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Manhunt Ongoing For Shooter Who Murdered Charlie Kirk; Politicians Condemn Violence After Charlie Kirk's Death; Trump Family & White House React To Charlie Kirk's Killing. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired September 11, 2025 - 04:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[04:00:07]

BRIAN ABEL, CNN HOST: Thank you for joining us on CNN. I'm Brian Abel. It is 4:00 a.m. here in Washington, D.C., 2:00 a.m. in Utah, where the FBI is asking for the public's help amid an ongoing manhunt for the person who shot and killed conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

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ABEL: This is just one of the vigils honoring Kirk. They've been held in Utah, here in Washington, and around the country. The 31-year-old was a hugely successful Republican youth organizer, credited with helping President Trump in his re-election bid last year.

Kirk was shot Wednesday at Utah Valley University in the middle of a packed outdoor event sponsored by the group he created, Turning Point USA. He was responding to a question about mass shooters when a single gunshot rang out.

After that, Kirk's body went limp. He appeared to recoil backwards, seemingly shot in the neck. President Trump condemning the attack in a video that was recorded in the Oval Office.

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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is a dark moment for America. Charlie Kirk traveled the nation, joyfully engaging with everyone interested in good faith debate. His mission was to bring young people into the political process, which he did better than anybody ever.

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ABEL: Now officials believe only one person was involved in the shooting, and the FBI is asking anybody with photos or videos of the incident to come forward. Authorities are also combing through surveillance camera footage, with one official saying that's all investigators have to work with at the moment.

CNN's Kyung Lah has more on how the shooting unfolded.

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KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDEN (voice-over): The kickoff for Charlie Kirk's 14-city tour was here in Orem, Utah, about 40 miles away from Salt Lake City at Utah Valley University. Thousands of people, mainly students, were gathering in a large open courtyard.

Minutes before the shooting, video from Kirk's own ex-account shows an open space and a barrier between the tent and the students, with multiple security guards standing at the fence line. Police say there were six campus police officers there as well.

CHARLIE KIRK, CONSERVATIVE ACTIVIST: A lot of people, Utah. I'll tell you what.

LAH (voice-over): Kirk was a rock star among young conservatives largely because of events like this, meeting college students up close on campuses across the country. Police say roughly 3,000 people showed up for this one, all watching and listening as it happened.

Kirk was answering a question about mass shootings.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?

KIRK: Too many.

(APPLAUSE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) American's five. OK, now five is a lot, right? I'm going to give you some credit. Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?

KIRK: Counting or not counting gang violence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Great.

(GUNSHOT)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get down! Get down! Get down!

LAH (voice-over): Kirk is rushed into an SUV and taken to the hospital. Panic crowds ran as police jumped in.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And as we advised, UVU in Orem has had an active shooter at the Charlie Kirk event. We're getting several calls. We're trying to get more information.

LAH (voice-over): In the scramble after Kirk was shot, video taken from inside a building captures what appears to be someone running across a rooftop. That rooftop is this building called the Losee Center, less than 200 yards away from the spot where Kirk was hit. If that runner was the shooter, he would have been positioned about here. From this shot, you can see the rooftop of the Losee building is pretty easy to access. It's connected to another building by an elevated walkway, which, as you can see, is only separated from the roof by a railing.

Aerial footage after the shooting shows police tape on the roof of the Losee building. And at about 12:36 p.m., an officer describes a possible suspect.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's wearing jeans, black shirt, black mask, long rifle. Is on top of the building on the far north side, just east of the library, wearing jeans, black shirt, black vest.

LAH (voice-over): Six hours later, Utah Valley University issued an all-clear, saying the threat is over. Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old father of two young children, did not survive.

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ABEL: Kyung Lah reporting there.

Earlier, we spoke with a retired New York police detective about the shooting. He explained what makes it harder in this situation to catch the shooter and actually what may also be working in investigators' favor.

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TOM VERNI, FORMER DETECTIVE, NEW YORK POLICE DEPT.: Open air events are very difficult to secure. As we saw when President Trump was running for president as a candidate, there was the shooting there.

[04:05:05]

And just a number of -- every time we turn around, there's another shooting somewhere in America. And shame on us that we have to deal with this as a civilized society. People living in fear that they can't even attend a rally, right?

