SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
A suspect has been arrested in Utah in the killing of Charlie Kirk. He was shot Wednesday during an event at Utah Valley University after answering a student's question about gun violence. At a press conference yesterday, Governor Spencer Cox of Utah said the shooting was more than an attack on one person.
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SPENCER COX: It is an attack on all of us. It is an attack on the American experiment. It is an attack on our ideals.
SIMON: Charlie Kirk's murder and reaction to it has many people fearful about what the future may hold for America and its ideals. Our next guest is the political analyst and host of the "To The Contrary" podcast, Charlie Sykes, who joins us from Milwaukee. Charlie, thank you for being with us.
CHARLIE SYKES: Thank you.
SIMON: You and Charlie Kirk disagreed about a lot, but what were your thoughts when you heard about his shooting?
SYKES: Well, I was shocked and sickened because in this country, we do not use violence to counter ideas with which we disagree. And as you mentioned, you know, Charlie Kirk and I were on very opposite ends of the political spectrum, but he was a human being. He was a father. He was a husband, and this should never have happened. I was sickened by it.
SIMON: You talked about Charlie Kirk on your podcast just a couple of weeks ago. How do you think he became so influential politically?
SYKES: Well, Charlie Kirk, it is very difficult to overstate his importance for moving Gen Z voters to the right. He organized on college campuses. He was out there. He was debating. He was willing to engage other people. But also, he used the new environment of social media, used those algorithms to build a massive audience. And, you know, unfortunately, that included making incendiary and often, you know, deeply offensive comments. But that's the sort of politics that is increasingly incentivized and rewarded on social media today.
SIMON: The last few years, apparently Charlie Kirk and his organization, Turning Point, had run into a kind of rivalry with extremist Nick Fuentes. What did - effect do you think that had?
SYKES: Well, we don't know. I mean, there's a lot of speculation out there, and I think that we need to be cautious about all of this. But yes, one of the great rivalries on the right was with the so-called Groypers who follow Nick Fuentes, who is a white supremacist. And this rivalry had been rising. In fact, on the podcast a few weeks ago, I discussed, you know, how this will play out on college campuses - the Nick Fuentes versus Charlie Kirk rivalry - as the political spectrum moves more extreme and further to the right. But, again, it is too early to say whether that is what we're talking about here with the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
SIMON: The polarization of our politics seemed to be on full display within really minutes of the shooting. Many condemned the act, including many who disagreed with Charlie Kirk. Others suggested that some of Charlie Kirk's own words had somehow provoked his shooting. Here are words from President Trump.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.
SIMON: What do you make of the president's reaction? Did he make a fair point?
SYKES: The president could have assumed the role of comforter in chief. Instead, Donald Trump chose to be the inciter in chief, the divider in chief. And, of course, we don't know what the motivation of the shooter was. What's really troubling, though, is the way that he is really feeding this sense of anger and vengeance out there and raises the question of whether or not this will be weaponized, whether we will see the federal government use its power to go after people who engage in speech that Donald Trump and his MAGA supporters don't agree with, which, of course, is deeply ironic considering that Charlie Kirk defended much of what he did and said, you know, because it was an act of free speech. So what the president is saying, I mean, when you have the inflamer in chief sitting in the Oval Office with the biggest megaphone of all, it's deeply troubling.
SIMON: Does each side seem to keep their own accounting about acts of political violence that don't account for the others?
SYKES: That's one of the extraordinary things we've seen over the last three days, is that people on the right will argue that it's only people on the left who engage in political violence, while people on the left say it's only a right-wing phenomenon. The reality is that we have seen attacks on Republicans. We've seen attacks on liberal Democrats. We've seen an attacks on Black people, on gay people. We've seen attacks on the CDC, on Governor Josh Shapiro, Gretchen Whitmer, Nancy Pelosi and her husband. You know, this has become a real contagion in American culture. But it is interesting how everybody has retreated into their own bubble and said the problem only exists on the other side, and we're not going to fix it until I think we get beyond that.
SIMON: Can it be stopped?
SYKES: This is the question because there are too many incitements. I mean, there are too many incentives for incitement and too much momentum and too much ideological investment in this kind of division. So I'm hopeful but not necessarily optimistic.
SIMON: Charlie Sykes, who writes the To The Contrary newsletter on Substack. Thanks so much for being with us.
SYKES: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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