The assassination of Charlie Kirk (09-11-2025--Hour1)

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to dpetclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet, And again, thank you so much for your support. Here is what a lot of conservatives have been. Thinking for people on the left, our friends on the left who may not understand, who may not understand, what conservatives are thinking today after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. We are wondering. If the ability to discuss issues and policies with one another has been lost, gone forever because we thought most conservatives thought I would I feel comfortable saying this, and I would like to believe most Americans thought that we could respect each other as human beings with different opinions. Somewhere along the line, I think this has become an antiquated way of thinking. And if you cannot respect each other and each other's humanity, then. What is left right? And if you don't respect another person's opinion their ability to disagree with you, then are we to believe that you hate us for these opinions? Are we to believe that we are. Seen as obstacles for whatever utopian vision you want to enact, and therefore you want. Us dead too? Because if you go on to social media and you go look not very hard, particularly blue Sky for example, Reddit is another one, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, it's all over. There is a not small percentage of people that are celebrating people in positions institutional, respected positions, teachers, school administrators, government employees. Right there are people celebrating the murder of a thirty one year old man, father of two, for what he says, for what he talks about, for his opinions. Charlie Kirk and I've said the same thing for years, which is when the talking stops, the violence begins. And that's why you engage in political discourse. If you cannot engage in political discourse, because that's what politics is. It's the debate and discussion about ideas and policies and how to govern ourselves, how we function in this man made construct of a constitutional republic, how we govern ourselves. If we can't debate these things, then the only thing left is force. That's it. Now, maybe some people think that they will. Be on the booted side of that force. Nobody ever likes to think of themselves as being under the boot in that equation. I suspect, but that's what Charlie Kirk believed. He would say so frequently, when the talking stops, the violence starts, and that's what is to be avoided. We need to avoid the violence. And for going on to college campuses speaking with college kids challenging their ideas. I've said this for twenty years. Unchallenged ideas are easy to hold easy. Nobody ever challenges you on him. And so when Charlie Kirk would go to campuses and he would take questions and answers from college kids. And by the way, he would defend the college kids who disagreed with him. They would come up to a microphone. He would treat them with civility and respect. They would debate a topic, they would ask him a question, they would go back and forth. And if the crowd around him and like, look the people who show up to see a Charlie Kirk event at the colleges they were. They were more often Charlie Kirk supporters, and somebody would get up at the microphone and they would say some stuff and the crowd would uh boo boo, you know whatever, and Charlie Kirk would always silence them say stop, no, no, no, let her speak, let him speak, go ahead, make your point whatever, and have the debate and do it in a face to face civil manner. And they killed him. Who do you think comes after him? See this is what is troubling me because if this is what a civilian faces. Because Charlie Kirk was not a politician, he had no power right except his voice. Now, he built up talking or sorry, turning point USA. He built them up, created this organization, harnessed the power of yeah young voters, got them engaged, but also gave them purpose and direction, particularly young men who desperately need that and were not getting it. And he advised them get involved, go to church, get married, have kids, be responsible, all of the things that we would expect a male role model, no matter the age, to tell young people, particularly young men. And so to see the multi generational impact of his murder. Yesterday, boomers, gen xers, gen z, everybody in between. There are people. Charlie Kirk's been doing this for fifteen years. That's a generation of kids through multiple turns of the four year college programs that he's been going on to campuses doing these videos. People have been watching him from the time he was an eighteen year old to now to thirty one, and you murdered him because you disagreed with him. That's what this comes down to. He was murdered because people did not want to hear him. And this goes back to what Andrew Claven talked about back in two thousand. That's what this is. In all the different forms, whether it's online censorship, deplatforming, cancellation, whatever it is, murder, it's about shut up. We're not going to engage in the debate with you. See, they murdered Charlie Kirk because he's effective. He was effective. You didn't have to agree with them. I