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The Beat With Ari Melber 9/10/25 | ️ Breaking News September 10, 2025
The Beat With Ari Melber 9/10/25 | ️ Breaking News September 10, 2025
The Beat With Ari Melber 9/10/25 | ️ Breaking News September 10, 2025
The Beat With Ari Melber 9/10/25 | ️ Breaking News September 10, 2025
The Beat With Ari Melber 9/10/25 | ️ Breaking News September 10, 2025
The Beat With Ari Melber 9/10/25 | ️ Breaking News September 10, 2025
The Beat With Ari Melber 9/10/25 | ️ Breaking News September 10, 2025
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NewsTranscript
00:00This breaking news for the next two hours as we watch and learn what's happening out of Utah.
00:09Your Trump ally, a prominent conservative founder of the conservative group Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk,
00:15has died after he was shot today while speaking at an event he was leading at Utah Valley University.
00:22He was 31 years old.
00:23There is video that Kirk posted on social media that is just moments before he was shot.
00:29You can see the crowd that had gathered to hear him.
00:31He was speaking for some minutes before he was struck in the neck.
00:35That's according to a spokesperson at the university.
00:38The FBI and ATF agents have responded at that scene.
00:41The university says this suspect fired at Kirk from a long distance from a building believed to be as much as 200 yards away,
00:48according to a preliminary estimate.
00:50And they do not believe that this individual was a student.
00:53There is a suspect that was initially viewed as a possibility.
00:58But right now, after that initial confusion, we can report there is no individual in custody for this shooting.
01:05And that ongoing there is a manhunt for whomever did shoot and ultimately caused the death of Charlie Kirk today, that killing.
01:16Turning Point USA has confirmed Kirk's death.
01:18It was first announced to the public by President Trump in a post online.
01:22His organization, Turning Point, releasing this statement with a heavy heart.
01:26We confirm that Charles James Kirk has been murdered by a gunshot at Utah Valley University, citing today.
01:33They go on to say, we ask everyone, keep his family and loved ones in your prayers.
01:37We ask that you please respect their privacy and dignity in this time.
01:42As our colleague, Nicole Wallace, just mentioned moments ago, we got the guidance that there will be the first official briefing on this shooting today.
01:52That update from officials and what is, of course, an ongoing manhunt out of Utah there.
01:57We will bring that to you live when we see that it commences.
02:01We begin our coverage right now with former ATF agent Jim Cavanaugh, who has covered many shootings, be they mass shootings or in this case, Jim, what was a shot to the speaker, what authorities are viewing as a targeted, as an attempted and completed assassination.
02:20Let's start, especially for people coming home on the East Coast or coming home to this news, let's start with the fundamentals as you see them.
02:29What transpired from the moment of that shooting today?
02:34Well, you had a large crowd for Mr. Kirk, who was speaking at the university in Utah, and he was in an amphitheater.
02:41So he was down in a bowl and citizens and fans of his were spread out in front of him in a pretty dense crowd.
02:48But his security was not robust.
02:51He's not a political figure, certainly, and he doesn't have police security.
02:57There are campus policemen there, and he might have had a couple of security guys.
03:01Yeah, and you mean, I'll jump in just to make sure I'm understanding you.
03:05He's not an elected official.
03:06He's not what the service would call a protectee.
03:09I will say for folks watching, he's a very prominent and respected conservative figure, as appeared with the president.
03:16So he's got that kind of prominence that can be associated with a risk profile.
03:21But to your point, he's not traveling like a protectee with a retinue of agents or anything.
03:28Yeah, and you know, when I heard about it today, it took me all the way back to when Alan Berg, who was a radio talk show host, was assassinated, not by a sniper, but on the street.
03:38And he was not a politician either, but he was a, you know, kind of a radical speaker on the radio, left wing.
03:46He was assassinated by neo-Nazis back in the 80s.
03:49But anyway, I thought about that assassination because Mr. Kirk is a political thinker and speaker, but he's not an elected official.
03:58But anyway, it seemed like a normal rally.
