This Time Feels Different

From the heart of our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., backed by the trusted voices of Team Fox, a clear, fresh voice cutting through the noise to tell the truth. It's Guy Benson with Guy Benson. It is Thursday, September 11th, 2025. I'm Guy Benson. Welcome to Guy Benson, where we are together for the next three hours, between 3 and 6 p.m. Eastern Time, and then around the clock for free on our podcast at Guy Benson.com or Fox Newspodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm the political editor at townhall.com and a Fox News contributor. Our lineup today is as follows. Riley Games will be here this hour. A very close friend and colleague of Charlie Kirk, who was killed yesterday in a political assassination. In our next hour, U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, he will join us, also someone who knew Charlie well. Byron York will be our guest also in the middle hour talking about a few other items in the news. And then former New York Governor George Pataki. who was the chief executive of New York State on 9-11, 2001, he will be here with his reflections on that terrible day and some of the other developments that we're grappling with in our country right now as well. That's all ahead on today's Guy Benson's show. And if I maybe sound a little somber or down, it's because I am. If I maybe seem a little tired, it's because I am. Didn't sleep very well last night. I don't think many of us did, honestly. There are a few things that I want to talk about involving this murder of Charlie Kirk. I want to start by reading a tribute from someone that I did not expect to be reading aloud on the show today. At the New York Times, a lefty opinion writer named Ezra Klein. published, I think, a very thoughtful piece, an op-ad or column about Charlie Kirk. And I think Ezra Klein generally is a pretty smart guy. I have huge differences of opinion with him on most issues, I would say. Not typically someone who is reading Ezra Klein's work or quoting it on the air, but I think this is really worthwhile. Here's an excerpt of that column. which was entitled Charlie Kirk was practicing politics the right way. Ezra Klein writes, you can dislike much of what Kirk believed, and the following statement is still true. Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way. He was showing up to campuses, talking with anyone who would talk to him. He was one of the era's most effective practitioners of persuasion. When the left thought its hold on the hearts and minds of college students was nearly absolute, Kirk showed up again and again to break it. Slowly, then all at once, he did. College-age voters shifted sharply right in the 2024 election. That was not all Kirk's doing, but he was central in laying the groundwork for it.

I did not know Kirk, and I am not the right person to eulogize him. But I envied what he built. A taste for disagreement is a virtue in a democracy. Liberalism could use more of his moxie and fearlessness. In the inaugural episode of his podcast, Governor Gavin Newsom of California hosted Kirk, admitting that his own son was a huge fan. What a testament to Kirk's project. Turk and I were on different sides of most political arguments. We were on the same side on the continued possibility of American politics. It is supposed to be an argument, not a war. It is supposed to be one with words, not ended through bullets. I wanted Kirk to be safe for his sake, but I also wanted him to be safe for mine. And for the sake of our larger shared project. And then he lists a number of victims of political violence in recent years, including the governor of Pennsylvania, the president of the United States, the husband of Nancy Pelosi. And he writes, we are all safe or none of us are. So that was Ezra Klein's reflection on what happened. And I think it is really important to drive home the message that, yeah, Charlie Kirk was fearless and he was doing politics the right way through civil, if sometimes aggressive engagement, going all around the country and... showing and exhibiting a willingness, even an eagerness to debate all comers and to try to move the conversation and to change hearts and minds. We talk about that term all the time, that cliche in politics. Charlie was doing it and he was slowly moving the ship onto a new course. When it comes to younger generations of America, I think for a dyed in the wool, lefty Democrat to concede that Charlie Kirk was not only doing politics the right way, but was one of the most effective practitioners of persuasion in the country, I think that is a very high compliment. And I think it is also absolutely true.

I have been, and I don't want to overstate it, and I was mentioning this earlier, I was on Will Kane's podcast, and we were reflecting on this together. I don't want to overstate it, but something close to an inundation. I have received so many texts and emails and messages. from people stretching way back in my life and including many strangers whom I've never met including some people in this audience and I'll talk about that at the end of the show today I think but people coming out of the woodwork you know more distant extended family members friends from much earlier in my life friends of friends reaching out people you know I hadn't really thought of or heard from in quite some time This incident, this atrocity yesterday has stirred something. It feels different. I can't quite explain it. I can't quite diagnose it fully. I'm still trying to process what happened. I'm still trying to settle in this awful reality that Charlie is actually gone. My analytical side isn't really prepared yet to think about what this means necessarily, but I am observing a phenomenon that I don't think I've ever experienced before. And it's not like there haven't been really big political and news events over these last, let's say, 10 years or even going back to the beginning of my career in 2007, 2008. There have been many, huge events. I think back to last summer when President Trump was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, and I was on the air on Fox News Channel very shortly thereafter because I was already in Milwaukee for the RNC. There were a lot of people tuned into that terrifying story, of course. And I did hear from a lot of people that day, but the number of reachouts then versus these last 24 hours, it's dwarfed by the reaction to what happened yesterday. And I think part of it is that, as awful as it is, assassination attempts and plots against political leaders is a tale as old as time. Right. Humanity has fallen. The dynamics of power lead to this, and it must be rejected, of course, and guarded against. It's why we have the Secret Service protection for our president and details for other people who have significant power. I mean, that's... part of the system. It is somewhat expected that there are people who want to or might try to harm or kill powerful elected or government officials. It's terrible. I'm not saying that it should be accepted in any way, but we take steps to protect our officials for that reason. So when someone took the shot at Trump and it was a scandal that he was able to get the shots off, you know, we've talked about that at nauseam.