didn't agree with him on everything. I mean, I followed him on Twitter and I would see some of his interviews. I watched one. As a matter of fact, yesterday morning he was on with Mark Halperin talking about the Charlotte light rail stabbing. He's a commentator, he was a radio host. And here's the thing. He was murdered because he was famous and for what he was saying. And it has a lot of people on the right now concerned that the only difference between a left wing nut job murdering Charlie Kirk and I have full confidence in saying that at this point that that's where this is going. The evidence, it's all falling out in the exact pattern I expected it to as soon as I heard of the shooting. I did not say this on the air, but I made a prediction to producer Nick and producer Bernie. I said, this is what I think is going to be about, and it is now falling into place. And conservatives are wondering if they did this to him, and I agree with Charlie, does that mean they would do that to me? And the answer they are coming to is, I guess if I was famous enough. Game on Week one starts now, and every touchdown brings you closer to a payout. With Draft Kings sports book and official sports betting partner of the NFL. This isn't just football, it's first touchdown fireworks. Anytime TD rushes live bets that ride every momentum shift a Draft Kings. Every play is your next shot to win. Will the Panthers win? Will we even get a touchdown? New customers bet just five dollars and get three hundred dollars in bonus bets instantly, plus get over two hundred dollars off NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. So your season starts now. 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Digital games and commercial use excluded. Restrictions apply additional NFL Sunday Ticket terms or at YouTube dot com slash Go Slash NFL Sunday Tickets Slash Terms Limited time offer. I will say that it is it's times like these, It stays like these where I feel like an impostor because I'm trying to find sort of the right thing to say in a time of mourning and a time of grief and anger. And you know, I always struggle to find the words, and I find other people to be far more eloquent with their thoughts and their words, And so I compile lots of different things that I come across that capture what people are. Thinking and what I'm thinking and how I'm feeling. And one of them is Romans twelve twenty one Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. And Andrew Walker, he's an ethics and public theology professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he said, remember that political violence is the refuge of a losing political movement that cannot make good arguments or persuade naturally, so they resort to raw power to quote win. But their manner of victory is actually an admission of defeat that the ideas themselves can't win. Charlie Kirk was the antithesis of this loser mentality, a happy warrior, persuasive, daring, and fearless. And I see one of our trolls on the text line, Yes, I have identified you that you don't know who is they. The suspect is still at large. You're making a lot of assumptions about the shooter's motive. The Butler shooter was deranged and had no political motivation, Joe, do you know that? Because the like, we don't really know a whole lot about that Butler shooter. Do we now? The other guy Ryan Ruth or Ruth, the other attempted assassin of Donald Trump. He's representing himself and look, he's definitely crazy, but he is animated by leftist arguments. You guys, like, I'm done playing this game now, see yesterday. Change has changed all of this For me. I'm done playing this game where you pretend that your words don't inspire any kind of political violence against people on the right, and then you seize or pounce on any kind of violence that even tangentially may be related to the quote right, I'm seeing one seeing people that are referencing the murder of the Minnesota Speaker of the House a couple of months ago, and how though that was a Republican appointee. That was a Republican Yeah, who was who claimed to have done it. In order to help Tim Walls. So I understand that things don't always fall naturally into like a political camp. However, the news that has come out today is that they have recovered the weapon. They've recovered AMMO, and on the AMMO are carvings, there's there's language on the carvings and you'll never guess what the language on the on the the unspent AMMO is. Yeah, you probably will transgender stuff and quote anti fascism stuff, but I'm sure it has. Nothing to do with politics. No, no, no, there are plenty of other reasons why a deranged person would target Charlie Kirk from a high perch sniper position at a college campus, firing a single shot to kill him. See that when you when you see the way it happened, and you know the details, and you've been doing this as long as I've been doing it. There are certain things that become immediately apparent, even if I don't say them on the air, because I do wait for more information to come out, as I advised everybody to do yesterday. But now we have more information, and the information tracks with exactly what I initially thought. Most types of these shootings, right, they are obviously deranged