You know, here we're talking about someone who was shot at a bit of a distance. So, you know, law enforcement investigators at this point are probably entertaining the idea this was done with a long gun, as opposed to, you know, a small caliber firearm, of course, would have to be used at a closer range in order to, you know, to hit the intended target.

So they're going to be searching for that. If the same ballistics that have been recovered at the scene, of course, that physical evidence, as well as any other physical evidence that they get their hands on, will be integral into getting this investigation going, as well as the grid search that they're probably doing at this time to search for this individual.

The fact that only one person was hit clearly would indicate that this was a targeted shooting versus some of the other shootings that we've seen. For instance, you know, a few years ago back in Las Vegas, it was a shooting at a concert where just people were shot indiscriminately, right? So, you know, one person was shot, and then that was the end of the incident.

So ideally, I guess, you know, you want to look through any sort of, to my knowledge, I don't believe there were any threats made towards the event, either online or through the mail or what have you. But, of course, that will be something to be looked at, whether it's, you know, on the university website or any email sent to the university, any social media posts that may have been made where it tagged the university or tagged that event.

Of course, it's going to be scrutinized to see if someone indicated in some way that they had some sort of a beef with Charlie Kirk, and or maybe the event itself. And then, you know, that narrowed down from there, you know, if the shooter had a cell phone with them, of course, we're going to check the, you know, the ping on the cell phone off the local towers to further corroborate, you know, that's the person that we're looking for once we do get a person of interest in this case.

So they're going to have to, you know, collect as much physical evidence as possible. They're going to look at, you know, everything. A lot of these incidents nowadays, as we see every day, someone goes out and makes some sort of either verbal comment or some sort of comment online.

And, you know, you seeing the comment and me seeing the comment individually may not necessarily mean a lot. But once, you know, we get all these people in a room together and say, oh, yes, I saw that guy made that comment on, you know, Instagram or TikTok or whatever it may be, or Facebook, then we start piecing this together, all these pieces of the puzzle to corroborate all this evidence together.

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ABEL: The CNN also spoke with a witness who described the chaos that broke out after the shooting. He said he was on a walkway overlooking the crowd, though he couldn't see where the shot came from. Listen.

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DALLIN SMITH, SHOOTING WITNESS: It was definitely a little bit surreal. You know, it was -- we heard two pops and we ran, and some -- a lot of people ran with us. When I was standing by the door kind of overseeing what was happening, some people were standing there still taking videos.

So I went back out to look over the railing to see like maybe someone just did some firecrackers, something like that. But more and more people were screaming, crying, dispersing super quickly from the scene. More and more people were headed Charlie's way.

And yes, just pure craziness. Then after getting back into the building, just tons of people flooding to go outside, get away from the scene. A lot of tears, a lot of phone calls.

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ABEL: And Wednesday's shooting has reignited calls from lawmakers for an end to political violence. House Speaker Mike Johnson calling on every political figure to push for civil discourse to resolve disagreements and to spread that message to their constituents. The House also observed a moment of silence in Kirk's honor.

Our Manu Raju has more reaction from Capitol Hill.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A very emotional House of Representatives in the aftermath of the shooting and murder of Charlie Kirk. Of course, Kirk is aligned with the most conservative members of the House GOP and Senate GOP, given his very conservative politics.

But Democrats and Republicans alike condemning in the strongest possible terms the political violence that we are seeing really is a trend, an increasing trend here in this country, whether it was just even just this summer. Two Minnesota lawmakers shot in their homes, but also the assassination attempts of Donald Trump last year, the shooting at a Republican baseball game in the first Trump turn.

The Gabby Giffords, a Democratic congresswoman from Arizona, shot during the Obama administration, but also the January 6th, 2021, of course, the violence that we saw here in the Capitol. We're seeing these episodes occur time and time again.

[04:10:00]

Now we're hearing more and more lawmakers saying it is absolutely time to stop. Now, in the aftermath of this, there was -- there's some fiery moments, including from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was pushing back against some Republicans who were blaming Democratic rhetoric for putting Charlie Kirk in that position.

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ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, U.S. HOUSE DEMOCRAT: People can finger point all they want. Look at the record. Look at the actions of what we are doing. I don't think a single person who has dedicated their entire career to preventing gun safety legislation from getting passed in this House has any right to blame anybody else but themselves for what is happening.

When a politician tries to blame words for an action, they need to look at their action and their record. Like, enough of this. This is horrific. This is awful. And the assassination of Charlie Kirk risks an uncorking of political chaos and violence that we cannot risk in America.