And thank God Trump was not severely hurt. He almost was, but he wasn't. And he popped right back up with that moment of defiance and that gesture, fist pumping into the air, urging his supporters to fight. People then knew almost in that instant. It was touch and go there for a moment, but you had a sense he was going to be okay. So a near assassination is not the same as an assassination where the target is gone, which is the case here. So I think the fact that Trump survived it is part of it. I also think part of the difference here is Charlie Kirk was a private citizen. He was a public figure. He was very much involved in the political world. the partisan and ideological battles and spiritual battles that are out there. He participated enthusiastically with gusto as frequently as possible. But he was still a private citizen, not a political figure, not an elected official, no authorities or powers connected to his position as an activist and a media figure and a movement leader. You don't really imagine that you would need someone on the lookout for snipers or assassins at an outdoor event on a college campus with someone who is there to speak his mind and to engage with people and have a debate. That type of person shouldn't need that level of protection. The fact that someone killed Charlie... For his beliefs, almost certainly, and I would just note that the Wall Street Journal has reported today that the bullets that were found with the rifle that authorities believe was used in the shooting, the bullets had etchings on them. This is according to the Wall Street Journal, has not been independently verified yet. etchings with slogans or words related to, in their description, transgender and quote-unquote anti-fascist ideology. If that journal reporting is borne out, that, of course, would be another major clue toward a motive, a political motive here. Charlie Kirk was holding a microphone debating people taking questions, and he was killed almost certainly for it. while he was literally doing it. And I think that is so disturbing to so many people that it has opened the floodgates of people reacting. And I'm just giving you this one anecdotal data point, which is what I've heard from people. And I just have a feeling that many of you are sensing the same thing. This one feels unique and different in some way. I'm not sure where it goes. I'm not sure how that gets channeled. I think there are probably healthy and unhealthy ways to channel a lot of the emotions that many of us are feeling, but they are out there and they are intense and acute right now in a way that I have not felt before.

And I just wanted to acknowledge that, not with any tidy explanation for what I think it means and what happens next, because I really don't know. I want to be humble about that. I'm also just telling you the truth. If I had some reasonable working theory that I thought was meaningful and worthwhile, I would share it with you. I'm just right now relaying what I'm seeing. relaying what I'm feeling. And if I'm right, and if you agree, and if you're also getting this this real sense that this feels different, some sort of watershed or inflection point moment, I know some people are referring to it deliberately as a turning point, which is an homage to the... behemoth in American politics that Charlie built from the ground up, from his parents' house in Illinois into this huge phenomenon. If that's what we're experiencing, I hope that we collectively can be part of and participate in the channeling of these emotions and convictions. and anxiety is this whole ball of emotion that we're feeling. I hope we can collectively channel it and direct it into something that is good, something that is positive, something that is befitting the legacy of Charlie, something that he would be gratified to see as opposed to the opposite. And I know that that sounds and feels vague and nebulous, not concrete yet. And I recognize that, and I apologize. But right now, that's what I've got. That's what I've got. We're just getting started. It's Thursday on Guy Benson. We've got a great lineup. We're going to hear from one of Charlie's very close friends later on this hour in Riley Gaines. I hope you will stay tuned. We'll be right back. Always fresh, always fair. Guy Benson. Cheers to America's 250th birthday. Get 20% up your first purchase at Fox Newswineshop.com with code FNRadio 20. 20% discount excludes wine club offers and cannot be combined with any other promotion. Expires July 31st, 2026. Must be 21 order to order. Please drink responsibly. I'm Guy Benson. We're back. I saw a story from NBC News that said lawmakers are canceling public events and beefing up security after Charlie Kirk assassination. Look, I'm all for lawmakers taking their security seriously. We've seen various attacks in recent years. I think back to the congressional baseball shooting and that mass assassination attempt. I think that is prudent to be security conscious. And that applies to people in public life who are out giving speeches and that sort of thing, and I'm one of them. I will say that canceling events, I think, is the wrong move. We can't start altering our lives, canceling events because of what happened.

