The Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro took his book tour to HBO and Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday, where he and the eponymous host battled it out on whether it can be safely asserted that Charlie Kirk’s assassin was a leftist. While Maher insisted that it is simply too soon to say because the internet is always full of crazy rumors, Shapiro countered that what we know about the killer is not just the product of internet gossip.
Shapiro claimed that we know, “That this kid was of the political left. That is according to contemporaneous reporting from The Guardian, as well as Tablet Magazine today and magazines.”
Maher countered, “It is two days out. We don’t know shit, Ben. We don’t know shit. They never do. The internet is undefeated at getting it wrong to begin with.”
Holding firm, Shapiro rebutted, “It’s not about the internet. That’s about the actual reporting by mainstream, accepted – The Guardian is not a right-wing media outlet.”
It should be noted that The Guardian has retracted that story and claimed the shooter’s high school classmate couldn’t actually verify their memory of the shooter being a leftist. However, since Real Time aired, we do know that, according to The New York Post, the FBI is working with a source who claims the assassin had a transgender partner. Additionally, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who many have praised for rising above partisan politics and for focusing on the need for unity and the need to move beyond the blame game of who started the cycle of political violence, told the Wall Street Journal, “It’s very clear to us and to the investigators that this was a person who was deeply indoctrinated with leftist ideology.”
As for Maher, he listed off a bunch of rumors about the shooter that turned out not to be true, before conceding, “Now, I agree when you write on the bullet—what did he write on the bullet?”
Shapiro filled in the answer, ‘“Catch this, fascist,’ which is also a gamer thing.”
Maher then continued, “Okay, okay, but now I’m hearing he may have been part of a group for whom Charlie Kirk was not right-wing enough!”
As a Jewish man, Shapiro is unfortunately all too familiar with such people but used that experience to dismiss the idea, “The extreme, high likelihood, given the fact that he said to his family that Charlie Kirk was too hateful, is that he was not a Groyper because the Groypers would have said that Charlie wasn’t hateful enough, okay, let’s be very—I know this movement.”
Shapiro then got to the heart of the problem: “The point that I am making is that there are permission structures that have been created in certain areas of our politics, and in particular, there is one on the left that is, again, very far-radical left, trans-ANTIFA Marxist, and then there are two that are semi on the right: white supremacists and radical Muslims, depending on how you decide you’re going to actually categorize those things.”
Shapiro rejected the idea that these forces are equally prevalent across the spectrum while denouncing the logic that drives them:
The thing that all these groups have in common is a structure, a philosophical structure that says ‘there is a system that is targeting me. That system is a system of power and it is deadly to me. Therefore I am excused in using violence against that system.’ That’s the thing these movements have in common, and we need a cognitive behavioral therapy and our politics that says that is not true. That if I say a man is not a woman, that’s not a genocidal threat to you, that if you say you have a differential policy on immigration, that is not a threat to me, that if you say that you believe that Western civilization is superior to radical Islam, that is not a threat to me. And again, I don’t think that those permission structures are equally distributed across the political spectrum.
One can understand Maher’s aversion to trusting social media, but as Shapiro said, so much of what we know about the shooter does not come from there.
Here is a transcript for the September 12 show:
HBO Real Time with Bill Maher
9/12/2025
10:28 PM
BEN SHAPIRO: We do know that this kid was of the left, we do know that.
BILL MAHER: We do know what?
SHAPIRO: That this kid was of the political left. That is according to contemporaneous reporting from The Guardian, as well as Tablet Magazine today and magazines.
MAHER: It is two days out. We don’t know shit, Ben. We don’t know shit. They never do. The internet is undefeated at getting it wrong to begin with.
SHAPIRO: It’s not about the internet. That’s about the actual reporting by mainstream, accepted – The Guardian is not a right-wing media outlet.
MAHER: Here’s what we heard, here’s what I thought I was told right now and I will tell you what was wrong. First I heard here’s a registered Republican. Not true.
SHAPIRO: Not true.
MAHER: Okay. Then he was a donor to Trump. Not true. His father works in the sheriff’s office. Not true. There was a picture of him wearing a pro-Trump in short, not true. Member of the Democratic Socialists of America, not true. We don’t know what he is.
SHAPIRO: Well.
MAHER: How are you so sure he’s of the left? Now, I agree when you write on the bullet — what did he write on the bullet?
SHAPIRO: “Catch this, fascist,” which is also a gamer thing.
MAHER: Okay, okay, but now I’m hearing he may have been part of a group for whom Charlie Kirk was not right-wing enough!
SHAPIRO: You mean the Groypers, yes. I mean so that would—
MAHER: You’re sure he’s not that?
SHAPIRO: I’m not sure he is not that.
MAHER: Oh, a minute ago you were sure.
SHAPIRO: Well, no. Hold on, Bill. Hold on, okay, because—
MAHER: You were.
SHAPIRO: The extreme, high likelihood, given the fact that he said to his family that Charlie Kirk was too hateful, is that he was not a Groyper because the Groypers would have said that Charlie wasn’t hateful enough, okay, let’s be very—I know this movement.
Okay, when it comes to—the point that I am making is that there are permission structures that have been created in certain areas of our politics, and in particular, there is one on the left that is, again, very far-radical left, trans-ANTIFA Marxist, and then there are two that are semi on the right: white supremacists and radical Muslims, depending on how you decide you’re going to actually categorize those things.
The thing that all these groups have in common is a structure, a philosophical structure that says “there is a system that is targeting me. That system is a system of power and it is deadly to me. Therefore I am excused in using violence against that system.” That’s the thing these movements have in common, and we need a cognitive behavioral therapy and our politics that says that is not true. That if I say a man is not a woman, that’s not a genocidal threat to you, that if you say you have a differential policy on immigration, that is not a threat to me, that if you say that you believe that Western civilization is superior to radical Islam, that is not a threat to me. And again, I don’t think that those permission structures are equally distributed across the political spectrum.
