Caller on popular hip-hop show slams online reaction to Charlie Kirk assassination

A caller on “The Breakfast Club” Friday criticized the people who callously reacted online to the assassination of Turning Point USA (TPUSA) founder Charlie Kirk.

Kirk was assassinated on Wednesday while speaking to a large audience of students at Utah Valley University (UVU), with some rejoicing or otherwise reacting cruelly. During the show’s “Donkey of the Day” segment, the caller said Kirk deserved “sympathy” and “grace” and that the assassination went against what America stands for.

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“Everybody should think of him [Kirk] as a person at the end of the day. I think they’re taking everything out of context, making this about his views,” the caller said, referring to some users on social media. “At the end of the day, he was assassinated in front of hundreds of people. I think it’s okay to care about what happened.”

Host Charlamagne tha God expressed agreement with the caller’s sentiment.

“What happens when there’s somebody you love and support? And what if that person that you love and support was considered controversial or said things that, you know, folks didn’t agree with? … I’m never going to be okay with a person being killed just because they had a difference of opinion or a difference of belief,” he said. “Because that could be anybody with a microphone nowadays.”

The radio host also said his first reaction to the assassination was “fear” that he could potentially be assassinated like Kirk.

“It’s supposed to be America … The land of the free. You should be able to say whatever you want,” the caller added. “You can have your opinion. You can be judged. But when it comes to shooting somebody for their opinion, that’s where it crosses the line, man.”

Despite Kirk leaving behind two young children and a wife, comedian D.L. Hughley cast aspersions on the TPUSA founder on “The Don Lemon Show” Thursday.

“Charlie Kirk was a horrible human being,” Hughley said. “He said horribly incendiary things.”

Moreover, then-MSNBC political analyst Matthew Dowd suggested on “Katy Tur Reports” on Wednesday that Kirk’s rhetoric naturally led to the shooting.

“[H]e’s been one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this, who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups,” Dowd said. “And I always go back to: hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions.”

MSNBC subsequently announced it had fired Dowd on Wednesday, describing his comments as “inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable” and apologizing. Dowd also apologized in a Wednesday post to Bluesky.

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