I don't think, and I don't want to speak for him, and I won't try to. But knowing what I know about Charlie, personally and just publicly, he was such a believer in engagement and showing up. He did it over and over and over again. It was professionally his life, really. And I don't think he would want people to... retreat from the public sphere or from the arena. That's the opposite of what he did. So I think we can be smart and think about security considerations and all of that. That's definitely something on my mind for all sorts of reasons. But I got a note from a friend because I've got an upcoming public event or two saying, hey, are you still doing this? That's actually one of my friends in Chicago, the October 2nd event with WLS. who's planning to come, like, are you still doing this? And my response was, hell yes. Of course I'm going to still go. Be cognizant, be aware, be vigilant, it's sad that we have to think about these things we do, but we have to keep going. Right? You don't, you don't recede. You don't shrink away from speech. You do more of it. I'd like to get on more campuses, as a matter of fact. That's part of my process here. We'll be right back. America is listening to Guy Benson. We're back here together. Thank you for tuning in. It's Guy Benson. We now welcome back to this program, Riley Gaines. She's host of the Gaines for Girls podcast on Outkick. She's a best-selling author and a Turning Point USA contributor. She knew Charlie Kirk very well. Riley, welcome back. It's good to be with you, Guy. I've been watching and listening to all your coverage and the way that you have personally, your guests have described Charlie and the legacy that he leaves is really fantastic. So thank you. Well, I appreciate that. I want you to add to that, if you would. Tell us about... how you got to know Charlie Kirk and how that friendship developed. Well, man, gosh, back in 2022, I myself found I was in a situation swimming in college where there's a man in the pool, just the lane next to me. And let me tell you what, it was Charlie Kirk, which comes as a surprise to literally no one, who was one of the first people to reach out to me. when I was willing to put my name in my face to this issue, one of the first people to reach out and offer support or resources or guidance. He explained anything he could do personally. He told me about Turning Point USA and the machine that they are and how they can support me in this time. And it was from that point on, I mean, as soon as I got involved in this is when I started to develop a friendship.

with Charlie, and really what I would describe as, I mean, a mentorship. He was a mentor to me until, I mean, literally his last day on this earth, if I needed advice for anything and it didn't matter what it was, I mean, I can think of times I would go to him, of course, for political advice or personal advice or relational advice or spiritual advice. Like any time I had a question about scripture or the word, like, I went to Charlie. And so, I mean, this premature death, it just, it still doesn't feel real to me, honestly. Like, I feel guilty for not feeling. you know, tearful, but it's because I think I'm still in total disbelief. I mean, talking in past tense, it doesn't even, it is the most bizarre experience, watching the news, seeing the Chiron that says, you know, looking for Charlie Kirk's assassin. It just hasn't clicked to me that this is real. We can't restart yesterday. We can't just respond like a video game or get a new life. It's so just, it's an overwhelming feeling. I'm overwhelmed with emotions, and I think it begs the question of where do we go from here. And I don't say that rhetorically. I ask that genuinely. Like, we live in a sick... sick society where the truth is so, so hated. How do you combat that? How do you coexist with people who genuinely want to and will? They will kill you for disagreeing with them politically. I mean, it's this past week. I think first it was the news of the beautiful Ukrainian refugee, the innocent law-abiding citizen who lost her life at the hands of a monster, who had been released 14 times prior to be back on the streets to roam and terrorize law-abiding citizens. There was nothing she could have done in that situation. You know, watching the horrific cliffs, there was nothing she could have done to prevent that. And I believe it's the same with Charlie. There are security measures in place, of course. But the end of the day, if you have someone who is so deranged, who is willing to lose their life and they want to kill you, what can you do? There's not a lot you can do to prevent it. And so I'm sick to my stomach over this, but Charlie, I believe his legacy will live far longer than unfortunately he has. Riley, since you mentioned the search for the assassin, I'll just update the audience. The FBI has put out images of this person they believe to be the shooter. They found the gun. I mentioned a Wall Street Journal report about transgender and Antifa ideology etched onto bullets that they have found. That's at least a report in the journal. They have not caught this person yet.

They had arrested two other people's subjects or people of interest and then interrogated and released them and said that they had nothing to do with it. And so at this hour, they're still trying to find whoever did this. And the Manhunt is on. You can look at those images. I retweeted them into my feed. Guy Benson earlier today, the FBI also offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of this individual. Before we get to Charlie's legacy and the question that you posed about where to go from here, for those who didn't know him personally, I knew him a little bit personally. I've known him for a long time back to his mid-high school days, which is sort of hard to believe all those years ago. You got to know him very well and worked with him very closely in more recent years. How would you describe Charlie Kirk the man? Well, first and foremost, let me describe his worldview because it was entirely biblical. The way that Charlie interacted with... It didn't matter if it's the president of the United States, President Trump, or it doesn't matter if you're a 19-year-old sophomore in college. The way that he interacted with you, you knew that he was a Christian because of how he proclaimed the Lord, the interactions he had, how he conducted himself, what mattered most to him. And if you spent any amount of time, you knew what mattered most to him. Of course, number one, it's God. Number two is family. Number three, his country, in that order. And so... that first and foremost, and I think that's, I mean, I watched a clip of him saying that's how he would want to be remembered by, and that is absolutely and entirely how I do remember him. Number two is I want to speak to his work ethic. There is no one I have ever encountered in my entire life, and I say this as, you know, a former elite athlete. There's no one I've ever encountered in my entire life who has, or, gosh, who had the work ethic of Charlie Kirk. This is a man who traveled the world, number one, not just domestically, like you in South Korea, what last week he was at Oxford in the U.K. just a few weeks ago. He understood that the threats that we face as a nation, that they transcend borders. He traveled the world. in cars or in settings where he's listening to audiobooks or podcasts on four times speed guys. Like that's not normal. Like normal humans can't comprehend or understand information. I mean, that much information at one time, but Charlie Kirk could, and he desperately wanted to. He yearned for knowledge. That's why he was so articulate and intelligent on every single topic. Didn't matter what it was, didn't matter what issue, what cultural topic he was talking about. He knew stats. He knew statistics. He knew facts. And that's why they hated them is because he could spout it off. And that's why these proved me wrong tables, truthfully, were so effective.

