It was an enormous shock to learn that Charlie had been killed.

The fact is that he was such an enormous figure,

had so much energy,

was so totally committed to freedom

and to helping America find its way back,

and was so courageous in going into campuses and neighborhoods,

talking to people who he knew were the other side, but doing it deliberately to create a common

dialogue and a common sense of, as Americans, we can solve this. I'd known Charlie Kirk for a long

time, and I'd admired him.

We'd done a number of things together.

We had a very emotional podcast together at the Republican Convention just a few days

after President Trump had been shot.

And the sense we had then of how dangerous politics had become and how tragic it was

that some Americans wanted to take violence into their own hands in a way that we found

shock hands.

You know, you can imagine now, a little over a year later, to have Charlie himself, the victim of an assassination, is just so stunning.

When Callista first called and told me about it, it had been in the meeting, and it was like you couldn't quite believe it, partly because he's so vibrant and with his family,

with Erica and his three-year-old daughter and his one-year-old son, they were such a classic

example of pursuing happiness, leading a wholesome life, doing the right things, and then boom, he's dead.

And I thought that when President Trump announced it and explained from his standpoint,

what Charlie had meant to him, it began to have the sense of what a remarkable person this was,

starting as a teenager in Chicago,

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