individuals. I would not be surprised if this turns out to be another one of those individuals motivated by a belief that they are in the wrong body and that they are literally being erased, that they are that people like Charlie Kirk are an existential threat to them, that this is a war against trands. That's where this is leading. That's what this looks like. It may not be. Maybe find a manifesto and it turns out that it's a right winger that is mad that Charlie didn't go far enough, because yeah, that makes sense, or as another popular conspiracy among the Wolk white is now and the anti Semites is that the Mossade took him out, that the Israelis killed him for some reason or another. Like, No, sometimes the most obvious explanation is the real explanation. It's called Ockham's razor, and it is actually often the case. Charlie Kirk was obviously targeted for his politics. I'm not going to pretend that this is like a both sides ism kind of a thing. I've said it for now several years that the left has a violence fetish and you guys have proven yourself completely incapable of raining it in on the left. So no, like, you're not going to gaslight me and you're getting no benefit of the doubt anymore, not for me, at least maybe from others, but not for me. So when I was a kid, my grandpa died with Alzheimer's, and before he died, my mom and my dad took care of him as he got worse. Forty years ago, there were no treatments and not much support for caregivers and family. But things are different today because of the work of so many people, including the Alzheimer's Association of Western Carolina. It's a great organization with awesome people with huge hearts. I've been a supporter for twenty five years. This cause means a lot to me. I participate in the annual Walk to end Alzheimer's and I'm leading a Charlotte team again this year, and it's called once again Pete's Pack. You can sign up and you can join the team and walk with us. 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Here's a pete tweet from Eric, who says the people who have spent the last decade shrieking that anyone even tangentially to the right is an evil Nazi who must be stopped by any means necessary, suddenly want to pretend that their words were meaningless when some deranged lunatic heeds the call. Yeah, And this is why I'm That's why I'm done listening to their words at this point. I'm watching their actions because your words mean nothing. They don't mean anything to me anymore. Let me go over to the phones, and all right, let's start with Chris. Welcome to the show. Hello, Chris, Hey, how you doing? First of all, eight years in the United States Marine Corps therm this country armor, honorably. Welcome on them. I grew up in the South in the sixties, and I am a minority. And the thing about all the few, about all the folk called hate and discord and marginalizing people all started when making America great again. They didn't all start there. That's where it basically when it all started. It didn't know it's been It's been a part of the human condition since the humans began. Speaking, America ever been great again for minorities? Yeah, so, Chris. The the use of language, this all right, Chris. The use of language, uh, to demonize and to degrade has been around since language was developed. Did not begin with Mega, Okay, it did not. I will bring you back on, but I'm on location here, I am on a remote location, so there's a bit of a leg So I'm trying to give you time to make your points. But that is not correct. The rhetoric did not get bad with Donald Trump. There was bad rhetoric before. Yeah, in the sixties and all these other people. Yeah did back back in the sixties and sixties and all that. That's before then too. When has this country ever been with great for modulized minorities? When can become me? When that's what we again. So you're so, I want to be clear, Chris. You're using the assassination of a conservative radio host to talk about the plight of minorities in America. That's just part of it. The thing about it. Do you think that, Chris, Chris, do you think let's think about hang on, Chris, Chris, Let's think about Chris, Chris, Chris Okay, then you're done, Chris. Let's think about you're back on hold. This is how I'm gonna have to do it with you, I guess. Let's think about the moment we are in. Let's think about how angry half of the country is. And I'm talking really really angry, and you served so you know these people I'm talking about, right they are trained, they have weaponry, they are angry. You've just seen the murder of somebody that your kids look up to, your kids respect, that you feel like is your friend. Charlie Kirk reached millions and millions of people that they feel like they know him, and he just got assassinated. And you want to blame conservatives for it. Think about the moment you're in for a minute and think about are you actually winning anybody over right now with this line of uh, with this line of argument. So I will ask that to you. Do you think that you are winning over any hearts or minds, persuading anybody right now with this line of argument? Do you expect you return when you still hate and give out? What do you expect in return? I expect to be I expect to not be murdered. Well, if