The manhunt for the assassin of Charlie Kirk came down, as it often does, to good old-fashioned police work: a picture of the suspect, and a plea to the public for help.
President Donald Trump broke the news early this morning on the set of “Fox and Friends,” fresh off a day of remembrance of the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and an evening of baseball at a packed Yankee Stadium, where shouts of “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!” filled the Bronx air and welcomed the commander-in-chief.
“I think,” Trump began, “with a high degree of certainty, we have him in custody. … Essentially, somebody who is very close to him turned him in.”
The president said he got this news from his team just five minutes before he walked into the Fox News studios. Apparently, according to Trump, a friend of the suspect told a local minister who works with law enforcement, then the minister went to the assassin’s father, and the father contacted his son and convinced him to come in. And then they went together to the local police station.
“So, Mr. President,” said Fox News host Lawrence Jones to Trump, “there is the death penalty in Utah, and I do know this is going to be a federal case. And there’s many of us who believe that Charlie was targeted because of his political ideology. What’s gonna happen to this guy?”
“Well,” Trump responded, “I hope he’s going to be found guilty, I would imagine. And I hope he gets the death penalty. What he did — Charlie Kirk was the finest person. He didn’t deserve this.”
Kirk was a dear friend of the president, and his efforts to mobilize the youth vote were instrumental in Trump’s resounding 2024 presidential victory. Let’s hope his understandably impassioned comments aren’t seized upon to spare this “alleged” assassin the death penalty he deserves.
With Trump’s announcement, then, we’ve reached the beginning of the end of the Charlie Kirk assassination case — and a very dark chapter in the American Experiment. As OutKick’s Clay Travis put it, “You cannot call your political adversaries Nazi fascists and modern-day Hitlers and then say political violence is wrong when your deranged lunatic supporters act on your statements and kill or attempt to kill the people you’ve attacked.”
Later this morning, Utah Governor Spencer Cox shared the details:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We got him. On the evening of September 11th, a family member of Tyler Robinson reached out to a family friend who contacted the Washington County Sheriff’s Office with information that Robinson had confessed to them or implied that he had committed the incident. … Investigators interviewed a family member of Robinson who stated that Robinson had become more political in recent years. The family member referenced a recent incident in which Robinson Came To Dinner prior to September 10th, and in the conversation with another family member, Robinson mentioned that Charlie Kirk was coming to [Utah Valley University]. They talked about why they didn’t like him and the viewpoints that he had. The family member also said [Robinson said] Kirk was full of hate and spreading hate.“
Cox also shared info about the murder weapon, “a bolt-action rifle wrapped in a dark-colored towel,” a .30-06 caliber Mauser model 98 with a scope. Investigators recovered it in a grassy field near the UVU campus.
Then, as if there were any doubt that Kirk’s murder was a political assassination, Cox reported that the 22-year-old Robinson had apparently left incriminating inscriptions on the fired and unfired bullet casings, one of which read, “Hey fascist! Catch!”
After adding some details about the massive law enforcement effort that was involved, FBI Director Kash Patel said, “Lastly, to my friend Charlie Kirk: Rest now, brother. We have the watch. And I’ll see you in Valhalla.”
Yesterday, Vice President JD Vance, also a close personal friend of Kirk, personally walked beside his casket and accompanied his body aboard Air Force Two as it was returned from Utah to his Arizona home. Earlier, he’d paid a moving tribute to his friend in a lengthy X post. As Vance concluded:
I was in a meeting in the West Wing when those group chats started lighting up with people telling Charlie they were praying for him. And that’s how I learned the news that my friend had been shot. I prayed a lot over the next hour, as first good news and then bad trickled in.
God didn’t answer those prayers, and that’s OK. He had other plans. And now that Charlie is in heaven, I’ll ask him to talk to big man directly on behalf of his family, his friends, and the country he loved so dearly.
You ran a good race, my friend.
Elsewhere, podcaster Michael Knowles had this to say about his friend: “I think that’s why Charlie’s death is hitting so many millions of people in such a profound way. … Grown men have broken down sobbing, and they’ve texted me this, and they couldn’t figure out why. And I think it’s because Charlie was the most significant political figure of his generation. We all thought he was going to be president someday. But he didn’t hold office, and he didn’t pass laws, and he didn’t wield direct political power. All this guy did was go into hostile territory and sit down, and try to talk out the issue respectfully, generously, graciously, as always. And I think a lot of people feel great fear and sadness that not only did this great man die, but that idea may have died as well.”
“We lost an unbelievable warrior,” said Trump this morning. “He’s a great man, and he’s going to be more important because of what happened.” The president announced yesterday, “I will soon be awarding Charlie Kirk, posthumously, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.”
Indeed, as Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA team makes clear, the legacy of this Christian Patriot will endure.
