President Donald Trump announced that conservative activist Charlie Kirk died on Wednesday after receiving a shot at a university event of the Campus in Utah.
“The great, and even legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the heart of young people in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by all, especially me, and now he is not with us. Trump wrote on his social media platform.
Before the announcement, Trump told ABC News Washington Jonathan Karl: “It’s horrible. It’s one of the most horrible things I’ve seen.”
“He was a good man. He was an incredible guy. No one like him,” Trump told Karl.
Kirk, the founder of the conservative youth activist Turning Point USA, was a close ally for Trump and many members of his administration. Several senior officials issued messages of support for Kirk and their family as news of the shooting for the first time.
Vice President JD Vance shared the Trump announcement of Kirk’s death and wrote in X: “Eternal Rest Grant for him, Oh Lord.”
Donald Trump Jr., who worked in close collaboration with Kirk in the 2016 campaign, published online: “I love you brother. You gave so many people the courage to speak and we will never be silenced.”
Trump ordered that all US flags throughout the country be reduced to half a burning until Sunday night in honor of Kirk.
An American flag to Half Mast, after the right -wing activist Charlie Kirk, an ally of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, received a fatal shot at an event at the University of Utah Valley in OREM, Utah, in Washington, on September 10, 2025.
Nathan Howard/Reuters
Republican and Democratic legislators condemned the shooting.
The House of Representatives celebrated a moment of silence for Kirk on Wednesday afternoon.
The president of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, told the journalists the “detestable” shooting and said that political violence “has to stop.”
“Completely devastating. Charlie was a close and confidant friend,” Johnson said later in a statement about Kirk’s death. “So many they will miss it a lot. All political leaders must denounce this violence aloud and clearly. Our prayers are with their little wife and young children. May rest in peace.”
“There is no place in our country for political violence. Period, full stop,” wrote the leader of the majority of the Senate John Thune in X.
President of the Mike Johnson House, comments on the United States Capitol on the personality shooting Charlie Kirk, September 10, 2025.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, INC through Getty Images
Utah’s senator Mike Lee, a close friend of Kirk, cried his “dear friend” whom he “admired and respected deeply” Wednesday night.
“I had been sending him text messages in the last 24 hours. I was excited to visit Utah, he told me about this trip many weeks ago, he invited me to come. I told him that we would surely be in session; I could not be there, but I would like to join him,” Lee said. “I have known him for a long time. I know him, I think, since he was a teenager when he started this effort. He is a dear friend. There is no one more like him.”
Lee described Kirk as someone with “unlimited energy and great love for his country.”
“Whether you agree with him or not, he must respect his unlimited energy, his commitment to make the world a better place,” Lee said. “The real decency and respect that showed other people, even as long as they disagreed with them, even while shouting. I do not think I may have seen him respond to hatred with hate, or with something more than respect. And he had the ability to explain complex concepts to people in very simple and understandable terms, even the people who historically had not been involved in politics or historically thinking of themselves as conservatives or in another way. Legacy that has cut too short. “
The right -wing activist and commentator Charlie Kirk throws hats to the crowd shortly before they shot him in a speech event from the University of Utah Valley in OEM, Utah, on September 10, 2025.
Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune through Reuters
Former President Joe Biden said that “there is no place in our country for this type of violence.”
“It must end now. Jill and I are praying for the family and loved ones of Charlie Kirk,” Biden said in an X publication.
“I am deeply disturbed by the shooting at Utah,” wrote former vice president Kamala Harris in X. “Doug and I send our prayers to Charlie Kirk and his family. Let me be clear: political violence does not take place in the United States. I condemn this act, and we must all work together to ensure that this does not lead to more violence.”
The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, who earlier this year he received Kirk for the first episode of his new podcast, called the attack “unpleasant, vile and rebuilt.”
“In the United States of America, we must reject political violence in all forms,” wrote the governor of California Gavin Newsom in X.
The Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, said in a statement: “I am surprised by the murder of Charlie Kirk at the Utah University.
Joseph Vogl is outside the Typanogos Regional Hospital, September 10, 2025, in OREM, Utah.
Alex Goodlett/AP
Gabrielle Giffords, a former Democratic congressman who was shot in the head during a public event in 2011, shared a message condemning acts of political violence. Giffords later founded and directed a national group for the prevention of armed violence.
“I am horrified to know that Charlie Kirk was shot in an event in Utah. Democratic societies will always have political disagreements, but we should never allow the United States to become a country that faces those disagreements with violence. Mark and I are praying for Charlie’s recovery,” Giffords wrote.
Democratic representative Nancy Pelosi, whose husband was violently assaulted in her house in California by an invader who was looking for Pelosi, called the “horrible” shooting.
“Political violence has absolutely anywhere in our nation,” Pelosi wrote about X. “All Americans must pray for the recovery of Charlie Kirk and keep the entire UVU community in our hearts while supporting the trauma of this armed violence.”
This is a development story. Consult the updates again.