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RAJU: Now, that came in the aftermath of a pretty heated moment on the House floor involving Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna, who pushed back against some Democrats who are -- had been objecting to how the Speaker of the House was moving forward with a prayer that was about to happen.

Luna cursed at Democrats and blamed them for what happened on -- for Charlie Kirk, someone she's actually very close to, and credits to recruiting her into politics. I asked her about that episode on the House floor as she walked off after the votes.

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ANNA PAULINA LUNA, U.S. HOUSE REPUBLICAN: Yes, they did cause this. That type of rhetoric, calling people fascists, you basically saying that we're Nazis taking away people's rights. Charlie Kirk was literally murdered. And you can see that footage online. And I would encourage people, instead of sharing that, please share pictures of his family and the legacy that he left.

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RAJU: But despite the back and forth, there's a really increasing call for more security for members of Congress in all these episodes, including calls to increase the amount of money for members of Congress to spend on additional security measures. Some members saying that this is something that they are not taking seriously enough, the escalating violence against officials here in the United States.

Manu Raju, CNN, Capitol Hill.

ABEL: And we heard from Speaker Mike Johnson a little earlier, speaking with CNN's Kaitlan Collins. He noted disagreement is part of the beauty of the United States and called for respect across the political divide.

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MIKE JOHNSON, U.S. HOUSE SPEAKER: You've had people who have resorted to political violence because they were encouraged along by the dialogue out in the public square. And some of that is put forward by elected officials and people with large platforms, large social media platforms.

And they're saying and doing things that make it personal and people direct their anger to individuals. I mean, this is not who we are. We're better than this. We need to be set an example as Americans.

We are the free marketplace of ideas. We celebrate and defend vigorously free speech. Charlie Kirk did that, as well as anybody that I know. You know, and he never shied away from debate. But he did it in the right spirit.

And I think that's what we've got to get back to. You know, it wasn't personal. We're going to have differences of opinion, but we have to treat one another with dignity and respect. That's not your enemy. That's your fellow American and colleague basically follow the golden rule.

I mean, I'm an advocate of that, have been consistently all the time. I think we should engage the debate. I think it's incumbent upon particularly members of Congress to go out into that free marketplace of ideas and share their thoughts and take and receive and have dialogue with people who disagree.

That's the beauty of America. We don't censor in silence disfavorable viewpoints. Everybody needs to take a slow and steady account of that.

I think as Governor Cox said in Utah today, he said, you know, let's evaluate who we are and who we want to be. He's right about that. Now's the time of reflection for America. We can stop this and stop the trend, but we just got to respect one another.

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ABEL: And former presidents are reacting to the death of Charlie Kirk. Joe Biden posting on X, quote, "There is no place in our country for this kind of violence. It must end now." Barack Obama shared a similar sentiment, writing that while the shooter's motive is still unclear, quote, "This kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy."

And a statement as well from George W. Bush, who said this, "It happened on a college campus where the open exchange of opposing ideas should be sacrosanct. Violence and vitriol must be purged from the public square. Members of other political parties are not our enemies, they are our fellow citizens."

All three former presidents also sending their thoughts and prayers to Kirk's family.

Ahead, how the university where Charlie Kirk was murdered is responding to the chaos. Stay with us here on CNN. We'll have more on our breaking news coverage of Kirk's death.

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ABEL: Returning now to our top story, a manhunt is underway after conservative political activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed during a speaking event Wednesday. Utah Valley University, where Charlie Kirk was killed, says it will remain closed until Monday. The school's vice president says they do not condone any form of violence there.

Video recorded after the shooting shows people frantically searching for shelter from the danger. Kirk was invited to speak by students who are part of the university's Turning Point USA chapter.

[04:20:00]

Earlier, I spoke with Natasha Lindstaedt, a professor of government at the University of Essex, to get her perspective and to help us make some sense of Charlie Kirk's shooting. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP) NATASHA LINDSTAEDT, PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX: We have had an experience with political violence in the past, and firearms are readily available, and renowned researcher on political violence, Robert Pape, said that at the moment, the U.S. is like a tinderbox.

We are on the precipice of something that could be very explosive. And, of course, there are huge concerns for Charlie Kirk and his family. But also, what is going to happen next? We've had these similar concerns after the assassination attempts of President Donald Trump as well.