you're having a political If you're having a political debate about an issue, I expect you don't kill me. Is that too much to ask? Bro? It's karma. So he deserved it. This country has a problem with guns. Too, No, Chris, Chris, let's stay on the Let's stay on the point that you're making, which is he deserved it because he was saying things that you don't like. Well, he'll hate me. You think it's hate, and so it takes me away. These two was rights goes to the rights. They're going to push back. He didn't take. He wasn't arguing about taking people's rights. It's karma. See again, Chris, thank you. I want to, Chris, I really do, sincerely thank you for highlighting the exact mentality that conservatives believe half of the country feels towards them. And what you're telling me is that if I disagree with you on a policy, then you. Can kill me. Way, he didn't take anything away from anybody. He was a civilian, Chris. He didn't take a single thing. He did not take in the schoolroom. When you do it, Chris, Chris, he didn't, Chris. All right, you're back on hold, Chris. He did not take a single thing from a single person. He didn't take anything. He had no power to take anything from anybody. He got engaged in political discourse, and he said, we have to keep talking, we have to keep debating. He would go on campuses specifically to do so, because when you stop talking, then violence breaks out. And the fear now and the anger that a lot of people on the right have is exactly what you just articulated. This is what they think, most leftists and most Democrats think. And Chris, you've just articulated that everything. So how am I supposed to Chris? How am I supposed to now deal with you when we're if I encounter you and you disagree with me, and I now know that you think I should die? What do you think I'm going to approach you doing? No, no, no, no, I don't think you should die? Yes, you do. You just said that. You just said it was karma. Husband hag got bashed in in half the country laughed and bush it was her? What about that? What about what I missed the first part of what you said? What about what. About when husband's head got bashed in and the president himself laughed and made a joke of it, and he wushed, that was her what about that? Yeah? So I I objected to that. There were a lot of people on the right that were angry at the way Trump handled that. Absolutely. Once the hate speech stopped from the top, it was stopped in the bottom, it sold down just like a weever. Okay, So all right, so okay, let's all right, So let's let's follow that thread. Where does the hate speech on the left start? There's your problem, Chris, there's your there's your blind spot, there's your problem. I would you don't know? You don't because no, you don't. Chris. You can say that, but I don't believe it, because you just said that murdering a guy for his political beliefs was karma. So I don't believe you when you now say, oh, I love you, you're a brother. No, no, you don't. You don't love me. I disagree with you. You you obviously have this hatred in your heart for people who disagree with you and wish to engage in a debate. I don't have any. Sure you do. Are you happy that Charlie Kirk is dead? It's so state you can cut it with a blood, right, But. But in your view, Chris, think about think about how blinded, Think about how blinded you are here is that you can't see or hear any hate coming from the left despite the attempted assassination attempts on Donald Trump. Right the way, are we trying to kick everybody out of the country? That that's not what you said. No, none of all of those are policy. These are all policy debates. These are policy debates, and people disagree with you and your preferred course of action. And you don't think that anything your side says is hate. We're being marginalized, We're being pushed. Back, You're being marginalized. How so how give me one, Give me one, give me away your. Marginalized, Chris, Chris, give me a way that you have been marginalized. Who are right of being taken away? That's not an answer, and you don't have one, And I think that pretty well proves you're full of crap. And you're probably pretty happy that Charlie Kirk got murdered. Oh no, no, you're all about love. We have no hate on on our side. It's just for some reason, these conservatives keep getting shot, all right, So you've heard me talk about creative video for almost a year. But did you know they also offer a game changing app for businesses that reward their teams with incentive trips. Well they do. It's called Incentive trip Kit. If you want a business or work at one that offers these incentive trips, this is a mustap. It maximizes the impact and value of these motivational trips. It's a super easy to use app built just for your group, with private messaging, shared photos, important trip documents, even a find the group locator just in case somebody gets separated. And when I say it's private, I mean it. No personal emails, no phone numbers, no ads, no account sign ups. Everyone uses one shared login, so it's super easy, no hassles. During the trip, everybody can post their best photos and short video clips, and folks back at the office can even follow along. And then after the trip, Incentive trip Kit turns