Former President Barack Obama delivered a sharp critique of Charlie Kirk in remarks that drew applause from the audience at an event in Erie, Pennsylvania. Speaking at the Jefferson Educational Society just days after Kirk’s assassination in Utah, Obama began by criticizing what he claimed as premature attempts to weaponize the tragedy for political ends.
“Coming from the White House and some of the other positions of authority that suggest, even before we had determined who the perpetrator of this evil act was, that somehow we’re going to identify an enemy, we’re gonna suggest that somehow that enemy was at fault, and we are then going to use that as a rationale for trying to silence discussion around who we are as a country and what direction we should go. And that’s a mistake as well,” Obama said.
While expressing sympathy for Kirk’s wife and two young children, Obama made clear that he took issue with much of Kirk’s worldview.
“Look, obviously I didn’t know Charlie Kirk. I was generally aware of some of his ideas. I think those ideas were wrong. But that doesn’t negate the fact that what happened was a tragedy and that I mourn for him and his family,” Obama added.
From there, the former president went point by point through several of Kirk’s public statements, taking aim at his conservative stances. Obama went on, “I can disagree with some of the broader suggestions that liberals and Democrats are promoting conspiracy to displace whites and replace them by ushering in illegal immigrants.”
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The crowd responded with clapping at several points during this section. Obama framed his comments as part of a broader argument for civil but robust debate.
“Those are all topics that we have to be able to discuss honestly and forthrightly, while we still insist that in that process of debate, we respect other people’s right to say things that we profoundly disagree with,” he continued.
Obama also praised Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, calling him “a self-professed conservative Republican” who has shown “that it is possible for us to disagree while abiding by a basic code of how we should engage in public debate.” The former president drew comparisons to his own time in office, pointing to how President George W. Bush responded after the September 11th attacks.
“After 9/11, the most horrific thing to happen to the United States during the course of my lifetime, in my memory, in the aftermath of this terrible tragedy, [Bush] made a point, we are going to go after the people who perpetrated this, but he explicitly went out of his way to say, we are not at war against Islam.”
But Obama reserved his sharpest criticism for the Trump administration.
“When I hear not just our current president, but his aides, who have a history of calling political opponents vermin, enemies who need to be targeted — that speaks to a broader problem that we have right now.”
Obama warned that such rhetoric from those in power was corrosive and dangerous.
“We have to recognize that on both sides, undoubtedly, there are people who are extremists and who say things that are contrary to what I believe are America’s core values. But I will say that those extreme views were not in my White House. I wasn’t embracing them. I wasn’t empowering them. I wasn’t putting the weight of the United States government behind extremist views. And that is when we have the weight of the United States government behind extremist views, we’ve got a problem.”
Obama characterized the country as being at a “point of inflection,” warning that how America responds to political violence and heated rhetoric will shape its future. He argued that while citizens must extend grace to Kirk’s family and supporters, they should also resist the temptation to allow political leaders to exploit the tragedy.