04:02And then a shot rang out.
04:04I've watched that video already over and over and over again.
04:08It's pretty horrific.
04:10He shot in the lower front part of the neck.
04:12Like, it does appear to be a large rifle round.
04:16I would call it a .308 or a .30-06, really, like a deer rifle.
04:22You know, one shot, that's all.
04:24And the crowd leaves.
04:26And, you know, what I would say is snipers use that attack method.
04:30They use the sniper method for two reasons.
04:32One, because they can't get close.
04:34Like when there's Secret Service around, you're not going to be able to get close and do your attack.
04:41And secondly, because you want to get away.
04:43That gives you the distance to get away.
04:46You can fire the round and egress the scene.
04:49And especially a scene that doesn't have, you know, security.
04:53I mean, you can just literally walk away.
04:56So it will be interesting when the police talk, Ari, in a few minutes.
04:59And you'll have your lawyer hat and your reporter hat on.
05:04But here's what I'd be looking for.
05:06Did they recover a rifle or an empty cartridge, an empty shell?
05:10Did they recover that at all or not?
05:13Because if they did not, that leaves us with two other things.
05:17Either the assassin took the rifle with him and the cartridge.
05:22It might not even have ejected from the rifle.
05:24A bolt-action hunting rifle doesn't eject the cartridge.
05:27So he could break the rifle down, put it in a duffel bag and escape.
05:30Or he could have hid the rifle in the building prior to and or after the assassination.
05:37And that's something else, you know, that I would be, if I was a commander on this, I would be calling in a half a dozen ATF bomb sniffing dogs, which can find, you know, a spent cartridge.
05:49And I would put them all through that building just in case, you know, he's hidden that gun in a bathroom or behind a wall or closet or secreted somewhere.
05:58So he could egress the scene without the rifle because he would be less obvious, you know, obviously be less obvious.
06:06But he could have also, you know, wore sunglasses, a face mask, a medical face mask, a hat, any kind of disguise.
06:13So he might not be as easy to see.
06:16And then, of course, you get the vehicles.
06:18Could he have covered a license plate?
06:20Somebody give him a ride?
06:21Did he take an Uber?
06:22Who knows?
06:23I mean, we don't have those facts.
06:24We're hoping that the police will tell us at least something that can leverage all the citizens against the assassin here in about 30 minutes.
06:33Jim, those are relevant, useful pieces of information, particularly as we await the briefing.
06:39You'll be staying on hand.
06:40I want to come back to you and also turn to the manhunt portion of this, which we haven't yet covered this hour.
06:44But we turn first to a witness.
06:46Phil Lyman is a former Utah State representative who was a witness to today's shooting.
06:52Welcome.
06:53What did you see today?
06:54Well, it was kind of astonishing.
06:58I drove up this morning.
07:00I live a bit south of Orem, and I met Charlie, you know, backstage and said hello to him.
07:07And the college kids were there, and it was just electric.
07:09And so he's throwing the hats.
07:11And after we started talking, I thought, I'm going to go up top.
07:15I had some other friends that was going to go up top and see if I could get maybe some good video from up there.
07:20And so I was way at the back of the venue and clear up on the second floor.
07:23I started to walk into the building, and I heard a loud bang behind me.
07:28And I looked around and looked at the person who I thought it was coming from because it felt like it was like 10 feet behind me.
07:33And I turned around and looked at this girl to see, and she was looking confused as well.
07:36And then I saw some commotion.
07:39So people started running into the building.
07:40I ran out, and they said, yeah, there were shots.
07:43And so then I thought, I'm looking to see, you know, well, who was shot, and are there kids that are down?
07:49And these are a bunch of college kids, and is he still around?
07:52And I thought, I know he's right close by.
07:55And in retrospect, I think he may have been on the roof above me because it was just so close.
08:00And I was asking the girls that were there, you know, did you hear it?
08:04Did you see it?
08:04Did anybody see anything?
08:05And then the police started showing up and yelling, you know, did anybody see anything?
