Vice President JD Vance took the mic on Monday to host The Charlie Kirk Show, just five days after the 31-year-old right-wing activist was shot and killed in Utah.
The two-hour livestream, with Vance at the helm, marked a striking reminder of how the White House viewed Kirk, both as a leader in the young conservative space and as a behind-the-scenes political player who they said helped shape President Trump's second term in office.
"The last several days have been extremely hard for our country," Vance said at the start of the broadcast. "The thing is, every single person in this building, we owe something to Charlie."
It featured appearances from several key Trump administration officials, including White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy. They were joined by Kirk's former colleagues and friends, who reflected on the activist's legacy and discussed how leaders can sustain the movement he built over the past 13 years.
But ever-present throughout the episode was also a sense of loss and deep anger surrounding Kirk's death, with Vance and others repeatedly arguing that past criticism of Kirk from the left stoked the violence taken against him, despite authorities having yet to announce a known motive in his killing.
In his closing comments, Vance lambasted what he described as the "far-left" movement, referencing the assassination attempts against Trump's life last year and the shooting of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., in 2017. But he omitted more recent acts of violence targeting Democrats, such as the June attack in Minnesota that killed a Democratic state lawmaker and her spouse, and left another Democratic lawmaker wounded.
"This is not a both-sides problem. If both sides have a problem, one side has a much bigger and malignant problem, and that is the truth we must be told," he said.
"I can't promise you that all of us will avoid Charlie's fate," he added. "Can't promise you that I will avoid Charlie's fate, but the way to honor him is to shine the light of truth like a torch in the very darkest places. Go do it."
Copyright 2025 NPR
