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The horror that unfolded at Utah Valley University is still hard to process. A few minutes into a joyous meeting before thousands of people, conservative activist Charlie Kirk was gunned down in cold blood. 

As they tried to make sense of this senseless murder, the broadcast networks roughly suggested that Kirk was shot because he was ‘polarizing.’ ABC correspondent Kyra Phillips explained that Kirk was ‘known for his outspoken views on politics, culture, religion, often taking his messages to colleges and universities, sparking sometimes pretty heated debates on campus.’ 

Reporter Aaron Katersky added, ‘there were people on both sides debating whether he should even be allowed to bring his message, often loyal to the agenda of President Trump, to campus.’ White House reporter Mary Bruce doubled down: ‘It’s no secret that Kirk has said a number of controversial things over the years, in particular about DEI, Jews, women, LGBTQ community, people of color.’ 

As Kirk was bleeding out, ABC News was suggesting this was how ‘pretty heated debates’ ended on campus, and that maybe it wouldn’t have happened if Kirk’s ‘controversial’ appearance hadn’t been ‘allowed.’ 

Leftists surely found Kirk’s conservative arguments ‘polarizing’ ‘divisive,’ and ‘controversial.’ But they seem to lack any introspection inside the liberal bubbles of their ‘news’ networks. Spreading their leftist arguments on DEI or LGBTQ or abortion or Trump — often implying that dissent is unacceptably hateful — somehow never polarizes people and is somehow the opposite of controversy. How can their sweet reason be ‘controversial?’ 

By the time the Wednesday evening newscasts came on, there was an appropriate tone of horror at the shooting. But on Thursday, ‘CBS Mornings’ co-host Nate Burleson told former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy that Kirk’s speech was ‘offensive to specific communities’ and asked if Republicans needed to watch their mouths. ‘Speaking of this tragedy, is this a moment for your party to reflect on political violence? Is it a moment for us to think about the responsibility of our political leaders and their voices and what it does to the masses as they get lost in misinformation or disinformation that turns into and spills into political violence?’ 

McCarthy tried to stay on a unifying message, but Burleson’s question was ‘offensive to specific communities,’ in this case the Trump-voting half of America. Everyone who agreed with Kirk on many issues felt like this could have been the violent fate of any conservative speaker out in public, especially on ‘progressive’ campuses. 

Kirk’s alleged assassin was not a Republican. CBS didn’t wonder if the shooter had been influenced by wild leftist rhetoric from any kind of media or political figure. The rhetoric of the Left is somehow always above scrutiny. 

The morning after the murder, NPR turned to Kyle Spencer, a leftist author of a 2022 book about ‘The Untold Story About America’s Ultraconservative Youth Movement And Its Plot For Power.’ She claimed ‘Charlie really positioned himself as somebody who was supporting Whiteness, White people, White culture and the White culture of this country against what he saw as efforts that were efforts to create equity in the country and to support the disenfranchised.’ 

‘Public’ broadcasting is deeply suffused with the ‘DEI ethic’ that they must ‘center the marginalized,’ and so anyone who opposes the Black left should be marginalized as a far-right racist fringe. But they loved Black Lives Matter and their racial ‘reckoning’ in 2020. 

As news bubbled up that there were political markings on the shooter’s ammunition, on Thursday’s ‘World News Tonight’ on ABC, they took the reports of ‘anti-fascist’ and pro-transgender messaging and dumbed them down. Matt Gutman could only say law-enforcement sources found ‘a high-powered rifle wrapped in a towel, and three unspent cartridges inscribed with words and symbols. Tonight, authorities [are] working on what the markings might mean.’ 

Leftists surely found Kirk’s conservative arguments ‘polarizing’ ‘divisive,’ and ‘controversial.’ But they seem to lack any introspection inside the liberal bubbles of their ‘news’ networks. 

On Friday, authorities revealed one shell casing read: ‘Hey fascist! Catch!’ Another said ‘O bella ciao, bella ciao,’ which refers to a leftist song celebrating the end of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, but the left still uses it against the current conservative Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. 

