Where Do We Go From Here? The Conservative Response to the Assassination of Charlie Kirk
Heritage Explains
Heritage Podcast Network
4.7 • 848 Ratings
🗓️ 16 September 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Last week, the country was shaken to its core by the assassination of Christian husband, father, and patriot Charlie Kirk, one of the most prominent voices in the conservative movement, particularly among young Americans. His death has left countless Americans experiencing combinations of sorrow, fear, and anger. How should we as conservatives respond to this tragic and politically motivated attack, and what role should policy play in our response? President of The Heritage Foundation, Dr. Kevin Roberts, joins this episode of the Heritage Explains podcast to discuss.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to Heritage Explains. Usually we do an introduction at the top of our show. |
| 0:04.7 | Unfortunately, that will not be necessary for this one because we're discussing the tragic murder of Charlie Kirk. |
| 0:11.9 | This event has permeated our culture to such a degree that no introduction is necessary. |
| 0:17.0 | And so, I'll turn to Dr. Kevin Roberts, our president here at the Heritage Foundation, and ask you to start us off with a question, which is, who was Charlie Kirk to you? |
| 0:28.5 | Mark, it's even considering the circumstance, is always a pleasure to be with you, and so thanks for having me on. |
| 0:34.8 | Charlie was a friend. I met him several years ago in Austin. When I was leading the |
| 0:42.1 | Texas Public Policy Foundation, he was obviously a turning point. And we met really as his crest was |
| 0:49.0 | beginning to accelerate. And he called me out of the blue. We had a mutual friend, donor friend, and he had this |
| 0:56.7 | idea on election integrity that at the time, and this is before 2020, the group I was leading |
| 1:03.2 | wasn't working on at least extensively. And it wasn't the first time that I heard about this, |
| 1:06.6 | but it was the first time that I saw someone with such a plan. And what I remember about Charlie |
| 1:09.6 | was his exuberance, his charisma, his ability to bring together then at a very young age, |
| 1:15.6 | a lot of the biggest donors in Texas around this issue. And just his irrepressible optimism. And we |
| 1:25.3 | ended up not working on that at that time with Turning Point, |
| 1:28.8 | at least directly, but from that found another project to work on that I can now say, |
| 1:34.4 | unfortunately, because of another friend who's now departed as Foster Freeze, supported |
| 1:40.9 | financially. And that project was about expanding the base, expanding the governing coalition. |
| 1:48.1 | And so I could go on and on and it would be appropriate to talk about Charlie's professional |
| 1:52.5 | expertise, his ability to scale an organization from scratch. But the thing that I loved most about |
| 1:58.5 | Charlie was that when you call him a friend, he was a friend. |
| 2:03.7 | In times that you needed encouragement, there was a phone call, there was a text. In times when |
| 2:10.7 | Heritage was looking to collaborate, which we have done some with Turning Point, especially |
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