But I think that there is more anger on the right at the moment that they need to avenge this death. We've heard from Fox News personalities talking about this live on air, and this is a moment when we really need to urge calm.

ABEL: This is certainly far from the first killing or attempted killing of a public political figure in the U.S., both sides of the aisle targeted. Given your academic background, how do you feel we've arrived here, and what's the path out?

LINDSTAEDT: Well, it has to do with the fact that we don't have any kind of tolerance for the other side anymore. And we've seen this by just looking at polling data, survey data, that shows that we're more extreme than before.

But also, we are more willing to accept either authoritarianism to get what we want, or to accept political violence, that there's growing levels of Americans on both sides that are willing to accept the use of force to oust a president that they don't like, or the use of violence against their political opponents.

And so we've had a huge shift in our culture, our political culture, of what is acceptable. So with this loss of tolerance and civility, we're at a point where there may be more of these tit-for-tat sort of assassination or assassination attempts or acts of violence against different groups, targeting specific groups that either the far right doesn't like or members of the left don't like.

And really, the only way out of it is that we need leadership that will, instead of try to fan the flames, try to show unity, to talk about the importance of civility, as I already mentioned, and focus on the fact that political violence should not be tolerated.

ABEL: I want to explore more your read to that point on the reactions we have heard so far following Kirk's murder from leaders across the political spectrum. Is this moment being met?

LINDSTAEDT: I mean, so far, I'm really concerned about the way people are responding. I mean, the Democrats, of course, have been trying to exercise calm. And it's understandable that those on the right might feel incredibly angry because of how important Charlie Kirk is to the far right movement.

It's understandable that Trump might personally feel very angry and upset because he was really close to Charlie Kirk. But I'm concerned that, particularly on the Internet, but also on, you know, far right radio and on far right news, you know, news stations and so forth, that they're going to be focused too much on getting revenge for what has taken place instead of trying to find the perpetrator and trying to focus on what unites us.

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ABEL: Now President Trump has ordered all American flags to be lowered to half-staff through Sunday in Charlie Kirk's honor. Kirk was an ally and personal friend of the President. Trump released a four-minute video expressing his grief and anger over Kirk's killing while blaming what he calls the radical left for the latest political violence.

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TRUMP: It's a long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible.

For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.

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ABEL: CNN's Kristen Holmes has more on the reaction from the White House.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The White House is mourning the loss of Charlie Kirk, somebody whose sources told me President Trump viewed as his own son. We just saw a post, an emotional post from Don Jr., President Trump's son, saying that Charlie Kirk was like a brother to him.

[04:25:01]

And thing to keep in mind here, it's not just political for so many of these White House staffers and advisers, it's also familiar. It's also personal. Charlie Kirk was a part of a very small group of loyalists, people who are loyal not only to Donald Trump, but to each other, who helped get Trump elected in 2024.

He spent time with these various staffers and advisers, with his family. They say that he was a devoted father, a devoted husband. And he gave up a lot of his time and energy to help President Trump not only get elected, but also to help with his transition, getting the right people that they believed were the right people into office, into the Cabinet positions with vetting and interviews.

President Trump has said on multiple occasions that he credits Kirk, at least in part, for his 2024 win. Take a listen.

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TRUMP: I won the young people by 37 percent. No Republicans ever won. And I won by 37 percent. And Charlie Kirk will tell you, TikTok helped. But Charlie Kirk helped also.

He's done great, and I appreciate all the help.

Charlie is fantastic. I mean, this guy, don't believe this stuff when you hear the kids are liberal. They're not liberal. Maybe they used to be, but they're not anymore.

And I want to express my tremendous gratitude to Charlie Kirk. He's really an amazing guy.

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HOLMES: It should be noted that Kirk was one of a small group of people who had a direct line to President Trump. We are told that Trump respected Kirk, even if Kirk had a difference of opinion. There were many who believed that Kirk had his finger on the pulse of young conservatism, of the MAGA movement, even more so than some of the people who serve on Donald Trump's Cabinet.

This is a dark day, talking to these White House officials, to these advisers, to these people who were close to Donald Trump and to Charlie Kirk. For them, this is deeply personal.

Kristen Holmes, CNN, the White House.

ABEL: Still to come, Americans gather to remember Charlie Kirk. We'll show you how they're choosing to remember the political activists. Our breaking news coverage on the death of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk continues in a moment. We'll hear from some of the young people who are invested in his youth movement.

Stay with CNN.

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