The news networks have spent the last 10 years wildly using terms like ‘fascist’ and ‘authoritarian’ to describe not just President Donald Trump, but Republicans and conservatives in general. By contrast, the radical left ‘Antifa’ movement has largely escaped any critical scrutiny and in recent years, the media have pretended that this is some sort of kooky invention of conspiracy theorists. 

When the network newscasts casually allow Democrats to compare Trump to Adolf Hitler and suggest he and his voters are an ‘existential threat’ to democracy, they are the ones raising national tensions. Not conservatives.

After the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk sent shockwaves through the political landscape this week, Fox News Digital spoke to several high-profile conservative speakers about the future of the movement and the influence Kirk’s legacy and style will have on it. 

‘Conservatives will not be silenced,’ Heather Mac Donald, Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal, told Fox News Digital, adding that Kirk ‘would not have been silenced’ so conservatives should ’emulate his courage.’

Columnist and commentator Bethany Mandel told Fox News Digital that Kirk’s assassination was ‘absolutely an effort to try to silence conservatives’ and that ‘we have to resist the temptation to allow that.’

‘We need to keep speaking out and double down on not only Charlie’s message, but his methodology,’ Mandel said.

Kirk was assassinated on Wednesday while speaking to thousands of students at Utah Valley University when a gunman positioned on a nearby roof fired a single shot, striking Kirk in the neck.

Kirk was rushed to Timpanogos Regional Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, prompting an outpouring of support from conservatives across the globe, including President Trump who called the killing a ‘dark moment for America.’

On Friday, authorities announced that they had arrested a suspect, 22-year-old Utah resident Tyler Robinson.

‘Charlie Kirk was a good man,’ John Ashbrook, co-host of the conservative podcast Ruthless, told Fox News Digital. ‘And his legacy will endure because none of us will ever forget his leadership nor the voice he provided for millions of regular people across this country.’

Mac Donald told Fox News Digital that it is ‘hard to imagine’ Kirk was killed for ‘any other reason than that he was breaking the stranglehold of anti-Western ideology on college campuses and beyond.’

‘It was sadly fitting that he was killed at a college campus, and not even one known for its leftward leanings, since colleges are the seed bed of modern day speech suppression and the false equations that political contrarian speech = hate speech and that hate speech may be snuffed out—apparently by any means necessary,’ Mac Donald said. 

‘The killer apparently agreed with those would-be censorers.  The self-centeredness and historical and moral ignorance of coddled American students has bloomed into something more pernicious, as the beatification of Luigi Mangione already showed.’

Going forward, in terms of security at events for prominent conservative speakers, Mandel called on campuses and cities that ‘claim to care about the future of America and civil discourse’ to step up and ‘ensure adequate security.’

‘We should not have to pay tax in the form of security in order to safely share our political opinions,’ Mandel told Fox News Digital. 

Conservatives have rallied around Kirk’s style of speaking out publicly and exchanging ideas with those who disagree, including prominent influencer Ben Shapiro who wrote on X that ‘we will never stop debating and discussing.’

‘We will never stop standing up for what America is and what she should be,’ Shapiro said, adding that he intends to continue speaking at colleges across the country despite the inherent dangers. 

Mac Donald told Fox News Digital, ‘It is a cliché and self-serving to say: they fear us because we are winning, but presumably, there is less of a perceived need to efface someone who is losing a cause anyway. Kirk was feared because he was winning.’

Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is appearing before the House Oversight Committee on Friday for a high-profile interview on whether senior staffers worked to obscure signs of mental decline in then-President Joe Biden.

Jean-Pierre is one of the highest-profile figures so far to appear before the committee, having been the most public-facing spokesperson for Biden from May 2022 until the end of his term.

The longtime Democrat-turned-Independent did not speak to reporters on her way into her closed-door transcribed interview with House investigators, which is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. and is likely to last into the afternoon.

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., is investigating whether there was a cover-up of Biden’s mental and physical state in the White House, and whether any executive actions were approved via autopen without the then-president’s full awareness.