And I guess that kind of is the last point I want to make is, look, he is the most influential and effective activist that this nation, in my lifetime, the past 25 years on this earth, the most... effective activists that we've seen on either side and they knew that the other side the person who prematurely ended his life knew that again i believe that's that's why they did it they couldn't prove him wrong at the debate table so they knew they just had to to stifle his speech uh at whatever i guess measures necessary Yeah, and some of the really overheated rhetoric is, you know, by all means necessary, right? We've seen that. And some of them really mean it, which is frightening. And we saw that play out yesterday. So Riley, this huge, this institution that he has created from nothing and a movement really that he has created from nothing that is now enormous. This machinery of activism and information and entertainment. It's a lot of different things, has many different facets. It will now continue, but without him, which is really hard to imagine. No one thought he'd be ripped away like this at this point in time or anytime soon as such a young man, father, young kids, all of it. So what do you think needs to come next? Not just for Turning Point, just like the movement generally. What do you think you know him well, knew him well? What do you think he would want? Are you prepared to answer something like that? Because it's a tough question. It is a tough question. But I feel confident in answering, number one, what he would want because, I mean, he spoke to it. I mean, if you ask him, what is your mission, what is the mission of Turning Point? Of course. Number one is to influence people to Christ, to learn of his goodness, his graciousness, his forgiveness, his righteousness, that first and foremost. And I think even if Charlie were still here, and he knew what happened yesterday could influence one person to Christ. I don't think he would have changed, as crazy as it sounds, I don't think he would have changed the outcome of yesterday. So that first and foremost. But secondly, what I think ultimately Charlie, his mission was and the mission of turning point, of course, is to emboldened Gen Z as it is now, the younger generation. And that's exactly what they've done. They've made MAGA cool again. If you ask Charlie what he would like to see. He would tell you, and no problem telling you, he wanted to be able to turn these first-time MAGA voters. So people who went to the polls for the first time, I'm talking 18, 19, 20-year-olds back in November of 2024 and voted for Donald Trump. His goal was to turn these first-time MAGA voters to lifelong conservatives. I have said it before, and I will say it again. I do not think Donald Trump would be president without Charlie Kirk. Like his impact.

to the younger generation and ultimately how that impacted the presidential election, it really cannot be overstated. That is what he would want. So what do we do? I think the person who killed him, the monster, the coward who killed him, didn't think of the consequences because, yeah, maybe they got rid of Charlie Kirk himself. And of course, he as a person is irreplaceable. But what this is going to do is create thousands and thousands of Charlie Kirk's, and that's what we need. For his legacy to live on, we need people to speak boldly. We need them to speak unapologetically, fervently, to put themselves in the belly of the beast. That's what Charlie did so well. He put himself where no one else wanted to go, where people were scared to go, and understandably so. Obviously, my message to everyone is to be vigilant. Do not be stupid. Keep your head on a swivel. Understand there are people who are crazy and who want to take people like you, me, Charlie, anyone who possesses, I mean, what would really be considered default views just a few years ago from really the beginning of time. They want to take us out. So be vigilant, but it's going to take all of us for Charlie's legacy to live on in the way that he would want it to. Riley Gaines, I know this has been a really tough day or two for many people. And you're one of them. I know that. I know firsthand it's hard to. You want to talk and you want to say all these things in words, but you're also not really sure what to say, how to say it, where to go from here, what the concrete steps are. Those are conversations we're going to keep having. But I really appreciate you taking some time to join us today. Thank you very much for that. Well, I appreciate you. Anything I can do, please let me know. Thank you. That's Riley Gaines on Guy Benson. One thing is reacting responsibly and not terribly irresponsibly like some people have. A small word on that coming up. We continue on Guy Benson. If you've been watching the coverage, of what happened yesterday in Utah and the assassination of Charlie Kirk, you've probably run across some things that were aired on MSNBC during their live coverage. Right after it became clear that Charlie had been shot in a very serious way, some of the statements on air at that network were just repulsive and extremely reckless. There's one political analyst named Matthew Dowd. He's been at a few media outlets. He used to be a Republican strategist and has become hardcore left in recent years. He says terrible things regularly. He's famous for flaming people online and just being very mean-spirited and cruel. Not a great person. He blocks everyone that he disagrees with on social media. I think I found out that he had blocked me. I don't know why or when. That's kind of how he is exactly the wrong sort of person to be on the air in a moment like that. But they put him on and he did what he does. He suggested that maybe the shot had been fired in celebration by a Kirk supporter, which is an almost psychotic thing to speculate about. And then he talked about, well, you know, when you have all this hate and you then spew hate speech, then you're going to get.

