Charlie Kirk's Alleged Assassin and the Radicalization of Young Men
City Journal Audio
Manhattan Institute
4.7 • 657 Ratings
🗓️ 18 September 2025
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why are so many young men becoming radicalized online? Rob Henderson, Carolyn Gorman, and Isabella Redjai examine the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk and the radicalization of his alleged killer, Tyler Robinson. They explore how social media and college campuses influence political beliefs and discuss the growing epidemic of loneliness and isolation. The conversation also addresses the normalization of violence and the blurred line between mental illness and political extremism, and what these disturbing trends might signal for the future.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the City Journal podcast. My name is Isabella Redgai, and today I am joined by two of my esteemed colleagues, Rob Henderson, a senior fellow here at the Manhattan Institute, and a leading voice on issues of social class, |
| 0:22.3 | cultural trends, and social divisions. And joining us as well is Carolyn Gorman, our resident |
| 0:27.6 | expert on mental health policy. Thank you for being here to both of you. |
| 0:32.8 | Before we dive into today's discussion, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out |
| 0:38.0 | on future conversations. Now, let's get into it. It's been exactly one week since Charlie Kirk |
| 0:44.4 | was assassinated at Utah Valley University. New details have emerged, though, about his alleged |
| 0:49.5 | killer in the past week. Tyler Robinson, 22-year-old, who reportedly was texting his trans roommate that |
| 0:56.6 | he was disturbed by the hatred in Charlie Kirk's rhetoric led him to murder Charlie Kirk. |
| 1:03.1 | I know we're going to get into this today, but a lot of the prosecutors and Utah officials |
| 1:07.6 | said that Robinson was chronically online and participated in a lot of |
| 1:11.6 | these dark places on the internet, very niche subculture discussion forums like Reddit and |
| 1:19.2 | Discord. And there was even a note that allegedly was found under his keyboard saying, I had the |
| 1:24.2 | opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I'm going to take it. So really heavy stuff. |
| 1:29.9 | I'm glad that I have you two here to break this down for me. |
| 1:33.4 | It didn't seem like Robinson though was always like this. |
| 1:36.2 | From what I heard, he grew up in a conservative-leaning household. |
| 1:39.6 | Even his father, when he turned him in, brought the family minister to try to persuade Robinson to turn himself in. |
| 1:48.6 | But, yeah, Robinson was a part of a conservative household. |
| 1:51.5 | He then goes to college. |
| 1:53.1 | I want to start with you, Rob. |
| 1:54.9 | Do you think you could pinpoint one thing that you suspect caused the shift in Robinson's change of thinking |
| 2:04.0 | or that kind of escalated into this radicalization that we saw. Yeah. Well, my understanding is that |
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