08:09Can anybody help us identify the shooter, identify the shooter?
08:13And so then I ran down to the front again to meet with some of the college kids that were, you know, helping with the event.
08:20And they said, yeah, they observed the shot to the neck, and it was horrible.
08:25I talked to one of Charlie's people, and he said that they thought they had apprehended the shooter.
08:30And that was the word that went around is that they've apprehended the shooter.
08:33So everybody, as far as that goes, I think was a little bit relaxed.
08:37But I went right next door.
08:39I've got family that lives just next to the university.
08:42I'll let you, I'll give you as much time as you like.
08:45I'm just going to remind viewers, as we've reported, they don't have the shooter currently in custody.
08:51They have an ongoing manhunt.
08:52We're waiting on the briefing on that.
08:54You're referring to something that was discussed at the time, and I mentioned that, which is there were people close to it who initially had put that word out.
09:01So I just want to be clear for people watching, and then go ahead.
09:03You can tell us.
09:04No, thank you.
09:05You were giving us your timeline.
09:06So go ahead and continue with what you were sharing, and I appreciate you joining us.
09:09That was the point.
09:10So we're there, and then we see National Guard and military-type people and police officers in our backyard circling the house, going around.
09:20I got a call from one of my relatives that said, hey, apparently there's another suspect, so lock your doors, you know, let the neighbors know to lock their doors.
09:30And then we watched that for another hour, just them combing the bushes right outside the house and talked to one of the officers.
09:38He came up and asked if we'd seen anything.
09:39So clearly, and my initial thought is if this was, as soon as I saw that this was a kill shot, and it was a single shot, this was not an amateur.
09:51And there's no way that the person where I was at would have been able to, you know, pull out a rifle unless he was either concealed in the bushes, which could have happened, or on the roof.
09:59And I just, everything, from what I know of gunshots and things like that, I think he was above me.
10:07But it was just, I mean, this is Utah, this is Orr, I mean, it's like, this is Happy Valley.
10:13They literally refer to this place as Happy Valley, and Charlie was just, he was so animated.
10:19There was a young handicapped guy that, as I was standing there next, he said, hey, do you know Charlie Kirk?
10:24And I said, yeah, and he said, can you get me a hat?
10:25So I raised my finger up to Charlie, and he came right over and I handed him a hat, and it was beautiful.
10:30And I was just watching him, I thought, man, this guy is, he's just electric, and he connects with the crowd, and the kids were going crazy.
10:37There's like 12,000 college kids, and I just, and it was just such a moment.
10:41I just was feeling that, and so to look back at the, you know, the few little videos that I took of Charlie beforehand, it's just unbelievable.
10:50And honestly, this is the first, I've sat down since then to, so a lot of the news that's out, I haven't even heard it.
10:57It's just, it's just been such commotion.
11:01It's so sad.
11:02It's sad, it's a tragedy, and I appreciate you spending time with us, because it's difficult for anyone around it.
11:08What you've just been through, as you know, from being in government and what we do in the news, we kind of talk through these things.
11:14There's no right way to do it.
11:16I wonder if you could tell us what you were just sharing, that for people learning about this, that Charlie Kirk, dead today at 31, by this bullet, that he was this youth leader.
11:27That he would go specifically to campuses, that he was part of this effort to bring more young people into Turning Point's view, to their philosophy, and to the Republican Party.
11:39And you're saying you were seeing that energy just today.
11:40Share with us anything you can about that and what people were looking to him for.
11:47I mean, it's the prove me wrong tour.
11:49It's, you know, come up and ask me a question.
11:52He just answered a question at length about religion, and then the question that was asked just before he was shot was something about transgenders in mass shootings and the connection to that.
12:06And I thought it was like to pin him down for maybe something that he had said about transgenders, you know, connected to mass shootings.
12:15And then that shot rang out, and so I don't know.
12:19And all of it is so surreal.
12:22But I guess back to your point, Charlie himself is a good person.
12:28He's just an energetic person, and I, yeah, you know, a good Christian, good American family man.
