{"id":2530,"date":"2025-09-19T00:19:56","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T00:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/?p=2530"},"modified":"2025-09-19T00:19:58","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T00:19:58","slug":"watch-obama-says-charlie-kirk-was-wrong-crowd-claps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/?p=2530","title":{"rendered":"WATCH: Obama Says Charlie Kirk Was \u2018Wrong,\u2019 Crowd Claps"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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\u2019s assassination in Utah, Obama began by criticizing what he claimed as premature attempts to weaponize the tragedy for political ends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cComing 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\u2019re going to identify an enemy, we\u2019re 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\u2019s a mistake as well,\u201d Obama said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While expressing sympathy for Kirk\u2019s wife and two young children, Obama made clear that he took issue with much of Kirk\u2019s worldview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLook, obviously I didn\u2019t know Charlie Kirk. I was generally aware of some of his ideas. I think those ideas were wrong. But that doesn\u2019t negate the fact that what happened was a tragedy and that I mourn for him and his family,\u201d Obama added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From there, the former president went point by point through several of Kirk\u2019s public statements, taking aim at his conservative stances. Obama went on, \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also Read : JUST IN: Four RINOs Block Ilhan Omar\u2019s Censure<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThose 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\u2019s right to say things that we profoundly disagree with,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obama also praised Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, calling him \u201ca self-professed conservative Republican\u201d who has shown \u201cthat it is possible for us to disagree while abiding by a basic code of how we should engage in public debate.\u201d The former president drew comparisons to his own time in office, pointing to how President George W. Bush responded after the September 11th attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Obama reserved his sharpest criticism for the Trump administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen 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 \u2014 that speaks to a broader problem that we have right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obama warned that such rhetoric from those in power was corrosive and dangerous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe 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\u2019s core values. But I will say that those extreme views were not in my White House. I wasn\u2019t embracing them. I wasn\u2019t empowering them. I wasn\u2019t 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\u2019ve got a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obama characterized the country as being at a \u201cpoint of inflection,\u201d 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\u2019s family and supporters, they should also resist the temptation to allow political leaders to exploit the tragedy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former President Barack Obama delivered a sharp critique of Charlie Kirk in remarks that drew applause from the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2530"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2532,"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530\/revisions\/2532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}