This is Brian Lair's Daily Politics Podcasts from WNYC Studios.

It's Thursday, September 18th.

I'm Bridget Bergen, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gotham's Newsroom filling in for Brian today.

We'll start today's show with a preview of the Atlantic Festival, which debuts today in New York City for the first time in its 16-year history.

Over the course of the weekend, attendees will hear from nearly 50 of the magazine's writers and editors, as well as decorated guests like David Letterman,

Tom Hanks, and Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, among many others. To give you a taste of what's to

come over these next four days, we've got two of the Atlantic's staff writers with us, Ashley Parker

and Adam Seward. Tomorrow, they will be part of a panel titled The Big Story, Trump, Politics, and the End of Knowledge.

First, Ashley and others will discuss the latest news from the White House in the halls of Congress,

and Adam and another set of journalists will look at what he describes as recent assaults on human knowledge and progress.

Adam is also participating in a recently added

talk on this new era of political violence that's become front and center since the assassination

of Charlie Kirk last week. Ashley and Adam join me now to talk about the Trump administration's

response to Kirk's assassination, its implications for free speech and political expression,

and whether this event represents another front in what Adam calls an attack on knowledge itself.

Ashley, Adam, thank you for joining us this morning.

Thanks for having us.

And Ashley, let's start with you.

You were in the West Wing on the day of Charlie Kirk's assassination.

Start us off by setting the scene. What did you learn about Kirk's relationship with the Trump administration from the White House's initial response to Kirk's death?

Sure. So I was initially actually in the Atlantic offices in D.C. And as soon as it became clear that

Kirk had been shot, and his condition was unknown at that point, but things looked bad.

...