Charlie Kirk -- the controversial conservative commentator -- has died after being shot in the neck on a college campus, Donald Trump announced on social media.
00:00There has been another political assassination in America.
00:04A conservative activist, Charlie Kirk, is dead.
00:08Dead from a gunshot at a university in Utah.
00:13Utah Valley University is where Charlie Kirk was speaking to a massive crowd.
00:18Seemed to be thousands, most of them students, gathered there to talk to him, to debate with him.
00:25Obviously, as you said, he has conservative views.
00:28And in the middle of his conversation, about 20 minutes into this rally and debate that he was holding, a gunshot rang out.
00:37He was, and it was a single shot.
00:39At the time, he was fielding a question about mass shootings in America.
00:45And as he responded is when the gunshot was fired.
00:49So we're going to show you this and we're editing this because it is just one of the more violent things I've ever seen in my lifetime.
00:57It actually is. And we're going to talk about that.
00:59But this is the moment that the shot rang out.
01:04Counting or not counting gang violence.
01:06Oh, my God.
01:09You heard.
01:10And then immediately the crowd realizes what's happening and starts running away.
01:14But his response.
01:15We edited the shot.
01:16The person asked, how many mass shooters do you think there have been in America in recent years?
01:20And Charlie said, counting or not counting gang violence.
01:24And that were his last words.
01:26His last words.
01:27And it looked like there was no hope for him.
01:30He was taken to the hospital.
01:32They tried to save his life.
01:34He was pronounced dead at the hospital.
01:36Has a wife, two kids, two small children.
01:39And we want to give you kind of the top line here.
01:44There is some confusion.
01:45Kash Patel came out just a few minutes ago.
01:48The FBI director.
01:48The FBI director.
01:49And he said a suspect is in custody.
01:52Minutes later, there was a news conference.
01:56And it seemed like they were backing off and calling the suspect actually a person of interest.
02:02Right.
02:03So this is Governor Spencer Cox at that news conference talking about the person that they have in custody.
02:11Like you said, Kash Patel said a suspect.
02:14But listen to the governor's description.
02:16We have a person of interest in custody.
02:19The investigation is ongoing.
02:23But I want to make it crystal clear right now to whoever did this.
02:29We will find you.
02:30We will try you.
02:34And we will hold you accountable to the furthest extent of the law.
02:39So the we will find you.
02:42The we will find you is what's odd here.
02:46Because when Kash Patel said a suspect was in custody, it sounds like the alleged shooter was called.
02:53They found the alleged shooter.
02:53Then the governor comes out literally like three minutes later and says, we have a person of interest in custody who we are interviewing.
03:01At that point, he said 20 minutes.
03:02We were assuming they were talking about one and the same.
03:04But then we will find you.
03:06Now, are they saying that because they haven't nailed it down that this is the guy, even though they think it's the guy?
03:11Or is there a second person?
03:14Right.
03:14Is there someone else that they believe aided this person of interest that they are still looking for?
03:20They didn't take a lot of questions.
03:24So we don't have an answer.
03:25And they kept it kind of vague.
03:26They kept it kind of vague.
03:26Now, we also got video of what may well be the shooter up on a roof.
03:33And, in fact, the police chief of the university described during that news conference where the shooter was.
03:41And it does seem to match up with this video, which we are showing you right now.
03:46Not even seconds after the gunshot, you're seeing the crowd start to run.
03:51But at the top of the roof there, you're seeing someone running away, and that very well may be the shooter making an escape.
04:01We also have heard dispatch audio where they describe that the shooter left campus.
04:07Now, we know that the university has surveillance video of the area where the shooter was, and the police confirmed that they saw it.
04:18But they also kind of cautioned that surveillance video isn't the best.
04:24So what I'm getting from that is either it's not a close-up shot, it's not a clean shot, it is probably grainy, but it was clearly useful.
04:35What's interesting about this is that he's on the roof, and if it's the shooter,
04:41it's hard to believe that he could get from the roof all the way down to the ground floor and escape without the police, you know.
04:52We don't know how much police presence there was at the time.
04:54Well, actually, there were, I think, a handful of officers.
04:59This is what the local police chief said.
05:02It was at the press conference.
05:04One of the students there said they've seen more police at campus events than they saw at this one,
05:08and they've never seen more students at an event than this one.
05:11But to be fair to the police commissioner, he said that they had, in addition to uniformed officers,
05:20they had plainclothes officers in the crowd.
05:23So, again, it's an open-air event that in very many ways reminded us as we watched of Butler, Pennsylvania,
05:33and what happened with President Trump and the challenges of securing an open-air venue like that.
05:40I've got to say, we need to go back and talk about the actual shooting,
05:44because the video, we've shown you, obviously, a censored version of this.
05:49But I have to say, we've seen the uncensored version, and it is horrific and incredibly impactful
05:59to think about where we are in this country right now.
06:03And this is not just one side.
06:07I mean, on the one side, you look at people like Gabby Gifford.
06:10You look at Nancy Pelosi's husband.
06:13You've got two Kennedys who were assassinated.
06:16And then on the other side, you've got Steve Scalise.
06:19You've now got a situation like this.
06:22You know, it is not one side.
06:25It's a culture of violence in America that's really alarming.
06:29Yeah, you know, so as I've thought about this this afternoon, he was, you know, you watch Fox News.
06:35You watch MSNBC.
06:35It's such an echo chamber.
06:36And I think with Charlie, one of the great things you could say about him was that he would actually go to these events
06:41and they would have conversations.
06:42And it was really one of the only places where that would happen.
06:45You would have two people.
06:46Yeah, that was his thing.
06:48You don't get that anywhere else.
06:49And now that's gone.
06:50He's the only one doing it.
06:52That's what should happen is that there is political discourse where we talk to each other or even yell at each other.
06:59I don't think he'd be upset with this, but I texted Bill Maher, and Bill had him on his Club Random podcast.
07:05And Bill just texted me back.
07:07He said, you know, I had this guy on.
07:08I spent a couple of hours with him, and we had this civilized conversation, and the impact it had on Bill.
07:16Views don't align with him.
07:17He was just destroyed over this.
07:20And, you know, and a lot of people are.
07:22Yeah, I think so.
07:23It's just a terrible signal for this country that this feels the way what people do to adversaries now.
07:33It is not the way the country is moving.
07:35The reaction to this has been interesting.
07:38Obviously, you had President Trump, who really was the person who broke the news that Charlie had passed away.
07:45He was rushed to a hospital, which that in and of itself, that they were able to attempt to save his life after what we saw.
07:54It was brutal.
07:55Yeah.
07:56I just didn't feel like it.
07:57But he announced that Charlie had passed.
08:00And you've had a lot of people, regardless of their political views, denouncing this political violence, which is what it should be.
08:08Thank God that happened.
08:10But, you know, I've got to say, I, you know, I'm old enough that I remember 1968 when Martin Luther King was assassinated, Robert Kennedy was assassinated.
08:21There were riots in Chicago during the Democratic Convention.
08:24There was a raging war in Vietnam.
08:25And I remember thinking, I will never live another year that is as bad as 1968.
08:31This year is starting to feel that way.
08:37And, again, this is going to say a lot about our country and how people respond to this.
08:42And what happens next year with an election?
08:45We have an election year coming up.
08:46We have an election year coming up where there will be campaign speeches and venues.
08:51And with this climate, you know, God help us.
08:55But this, you know, is not, it does not feel like this is the end of it.
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