | |
| And it's deeply corrupt, and it's deeply sad. | |
| And I don't think this country is going to stand for it anymore. | |
| I really don't. | |
| It's time for it to end. | |
| It's got to. | |
| Eric Trump, by the way, and you want to talk about one family, one man, his father, but also him and his family, and Don and his family, and Ivanka and his family, and Tiffany and her family, and even Baron's been attacked. | |
| Milani has been attacked. | |
| Under siege is an understatement. | |
| Anyway, Eric, we appreciate you taking time. | |
| Our prayers are with Charlie at this hour, and I know you are very close friends with him, as I am. | |
| And I think the world of him. | |
| And we're just praying for a speedy recovery, full recovery for him at this moment. | |
| And I hope everybody prays for him. | |
| Absolutely. | |
| Thanks, Sean. | |
| All right, my friend. | |
| Thank you. | |
| All right. | |
| We do have people calling in. | |
| Again, I'm just going to urge, you know, please, if you want to call in the program and you're actually there and you saw something, we will put you on. | |
| This does become a moment in live radio where people act stupid and pull pranks on the host. | |
| You're not pulling a prank on anybody. | |
| An innocent father of two young children was just shot. | |
| I ask you to please keep that in mind. | |
| Isaac in Utah. | |
| Isaac, thanks for checking in. | |
| Were you at the event? | |
| Yes, I was there with my daughter. | |
| Tell me what you saw. | |
| So we were on the balcony, probably about 20, 25 yards above him. | |
| And about 20 minutes into it, we heard the shot and it just shocked everybody. | |
| And about three seconds later, everybody started running or dropping to the ground. | |
| The cops were yelling at us to get on the ground. | |
| So we did. | |
| And then about 30 seconds later, we crawled out to some of the hallways that we could get into to try to get out of there. | |
| And we came outside on the other side of this building where we saw three cops that were dragging the suspect out. | |
| It looks like they had pulled his pants down so he couldn't run. | |
| It was just a older guy in the blue shirt that's on social media. | |
| Yes, it was. | |
| Everybody was yelling at him from the sides, just disgusted. | |
| It was just a sick, disgusting feeling with the whole event. | |
| Yeah, I'm sure it's been difficult. | |
| Did you see any like the close-up video that was taken by somebody and it has been posted on social media? | |
| Did you see that from your location or no? | |
| No, we were behind that. | |
| We were above and behind Charlie. | |
| So he was shooting in our direction, but we were just above him. | |
| So we didn't see the actual. | |
| It looked like a couple of thousand, few thousand people were there, which is typical of Charlie's events. | |
| He gets a lot of people to show up. | |
| And he's doing a lot of good. | |
| He's done so much good in advancing conservatism among young people. | |
| He's done a phenomenal job. | |
| He really has. | |
| And again, our prayers for a speedy recovery. | |
| Isaac, thank you for checking in. | |
| We appreciate it. | |
| And for all the people that are out there, I'm sure you're all pretty shaken up at all of this. | |
| John is in Utah. | |
| John, thanks for checking in, listening on our affiliate KNRS. | |
| How are you? | |
| I'm doing good. | |
| How are you doing, John? | |
| I wish I was doing better, to be very honest. | |
| I mean, my heart's in my stomach. | |
| I'm just, you know, I'm pretty shaken up by this. | |
| I hate to see such a good man now probably fighting for his life based on the video that I saw. | |
| I hear you on that. | |
| My 17-year-old nephew was there. | |
| He's someone who really looks up to Charlie Kirk, like a lot of us. | |
| And he was fairly close to him as he was sitting close. | |
| And he's pretty shaken up about it. | |
| My dad, though, we're talking to him now, trying to calm him down. | |
| I mean, just being in the midst of a shooting and then seeing, you know, someone who he really looks up to being shot, it just, it really upsets me that somebody can be so insane over politics that they decide to take a person's life. | |
| And that it happens in my own state in Salt Lake and Utah, where we're predominantly red here. | |
| And it just upsets me. | |
| It should. | |
| I mean, I'm sure a lot of people are shaken up. | |
| You know, one of the things that, and by the way, for stations along the Sean Hannity Show Radio Network, we will not be taking our usual break here. | |
| We'll take our hard break at 5652, leading into the top of the hour. | |
| We will continue our coverage. | |
| If you're just joining us, Talking Point USA founder, CEO, Director Charlie Kirk has been shot during a Utah Valley University speech. | |
| The video of the shooting is online. | |
| It is extraordinarily graphic. | |
| I'm very angry. | |
| I'm reading reports. | |
| Sweet Baby James is handing this to me. | |
| You know, some of the things that are, you know, and I ask everybody listening to this program to please pray for Charlie as he was shot in the neck. | |
| The video is very clear. | |
| It was he lost a lot of blood immediately. | |
| It was like it was shooting out of his neck. | |
| You know, and then I read on Breitbart, you know, a guest on MSDNC, speculates that the assailant may be a supporter shooting their gun off in celebration. | |
