from WNYC studios. I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Thursday,

September 11th. Today, tragically, we seem to have two acts of political terrorism to

acknowledge 9-11 on this 24th anniversary and what appears,

at least, to be the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

We'll talk about the killing of Kirk now and the larger cycle of political violence that

the country is in in recent years that the murder of Charlie Kirk appears to be a part of.

The New York Times has an editorial now, headline Charlie Kirk's horrific killing and America's

worsening political violence. That also says his killing is part of a horrifying wave of political

violence in America. Since last year alone, a gunman killed a member of the Minnesota state legislature and her husband

and shot another Minnesota politician and his wife.

That was an attack against Democrats from everything that was reported.

A man set fire to the home of Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania,

and a would-be assassin shot Donald Trump on the campaign trail.

In 2022, an attacker broke into Representative Nancy Pelosi's home

and fractured her husband's skull.

In 2021, a violent mob attacked Congress, smashing windows and brutalizing police officers.

In 2017, a gunman shot four people at a Republican practice for the congressional baseball game,

badly wounding Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, that from the New York Times.

I might add the shooting at the Centers for Disease

Control just recently by a gunman who, according to all reports, fired more than 180 shots

to protest against COVID vaccines. So we have three guests. McKay Coppins, Atlantic Magazine staff writer, who went to college

at another school near Utah Valley University, where Kirk was shot dead yesterday. McKay posted on X,

...