Today, Vice President JD Vance stepped in to guest-host the Charlie Kirk Show in honor of his late friend. Kirk was assassinated last week at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, at the first stop of Kirk's TPUSA "The American Comeback" tour.
Vice President Vance and his wife, Usha, escorted Kirk's casket and his family back to Phoenix, Arizona on Air Force Two. The images of the Vice President carrying Kirk's casket onto the plane, and Usha holding Erika Kirk's hand as they deboarded in Phoenix are powerful and haunting.
When it came time to make his closing remarks, Vice President Vance pulled no punches. He was very clear that unity cannot come until we acknowledge who is celebrating the violence and who is financing it.
You can watch the entirety of the Vice President's remarks here:
If we want to stop political violence like what happened to Charlie Kirk, we have to be honest about the people who are celebrating it and the people who are financing it.
— JD Vance (@JDVance) September 15, 2025
My closing remarks on today's episode of the Charlie Kirk Show: pic.twitter.com/pEAqbAL3yr
Vance specifically called out The Nation, a longstanding publication funded by George Soros' Open Society and others. Here is what they wrote:
Charlie Kirk was an unrepentant racist, transphobe, homophobe, and misogynist who often wrapped his bigotry in Bible verses because there was no other way to pretend that it was morally correct.https://t.co/Qv5TsM8AXy
— The Nation (@thenation) September 12, 2025
As Vance pointed out, Kirk never said the comments that the "hack" of a writer alleged he said. He also noted that the article made it through the editing process without undergoing the most basic journalistic fact-check.
Vance called out not only the lies and smears of the piece, but what he called the "glee" with which it was written, and noted with obvious disdain how the author of The Nation piece said Kirk had children "as do many vile people." Recounting how Erika asked Usha for advice on how to tell their children that their father had been murdered, Vance reflected on that line from the article and the people dancing on Kirk's grave.
Vance went on to explain in no uncertain terms that we have a significant problem with political violence: that 24% of self-described "very liberal" people believe it's okay to be happy about the death of a political opponent, while only 3% of conservatives agree. Vance said that 3% is "too many, of course." He also said that 26% of young liberals believe political violence is justified, while only 7% of conservatives feel the same way (Vance also said that was too much).
"The data is clear," Vance continued, "people on the left are much likelier to defend and celebrate political violence. This is not a both-sides problem. If both sides have a problem, one side has a much bigger and malignant problem, and that is the truth we must be told."
The Vice President noted that President Trump and Steve Scalise were both targeted for political assassination, too.
Vance said the atmosphere of influencers celebrating Kirk's death and the rhetoric of the Left encourage and inspire political violence, including protesters at Disneyland who yelled at his young child, remarking, "It is a statistical fact that most of the lunatics in America" are on the Left.
On calls for unity and healing in the wake of Kirk's assassination, Vance said he "desperately" wants it and believes we can and must come together. He says it can only happen "after climbing the mountain of truth" and that there are "difficult truths" we must confront first.
Truer words were never spoken.