violence i mean that was basically paraphrasing what he said in victim blaming as if charlie had brought this upon himself that charlie's words debating people sort of like well what are you going to do of course that's going to inspire violence an appalling thing to say also a characteristic thing to say from that individual matthew dowd who has since been fired by msnbc i think it takes a lot And really it should take a lot to get fired for something that you've said. I don't think we should have a terribly low bar for that kind of thing. But this is a pattern of behavior from a man who cannot control his emotions at all and has a very nasty streak that characterizes his political discourse. And this was just a bridge too far even for them. So he's out. I didn't really want to spend too much time talking about that or some of the reactions to what happened to Charlie. In some cases, justifications or celebrations of his murder. It's just so ghoulish. I can't even really comprehend it. We might have more to say about it later. It's just it's so fresh. The loss is so fresh. It's hard to see that and even try to begin to react. in a responsible way to it. I would just say it is not terribly widespread. I think it is still a pretty small fraction of Americans who are willing to go there whose instincts or impulses are to go there. Most of the people that I know who are on the left are mortified and horrified by what happened. That should be the human reaction that we all have. And they're saying it out loud or they're... keeping their thoughts to themselves, but some people are just loud and proud enthusiasts when it comes to the murder of people that they don't like. We saw this with the health care CEO assassinated in Cold Blood in New York and the whole online cheering section for the accused killer, and we are seeing it here again. And the depths of that depravity is something... that I truly cannot understand or relate to. I don't want to understand it or relate to it, but it's there. And I don't think we should amplify it to the point where we say, oh, look, this is how the left is responding. That's not true. It's how some people on the left are responding. But for those on the left who aren't like that, I think they have to self-police and call out and ostracize this. kind of behavior. It must be toxic and taboo. We can't have a permission structure. You might not be the person carrying out the violence, but if you're creating a permission structure for violence, incentivizing it and praising it and justifying it, that is a huge problem. We can't have that. We cannot have that in our society. It's disgusting, and it can also be dangerous. And I think the vast majority of us from across the spectrum can agree on that and can link arms on that and draw that line and enforce that line. It matters. A new hour of Guy Benson coming up next. Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma will be our guest when we come back.

A new generation of conservative talk. Right here, right now. Fair, fun, and backed by the trusted voices and reporting resources of Fox News. Fox News. You're listening to Guy Benson. And now here's your host, Guy Benson. It's a brand new hour here on Guy Benson, our middle hour of three on this Thursday. Thank you so much for tuning in and for joining us. Guy Benson.com is our online home. Lots of content there, including the free podcast every day on demand. Guy Benson.com or Fox Newspodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Joining us now is Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin. a Republican. Senator, welcome to the show. Thanks, brother. Thanks for having me on. I know that you were close with Charlie Kirk and had many interactions with him. I think even people who were not close with Charlie are really reeling today for all the obvious reasons. For some, it is more personal than others. Tell us about how you knew Charlie. You know, um... It is a personal day, and I, yes, Charlie and I, we got to know each other very well through the campaigns and through, you know, the presidential campaign and 47 while we was campaigning for President Trump. But the hardest thing for me to deal with, yes, I've lost a friend, but the hardest thing for me to deal with is seeing. Erica and those kids right now in the pictures. I mean, here Charlie was a guy that he wasn't a lawmaker. He wasn't elected in any office. He didn't make laws and he didn't threaten anybody. He talked about his Christian beliefs and he debated you from a biblical perspective or from a political perspective. He didn't belittle you. In fact, he went into your own backyard and gave you an opportunity to debate him. with honestly loving arms and you would think a safe environment because he's coming to you. And someone hated his voice and his Christian values and his political view so bad that they stole the voice of a dad to two beautiful kids. They stole Erica's love. And robbed the rest of us from a friend because why? You can't say he was threatening to you because why? Because you simply just agreed with a guy that literally gave you the platform to voice your opinion. And that's the hardest thing for me to get over. Guy, I have experienced a lot of death in my life. And for the most part, we all knew what we were signing up for. And sometimes even in death, you can find dark humor. In this situation, this was senseless. And I was talking to my wife just a while ago, and I said, this hurts. Like this hurts. Not like the other deaths. This hurts because of how senseless it was.