12:37I listened to something he said just a couple of days ago.
12:39In fact, I tried to prevent myself from repeating it because he said, you know, I want to live in a place where my kids can grow up, and they can ride their bikes till sundown.
12:46I can have a house, I can have a, you know, a neighborhood.
12:49And I, and that was on my mind this morning when I met him, and I know he's got two kids, very young kids and a wife, and he, yeah.
12:59Yeah, it's extremely difficult, you know, for anyone who knew him or looked up to him.
13:05He was, as I mentioned, a figure with a pretty big following.
13:08And as you say, there were a lot of people there.
13:10This was the first of what was going to be this college tour and other youth areas and talk to people.
13:15And, again, as you mentioned, for folks who don't know as much about it, that was part of his craft.
13:21He would talk to different people.
13:22He would debate people.
13:23He would do it in real time, kind of no notes, almost a bit of a throwback, but for this era, because the videos would sometimes go viral and they would share them.
13:30This is footage today so people can get a sense of it.
13:33Again, we're not showing, we're not broadcasting the moment of the actual shooting, but this was beforehand, clearly.
13:39And he's up there, and as you said, he was taking questions, you were there.
13:42You can see there's some security in front as we look at that.
13:46I did want to ask you as well as a witness, what did you see in the level of security, either specific to the event or the university?
13:54You've been in government, so did it look about normal or different, just your anecdotal observations?
13:59And then what level did you see as they began what we know now is an ongoing manhunt?
14:06Really no visible security.
14:09I was surprised right after the shots rang out that there were a lot of undercover police officers that were running around.
14:16I thought I would not have thought that that was a police officer, but for this commotion that's going on now.
14:23And then it really descended.
14:27It's right next to an ROTC camp, and it looked like the ROTC folks came out with their uniforms, and the National Guard showed up, and then the helicopters showed up.
14:38So it took a long time.
14:40And, of course, Charlie was, you know, he was rushed off immediately.
14:43So, but, I mean, it's been, what, almost four hours now, and still people combing the bushes back there in the neighborhood and helicopters flying over.
14:57So I have to assume we are still on a manhunt.
15:01And, yeah, former Utah State Representative Phil Lyman, who was there today, who went through this, thank you for sharing what you saw and what you know.
15:10We appreciate it.
15:11I'm going to turn to some of our experts here with us.
15:14Mark Santia, MSNBC investigative correspondent, who's been covering this for us today.
15:18Christopher O'Leary, a longtime FBI veteran, MSNBC national security analyst.
15:23Mark, any reaction to what we heard there, as everyone understands, there's a mosaic to this.
15:30You have different sources and information.
15:32You have eyewitnesses.
15:32We have aerial video.
15:34We're going to get this briefing.
15:36But take us up to speed with that.
15:37All right.
15:38So what we've heard, we've heard from the university spokesperson.
15:42They've been sort of the point on information.
15:45So what do we know?
15:45We know, according to the university, Utah Valley University, we know at this point they say, quote, we don't have a suspect in custody.
15:53And that matches with what Phil was just telling you.
15:56He sees law enforcement circling homes, looking in bushes.
16:01The university also said one shot was fired.
16:04Campuses are cleared.
16:05They're closed.
16:06Campus is closed.
16:08Roads going to campuses to the campus is closed at this point.
16:11We also know, according to the FBI director, that the FBI is assisting.
16:15So you have federal and local law enforcement working together on this investigation.
16:19Ari, some of the video you're looking at, you see a heavy law enforcement presence on campus.
16:25You did see some investigators on a rooftop.
16:28The university said the suspect fired the weapon from a building about 200 yards away.
16:35And that's pretty much all the information we've been given at this point.
16:39As you said, there's a press conference.
16:40We're awaiting a press conference.
16:41We're hoping to hear more.
16:43But that's it right now.
16:44We know that no suspect's in custody.
16:47We know this is an ongoing search right now.
16:50We also know that it's a crime scene, right?