those memories into a professional storytelling video you can use to motivate, inspire, and get people fired up for next year's trip. More fun, more memories, more ROI check it out now at incentive tripkit dot com or call Eric at eight eight eight five three three seventy six thirty seven. Extension two seven for the details. This is the problem trying to have a conversation with Chris, and this is what Charlie Kirk tried to do as well. I've been trying to do it as well. I always enjoy talking to people that are on the other side of the political issue, right if they are operating in good faith, because I believe, and I've said this before, I said it today, unchallenged ideas are easy to hold. You don't know your own argument, if you don't know your opponent's argument. I don't look to say Donald Trump to tell me what to think about particular issues. Anything he has a view on an issue, oh fantastic, I have the same view. I have a different view whatever it is. When you make an assertion, you make a claim, I'm going to ask you for evidence of that claim, as Chris attempted when he said he's being marginalized. And I know it's usually not a good thing in radio to have a bunch of dead air, but the dead air with Chris was important. He literally had no evidence to support his claim, and he does not believe that there is any kind of top down rhetoric on the left that would inspire the kind of violence that we are seeing by the left. It wasn't a right winger that attempted to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh. Wasn't a right winger. The attempted assassinations of Donald Trump not right wingers. I don't know. Gabby Gifford's assassin attempted assassination, not. A right winger. Dude thought that grammar was like somehow infiltrating the world and taking it over, something like the guy was deranged. That's not to say that there isn't right wing violence. Of course there is, and it's condemned. It should be condemned. However, if you can only spot it on one side, you're part of the problem. Let me go over to Travis. Hello, Travis, welcome to the program. Thanks for making itself available. Sure, yesterday I just I felt emotionally weighed down, and as I was trying to assess what it feels like a build up, We've had two people now die on camera. We got we watched them die, the one on the bus and then this, you know, Charlie Kirk. And I'm not the kind of person who seeks those out. So for me, it's just I think it's emotionally draining for me. Yeah, there's an emotional connection, but if I if I try to dig under that, it's not just connected emotionally, it's we can't agree on how to address crime, and we demon that mean well when I say, we ain't even a left demonizers those who want to address crime, and then we have someone like Joey because it's shocked, right, So it's so black and white. We can't transcend this wall dividing us on something as simple as crime on the way to work, and then we give violent results. And I know as O bioliologists come out of hiding and she makes them comments. You know what, Fine, if you are to speak d find a way to transcend the partisan divide. If you want to focus on mental health, fine, do both, right, But we gotta get to a point where it's not black and white, and by that I mean start contrast. We've got to get to where we can work together on the face and stop building up hat that stills over and what we saw. Anyway, Thanks you. All right, Travis. I appreciate the call, Sarah. Thank you. Mark Antonio right, he's a writer at a National Review, and he says we cannot become numb to this. It doesn't matter what Charlie Kirk's politics are, what political causes he has supported, or which politicians he's associated with, defending, excusing, or justifying the attempt to murder a fellow citizen as some online freaks and cable news gruls have done. What he says for what. Murdering him for what he says or for what he believes is the sign of a black heart and a disordered mind. We are staring into the abyss. The moment when Americans of goodwill abstained from entering the public arena as politicians, as activists, as citizens will be the moment that we review our god given right to govern ourselves. If we are cowed by violence and the threat of violence into staying silent and devoiding political discourse, we are no longer free. James Woods, the actor who knew Charlie Kirk, he said, I enjoyed dinners with Charlie, but I worried for his safety. The left says they want national conversations, Well, Charlie Kirk actually did that in the lions Den, no less, at left leaning venues, hoping that facts and common sense would prevail, and they murdered him for it. This is folks on the left. You do not have to listen to me. You do not have to believe me. You can dismiss everything that I am telling you and you can just brush it aside and think, what would Chris ay Karma a right? And none of this is happening on their side, right. You don't have to believe me, but I will tell you there is a great anger today. There is a massive amount of grief and you're not going to like the next guy that comes along, who's not going to be as nice as Charlie Kirk. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to vpetecallanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.