How do you think people should respond to this? Because I've heard from a lot of folks who feel all sorts of different emotions, one of which is helplessness. They feel like they want to do something. They want to somehow make this better or make some kind of impact and react, but they just are at a loss for what that is. Do you have any thoughts on that yet? Because it feels so early, and I don't really know how to advise people beyond praying for Charlie's family. Maybe it's too soon to talk about concrete steps and actions, but as people are feeling this sense of, I need to say something, I need to do something, how do you interpret that? What would you recommend? Well, I don't think that I'm making a comparison here, but I kind of am, but I'm not making a comparison to the person, okay? Charlie was on this earth for a very short time, and he made such an impact, and he did not hide from his Christian belief and his love for Jesus Christ, and I believe that the spirit knew he had a short time because he made such a impact in 31 years. And another person that made a heavy impact like that that started a whole movement was a guy named Jesus Christ, and his disciples carried on what he started. And I'm not comparing Charlie to Jesus. I'm not saying that, and Charlie wouldn't want that. But if people want to know what they do, is they carry on the message that Charlie started. Charlie started going to campuses and having conversations, not threatening conversations, not even, he never shouted at anybody. A lot of people shouted at him, but the loudest he would ever get is get that person out here, get that person out here because they were being irrational at that point. And I say, you can't argue with crazy. And Charlie sometimes had to recognize that. But if someone had to have an open dialogue, he had an actual conversation with him, and we need to do that. He stood up for Christian values, and sometimes as Christians, and I'm not saying I'm a great Christian. I'm not saying that I'm this holy individual. I tell everyone I'm one mistake away from being exposed to the hypocrite that I am. But he stood up for Christian values when Christian values were under attack going to those campuses, and we need to understand the fight he was in. And so we need to make sure. we take our campuses back, not by force, by still keeping that voice up, not allowing anybody to silence it. Like what we saw with the Palestine movement and our Jewish friends that were silenced and people weren't standing up for them because we allowed a minority voice to go in and overtake campuses. were Christians at that point should have stood up, not in a violence way, but in an opposition way that we can agree to disagree, but we will stand in a line of violence from those that you're trying to oppress. Charlie was willing to do that through conversation, and revivals take off all the time when something tragic happens. What we need to do is we need to...

take our Christian values back on our campuses and not be afraid of it. We need to stand up, and those individuals that say they're threatened by the Christian flag, they need to realize we're not the ones killing you. We're not the ones attacking you at your churches. We're not the ones attacking you at your schools. We're not the ones assassinating the opposite viewpoint. We can have a dialogue and we can agree to disagree, but we're not going to allow you to bully us around, and we're going to do it through loving nights. I tell people every day I wake up and say, love the people, love the call. Today I've been repeating that to myself, guy, a hundred times. That's been my motto since 2016. And today's been a hard day, not just because of Charlie, because of it also being 9-11. And it's just kind of a heavy day. But Charlie said an example for us that we can all. that we can all follow. We didn't have to create the will. He created the will. We just got to get on it and learn how to continue to push it. And that's what we can do. We can not allow his voice to be silenced. In fact, we can speak louder because it's not just Charlie then. It's everybody that respected and followed and understood what he was doing. How do we check our own emotions and the tendency toward hatred? You see, and I still think it is relatively a fringe, but you do see a fair amount of justification of his murder out there on social media. And from people who posted openly, like you're seeing all these school employees, for example, across the country being exposed to doing this sort of thing, snarking about it, in some cases, celebrating about it. It's hard not to have hate. creep into your own heart when you see people who hate us so much that they are happy to see us die. And I just want to make sure that the hatred doesn't ramp up in this unhealthy way where we're now meeting hate with hate and it gets worse. But it's also very difficult to control some of those impulses when you see that. evil depravity and it's hard to understand how we can have a flourishing pluralistic society when there are enough people who are willing to advertise their delight in a murder like this. So here's the way I would answer that. One, hate corrupts the soul instills the error out of your lungs. And an example of this is when all the training that I went through in my life and another part of my life, plus the professional fighting and even wrestling at high levels, if I could make whoever I was fighting against or my opponent angry, I won. Because...

Hate leads to anger. And when you're fighting out of hate, you're responding out of hate, you're responding out of hate, you're responding out of anger too. You lose your mind and therefore you lose the fight. Guarantee. If I could get into my opponent's head. that I won every single time. So if you allow hate to enter and drive you, you allow anger to enter and drive you, you will lose. You might win a couple of fights, but you're going to lose the war, I promise you. So you've got to control your emotions. which is what Charlie did. Yes. He was one of the best that controls emotions, and he articulated his message well. Now, I'm not the Christian that turns the other cheek. There are videos of me that's obvious not the case. I do know where the line is drawled, and I will stand my ground hard. And I won't be the first one to... I won't be the first one to move to violence, but I'll respond to violence if I must. This isn't something that we've got to respond to. What I'm saying is we don't have to run away from it. We can protect ourselves and protect the loved ones around us. But we don't need to go, we don't need to go hunting for trouble. We need to be looking for solutions. And that's what Charlie did. He changed the movement in the direction of campuses. When he first started having these debates, when he was really 18 years old, he was. He had small crowds and only people that would shout at him. By the time his life ended, he was having huge crowds, thousands of people coming out that supported him on these same campuses that was just a short time ago. Including yesterday. Yeah, including yesterday. But what I'm saying is just a short time ago when he first started this movement, no one dare would show up. He was bold enough and brave enough to literally walk in. to the opposing side. I want to call the enemy's camp. Some people call that, but he literally walked into the opposing side's backyard and sat down and had a conversation with him. In my world, that's what we call the dude had balls. No, he was fearless. That's one of the words that I think absolutely applies to him. And he did have a twinkle in his eye, and he enjoyed being in the arena. He genuinely reveled in it. and that's how he built the following that you're talking about. The last question I have for you on this subject, Senator, is any advice, and you've sort of touched on this, so I don't want to ask you to repeat yourself, but specifically tailoring your advice to the young fans of Charlie Kirk, and he had legions of them. He built that following and that movement, and especially young men.

