Jonathan Turley says it took Charlie Kirk only 2 words to expose ‘speechphobics’ on left

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told “Fox and Friends” co-host Lawrence Jones Tuesday that he believed Turning Point USA (TPUSA) founder Charlie Kirk exposed the left’s fear of debating.

Turley said that Kirk, who was assassinated Sept. 10 during a “Prove Me Wrong” debate event at Utah Valley University sponsored by TPUSA, would have “opposed cancel campaigns” in favor of free speech. Jones then played a clip of HBO host Bill Maher discussing Kirk’s willingness to debate, with Turley agreeing that Kirk’s challenge to “debate me” drove many on the left “crazy.”

“I returned from Europe, where I was speaking on free speech, and free speech is in a free fall in Europe,” Turley said. “They did precisely what some are arguing today, they used hateful rhetoric, inflammatory rhetoric to silence everyone, to expand censorship and it’s taken them down the road, which is truly horrific.”

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“But the Left has become a culture of speechphobics,” Turley continued. “They find it intolerable. The thing that drove them crazy about Charlie is he kept on saying debate me. For people who are ‘tolerant,’ that is the most infuriating invitation you can give them. They don’t want to hear from you, they want to silence you. These people spend more time silencing other people than they do speaking for themselves.”

The European Union passed the Digital Services Act in 2022, which experts say could threaten online free speech in the United States due to the threat of fines. Kirk, who took a three-day tour to England in May and was critical of European countries’ crackdown on free speech, took part in debates at Oxford and Cambridge universities and described the country as “totalitarian” and a “third-world hellhole.”

Kirk also denounced the country over arrests for online posts, many of which lacked intent to harm, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation review.

Jones then brought up a Rutgers survey showing 56% of “left-of-center” respondents saying that assassinating President Donald Trump, who survived two attempts on his life during the 2024 presidential campaign, would be at least partially justifiable.

“There is something wrong with the culture when you have numbers that high,” Jones said.

“That’s right. Lawrence, my book, ‘The Indispensable Right,’ it’s about rage, and I talk about how rage is a strange thing. It gives a license to people to say and do things they otherwise wouldn’t say or do and what they won’t admit is that they like it, it is contagious and they need it,” Turley responded. “It gives them excuses to decouple themselves from every form of human decency.”

A YouGov poll released Friday showed 25% of very liberal respondents said that it was acceptable to be happy about public figures’ deaths.

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