| Are they really that dark and stupid? | |
| You know, and MSDNC's Katie Turr immediately disrespects Kirk by describing him as a polarizing figure. | |
| You can't put aside politics for five seconds, you know, using this, you know, worrying the Trump administration will use this shooting as a justification. | |
| How long do you think it's going to be until they start blaming guns and they'll race to that? | |
| Anyway, oh, you have the tape? | |
| Play it. | |
| Charlie Kirk is a divisive figure, polarizing, lightning rod, whatever term you want to use. | |
| Why? | |
| Well, he's one of MAGA's most prominent voices online. | |
| He hosts a near daily podcast. | |
| He opines on almost everything. | |
| He's been very closely aligned with the president since his initial run for office in 2015, 2016. | |
| And his ties to Trump really elevated his own brand. | |
| He was really quite young as an activist when the president launched his initial campaign, and he has kind of ridden along with MAGA since 2016. | |
| As we were just talking about a moment ago with Alan, after one of the Doge employees, I really don't want to hear any more of this. | |
| Honestly, it's so callous, heartless, soulless. | |
| You know, one of the things I've been saying about the Democratic Party, remember they wouldn't stand for Lake and Riley's family or Jocelyn Nungari's family is they lost their heart, their conscience, and their soul. | |
| I mean, if a young, you know, outspoken liberal that goes on college campuses got shot today, I'd be saying our prayers are with them. | |
| Not that hard. | |
| Tyler is in Utah listening on KNRS. | |
| What's up, Tyler? | |
| Were you at the event? | |
| Hi, yeah, I was. | |
| I was a little bit closer. | |
| I was pretty close to the tent. | |
| You know, I was there. | |
| Tell us what you saw. | |
| Me and my dad were together. | |
| I was actually supposed to go by myself, so I'm really, really glad that my dad was with me. | |
| They didn't do any kind of security checks, nothing at all. | |
| There was no ambulances on site. | |
| I only saw two or three cops at best, but there were thousands upon thousands of people. | |
| And Charlie had only gotten to his second question. | |
| Like he had just started, you know, his performance. | |
| So he got into his second question. | |
| And right before he went to answer his second question, he put his mic down and he was wearing a white shirt and he just kind of fell forward and there was blood absolutely everywhere. | |
| And, you know, people were laying on the ground. | |
| Everyone was freaking out. | |
| And my dad was laying on top of somebody. | |
| Someone was laying on top of me. | |
| And after a couple of minutes, everyone just kind of started screaming and running and leaving as fast as they could. | |
| And I think they just carried Charlie to his car and he was just bleeding out pretty bad. | |
| Were there people that did you see anybody that looked like a paramedic that was able to get to him? | |
| No, no, it looked like it was his own staff that picked him up and carried him out. | |
| There were no paramedics in sight that I saw. | |
| I saw one or two police officers at Matt. | |
| There was no, there was barely any security whatsoever. | |
| But the blood was really, really gushing out of his neck. | |
| Did you see anybody put any type of pressure on that neck? | |
| Absolutely. | |
| Oh, no. | |
| He kind of fell forward. | |
| It almost looks like it hit his spine to the point where he couldn't sit up. | |
| So he fell forward and then quickly fell off of his chair. | |
| And the blood was just everywhere, all over him, all over the floor, absolutely everywhere. | |
| And they carried him out. | |
| It looked like his own team carried him out as quick as possible. | |
| I know. | |
| Tyler, I can hear the emotion in your voice. | |
| It's not something a young woman like yourself should have to live through and have to witness. | |
| We do appreciate you sharing what you saw with our audience, though. | |
| Praying for Charlie, praying for you and your dad. | |
| And I'm glad your dad was there with you as well. | |
| Really, really tough. | |
| Dakota in Missouri, Dakota. | |
| We got about a minute. | |
| It's all yours. | |
| Hey, Sean. | |
| Longtime listener, first time caller, but this is going to be about Charlie. | |
| I'd just like to share some prayer and words of faith over the whole situation. | |
| Above being an activist for the conservative movement, he was a man of God. | |
| He's a man of faith. | |
| He's a father. | |
| He's a husband. | |
| And he's impacted a lot of lives in a very positive manner. | |
| And I would just pray that God would guide the hands of the doctors and the emergency responders, everybody involved, that they would give them the wisdom, the knowledge, the skill to do what's needed to protect his life and bring him back home to his wife and his kids, | |
| and that he would be able to rise up from this and continue to continue to be an impactful, positive movement for God and Christianity and the values there within. | |
| And of course, really, really, really, really thoughtful and timely. | |
| And all our prayers are with him and his wife, his family, the doctors that are obviously working on him now. | |
| And we're praying for his very survival at this hour. | |
| We'll have more on this developing story. |