Kids in high school, college, early 20s, a lot of people decide to get politically involved and landed on the political right because of Charlie. And I think they are angry and hurting today specifically. Someone that they greatly admired has been taken from them. Do you have any words or counsel? for the young people, maybe young men in particular, who are really having a very difficult time with this? Charlie gave you a voice. He was the backbone of this movement. Don't let it be silenced. Charlie's voice was silenced because someone took it away from us. If you allow your voice to be silenced, it's because you chose it. So keep the movement going. Control your environment. Control your backyard. Control your campus. Control your community. Control your school. You had the power and the ability to do that. And if we can do that, then this can go to completely different levels. This can go places that Charlie never envisioned it to go. And he was a pretty big dreamer. He had big ideas and thought way down the road. But what someone intended for evil, we can turn into greatness. And it's becoming all of us to do that. Make it worthy of him. Make it constructive and good. This can turn in a bad way. It can turn in a better way. and be part of the better way. I'm echoing your sentiment on that, certainly, Senator. When we come back, I do want to turn to politics. There are things happening in the U.S. Senate. Let's get to that after this short break. Miss a minute. Miss a lot. Guy Benson.

Our guest here on Guy Benson is Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma. I want to talk about the U.S. Senate here for a moment. We've seen some truly unprecedented obstruction from the Democrats in the Senate over the last several months. You're relatively new to that body, but going way back, we haven't seen these tactics ever employed to this extent against presidential nominees. And I know that the Republican side has been fed up with it. I know that John Thune had said, if you keep doing this, we're going to go, quote-unquote, nuclear. And now that process is underway. Can you explain what's been going on in the Senate and why Republicans are taking action to change some of the rules and what that will mean? Yeah, so traditionally outside of the cabinet and judges, we would confirm 98%, well over 98% of the president's nominees. So these are people that are doing statistics at NASA. They're the director, the director, the director for what type of tires we're going to use on jets. I mean, I'm just saying that they were people that we shouldn't even be confirming that no one would even know they were there. Traditionally, well over 90% would be confirmed by voice vote or by unanimous consent, and they would be put in blocks. So we would vote on 50 or 60 or 100 of them at a time because we literally have over 1,400 nominees we have to do, including ambassadors. And so I'll just go back to Bush 41. of his non-cabinet members and judicial nitpicks, what we use the word civilian noms. Civilian noms, 98% was confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent in blocks. Clinton, same way. Bush 43, same way. Obama, it dropped to 90%. Trump 45, it was at 65%. And Biden, it was 57%. This is the first time in the history of the United States that not one single nominee has been allowed to go through by voice vote or unanimous consent, and none of them have been able to go through on block. The Democrats have literally Chuck Schumer has literally filibustered every single person, which is preventing the president who is duly elected. by the great people of the United States of America because they chose to go with him. Right. It's like an across-the-board, like knee-jerk obstruction of all of it. And so the rule change will allow you guys, if I'm not mistaken, to confirm them in groups, in blocks, and it would require a 60-vote threshold to block them, right? So it's a simple majority. rule is that correct no we restore the norm back and it would take a 51 vote uh vote to confirm them in block so the norm was we would do it in blocks we're just restoring the norm by having a rule change so yes and these would be non-cabinet and non-judicial picks okay and we're just traditional the traditional way that the senate has always done it

We're just restoring the norms, which the media is saying we're going nuclear. We didn't go nuclear. Junk Chuck Schumer went nuclear. by doing what he's doing, we're responding it and trying to restore the norms and the standards back to the Senate body. Yep. And when Democrats escalate, there are responses, and you have to populate an administration. It's crazy what they've been doing. And this is a corrective action that, unfortunately, I think, is necessary. I wish it were not. Oklahoma Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin, our guest on Guy Benson. Senator, thank you for your time today. Thank you, sir. More of Guy Benson coming up. Guy Benson, sponsored by Previgin. Previgin, made for your brain. With us now is Byron York, chief political correspondent at the Washington Examiner and a Fox News contributor. You can follow him on social as I do at Byron York. Byron, welcome back. Hi, Guy. Good to be here. All right. So Kamala Harris, the failed Democratic nominee for president, who was the replacement nominee, of course, last year. She's coming out with this book about The turbulent time around Joe Biden being thrown overboard by her party and then she was thrust into the main role and then she lost to Donald Trump. And she is going after Biden and his team. The recriminations are very much underway. Here is part of what she writes. This is in a leaked excerpt that's now being reported. Of all the people in the White House, I was in the worst position to make the case that he, meaning Biden, should drop out. I knew it would come off to him as incredibly self-serving if I advised him not to run. He would see it as naked ambition, perhaps as poisonous as disloyalty, even if my only message was, don't let the other guy win. It's Joe and Jill's decision. We all said that, like a mantra, as if we'd all been hypnotized. Was it grace or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness. The stakes were simply too high. It should have been more than a personal decision. So let's start there. Kamala Harris is saying a lot of us thought that he shouldn't run, but we held our tongues. What a mistake. Here we go. The food fight is really starting in earnest. Yes, and this book is, it's called 107 Days, and it's specifically devoted to her short and unhappy campaign for president. So I suspect there's going to be more than that in the rest of the book. The rest of the excerpt is really quite interesting because it's just resentment after resentment against the Biden team. And the theme of each one is that I, Kamala Harris, was doing a great job on this or a great job on that, and they wouldn't highlight what I was doing. They wouldn't talk about what I was doing. They wouldn't defend me when the right wing attacked me. And, oh, poor, pitiful me. I mean, it's really kind of an interesting exercise.