Of particular interest to committee investigators are the myriad clemency orders Biden signed, including about 2,500 toward the end of his presidency that were executed via autopen.

Biden himself told The New York Times recently that he made every clemency decision on his own. His allies have also blasted the Republican-led probe as a partisan exercise.

Jean-Pierre was among those who publicly defended Biden in the wake of his disastrous June 2024 debate against then-candidate Donald Trump. She told reporters at a press briefing in early July that Biden was ‘as sharp as ever.’

But unlike other ex-Biden administration aides who have appeared ahead of her – many of whom still hold close ties and fierce loyalty to Biden – Jean-Pierre had a very public falling out with their world earlier this year.

In June, Jean-Pierre announced she was writing a book titled ‘Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines.’

She also announced she was leaving the Democratic Party in a press release for that book, expected in October 2025.

A summary for her book suggests it is about ‘the three weeks that led to Biden’s abandonment of his bid for a second term and the betrayal by the Democratic Party that led to his decision.’

The announcement was reportedly met with scorn by others in Biden’s orbit.

‘The hubris of thinking you can position yourself as an outsider when you not only have enjoyed the perks of extreme proximity to power — which…bestows the name recognition needed to sell books off your name — but have actively wielded it from the biggest pulpit there is, is as breathtaking as it is desperate,’ one former official told Axios.

Another person told the outlet she ‘was one of the most ineffectual and unprepared people I’ve ever worked with.’

Comer sent a letter to Jean-Pierre in late June asking her to appear for an interview, in which he pointed out she was ‘a trusted inner-circle confidante’ and ‘near the president daily.’

‘Your assertion, on multiple occasions, that President Biden’s decline was attributable to such tactics as ‘cheap fakes’ or ‘misinformation’ cannot go without investigation. If White House staff carried out a strategy lasting months or even years to hide the chief executive’s condition — or to perform his duties — Congress may need to consider a legislative response,’ Comer wrote.

The rifle that federal investigators believe was used in the shooting that killed conservative activist Charlie Kirk contained ammunition inscribed with anti-fascist messaging, shedding light on the suspect’s motive.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox confirmed the messaging at a news conference Friday, saying investigators discovered inscriptions on casings found with a bolt-action rifle near the Utah Valley University campus, where Kirk was killed during an event.

One used casing and three unused casings contained the writings, Cox said.

News of the ammunition inscriptions was first shared on social media Thursday morning in a preliminary bulletin attributed to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. 

According to the bulletin, circulated on X by political commentator Steven Crowder, federal officials recovered a .30-06 caliber Mauser rifle in the woods that contained ‘engravings,’ including messaging expressing anti-fascist ideology and other messages.

Fox News Digital confirmed the veracity of the ATF bulletin through talking to multiple sources, but the sources stressed on Thursday that the information was preliminary.

The information about the firearm surfaced nearly 24 hours after Kirk, 31, was shot and killed during a speaking engagement in Utah. Both his graphic death and the scant public information revealed in the early hours of the investigation into his killing left the nation reeling and revived heated debate about political violence in the U.S.

Law enforcement officials worked frantically in the aftermath of Kirk’s death to track down and arrest the gunman, who they announced Friday was Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah man.

Cox on Friday called the shooting a ‘political assassination.’

‘This is certainly about the tragic death, assassination, political assassination of Charlie Kirk, but it is also much bigger than an attack on an individual,’ Cox said. ‘It is an attack on all of us. It is an attack on the American experiment.’

FBI Director Kash Patel laid out the timeline of the investigation Friday, saying it took the FBI and Utah law enforcement 33 hours to make an arrest. Patel said authorities made ‘historic progress’ in such a short duration of time.

The FBI’s Salt Lake City Field Office released an image Thursday of a man they had said was a ‘person of interest’ in Kirk’s death and asked the public for help identifying him. The bureau also announced it was offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to his capture. Cox said a tip from a family friend of Robinson’s led to his arrest.