16:53And they're sort of working out from that crime scene where Charlie Kirk was murdered earlier today.
16:58They're working, looking for any evidence, any clues, going through social media posts.
17:03How do you assess what Representative Lyman was saying, that he didn't see much of a security presence there?
17:10We have indications from other witnesses that there wasn't any great screening to get in.
17:14As you say, the university indicating the shooter was far away.
17:17But it sounds like people could walk right in there.
17:19It does.
17:20But it also sounds like, Ari, that the person, whoever pulled the trigger, wasn't up close, wasn't a part of that audience, right?
17:26So any screening that may have happened there.
17:28So at this point, what we know is no one's in custody.
17:30We don't know motive.
17:31We don't know where they were at, how this was staged, until we hear more from law enforcement.
17:37But it matches a lot with what Phil Lyman was saying, that there were some people, that it was an open-air event.
17:45But we know if we go to universities for athletics, there's screening.
17:49It is, that will be something, no doubt, that's looked at is the screening near the stage.
17:55But again, even beyond that, the university saying this shot was fired from 200 yards away.
18:02Ari.
18:03So the working theory is it's someone who knew what they were doing.
18:07I think, Chris, you'd be much better to answer that than I would.
18:10Go ahead.
18:10This was a long-range shot.
18:12Again, if the point of origin was 200 yards away, and we'll get the ballistics and do the reverse trajectory and get the point of origin of that shot.
18:21And as Mr. Kavanaugh was talking about, get the search dogs to really try to pinpoint it.
18:26If there was an expended shell casing, if it was a semi-automatic weapon, or if it was bolt action, the individual ejected it, then we'll have that shell casing.
18:36We'll have a place to start with what kind of weapon was used.
18:41But 200 yards, if it was that, is not a difficult shot, a rifle shot.
18:45It's beyond a handgun capability.
18:48Maximum really effective range of a handgun is 75 yards, and that's with a really qualified shooter and an area target.
18:54For a rifle, I talked about this earlier.
18:58When I was a young Marine at Parris Island, we shot out to 500 yards to qualify on old iron sights.
19:05Most people have optics on their weapons, whether it's an AR platform, has a red dot, or if it's something, and we don't know this yet, more of a hunting or a sniper-type weapon.
19:16When a true optic on it, 200 yards is very easy to do.
19:22With what level of training?
19:23You're referring to someone who would have some professional association, or what, be it a type of casual practice?
19:30Simple rifle skills can get you 200 yards.
19:34Yeah.
19:34Both of you are staying with me as we do special coverage.
19:38This has been a time where we're getting a lot of different information as we go.
19:42Jason Chavits, who, of course, is a former congressman, was just discussing some of the same observations.
19:47What was the security on the ground there?
19:49Let's listen to what he just told Fox News.
19:53Be watching, Charlie.
19:55I can't say I saw blood.
19:57I can't say I saw him get shot.
19:59But as soon as that shot went out, he fell back into his left.
20:04And everybody hit the deck.
20:08A lot of people started screaming.
20:12And then everybody started running, as you might expect.
20:16There was some police presence, but there was no security check going in, which didn't happen.
20:23Charlie has some security in front of him.
20:27But you got the sense that the shot came kind of straight at him.
20:31Yeah, so I think the lesson learned from the first assassination attempt on President Trump was polarizing political figures holding open air events can invite this kind of violence because it's very accessible.
20:49Higher risk, I don't know what the word invite, but higher risk, I take your point.
20:54And to the point where very hard to defend.
20:58There was criticism against the Secret Service for allowing the shooter to get that close.
21:03But the shooter could have arguably been hundreds and hundreds of yards further away in the first Trump assassination attempt.
21:11For this, it's a college campus.
21:14I mean, let's be realistic.
21:15We're not going to lock down a college campus for every speaker outdoors.
21:20Maybe you want to take it indoors, and I think that's all going to be assessed moving forward.
21:25But there's limited resources for this, and maybe not a full appreciation of the conditions in the United States that are pushing people to mobilize towards violence.
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