in just seeing all of her resentments come out. Grievances and self-pity and delusion. I mean, she all, obviously, she's writing this from her own perspective. She thinks she is helping her historical legacy, I guess, here and maybe setting herself up for whatever comes next politically. I'm not sure it reads that way. You know, there's one part that is just wonderful, which is, you know, the reports that Biden had made her the border czar. Okay, and she said, I wasn't the border czar, and they should have clarified. And, of course, her job, she said, really was to work on the root causes of... of all of this illegal immigration and the influx over the border. And she brazes herself and says, you know, I got these sort of grants for this country and I got more money for this, for that country, and I was having real success. But Biden wouldn't talk about it. And you think to yourself, now, what was the? What was the purpose of going down there and doing it? It was, I think, a misbegotten exercise, in my opinion. But what was the purpose? The purpose was to have fewer people crossing illegally into the United States. It wasn't to just pop a certain amount of money into Guatemala. The idea was to have fewer people coming into the United States illegally. No, no, it's actually so telling Byron that in her mind, the success metric. was given U.S. taxpayer dollars to foreign governments and not achieving anything. It was the delivery of our money to them. That was the good. And she's like, well, why wasn't I getting my praises sung for that? Yes, that was. And by the way, you've heard the phrase irregular migration. It was her job to work on irregular migration, which is her term for this mass influx of illegal border crosses. So you're absolutely right. The metric was how many tax dollars can we pour into this area as opposed to how many people can we stop from crossing into the United States illegally? On this gaslighting effort here, and we saw it during the campaign as well, because Byron, let's just be crystal clear. Kamala Harris was the border czar under the Biden administration. It wasn't just root causes in a few countries. It was broadly explained and reported at the time as a border czar role. And that was widely understood until everyone on the left and the press realized, okay, well, we've been saying borders are. We've been reporting it because obviously it was the job. But now she's the nominee. And the problem is a complete debacle. It's gotten worse. So we can't have her be the borders are because that's a failure. Let's try to say that she wasn't the borders are. I mean, it's just so nakedly, obviously political to try to redefine what the role was very late in the game. And we talked about it extensively here at the time. You could go.

Another excerpt from the book where she's talking about she gave a tough speech on Israel, which is, of course, the base really wanted Biden to basically take Hamas's side as much as possible. And she was trying to channel that because that's what her side wanted. And she was very upset because she gave what she thought was a really amazing speech. And then she was chided for it. This is going back to the undermining narrative. Oh, like everyone was out to get me. The Biden people hung me out to dry. It's their fault. Quoting now, I called on Israel for greater access to aid. It was a speech that had been vetted and approved by the White House and the National Security Council. It went viral. and the west wing was displeased i was castigated for apparently delivering it too well their thinking was zero sum if she's shining he's dimmed none of them grasped that if i did well he did well that given the concerns about his age my visible success as his vice-president was vital we could serve as a testament To his judgment in choosing me and reassurance that if something happened, the country was in good hands, my success was important for him. But at least her theory of the case is if she did anything well, they were angry at her because she was just too good, Byron, just too talented. And that was bad for Joe Biden. That might be partially true, but it is wild to read from her that it's all, all, all, all someone else's fault. And she said, you know, especially because he was so old, they really should have celebrated and spotlighted me. And we should say one, I guess one final point from all this is that she doesn't go there and say that Biden was incapacitated. She said simply that he got tired. At age 81, he got tired. He was smarter and he had more experienced and wisdom and compassion than Donald Trump could ever hope to have. But at 81 years old, he did get tired. So she doesn't go there in terms of talking about whether the president was literally not capable of service. That is a rewriting of history unto itself as well. Absolutely. Absolutely. But she has to stick with this story. And you and I've discussed this before. Democrats simply come out, can't come out and say, you know, we were either lying or we didn't know what we were talking about when we said that Biden was sharp as attack and perfectly capable of serving his president. It just wasn't true. Byron York, standby. When we come back, I want to talk about D.C. crime, some developments there. Byron York, our guest on Guy Benson, we'll be right back. A fresh perspective on the topics of the day. It's Guy Benson. It's Guy Benson. We're back with Byron York. Byron, I want to turn to Washington, D.C. crime here at Fox News, we got some information passed along from a White House official. I'll just read some of these bullet points. The whole of government effort to improve public safety is in compliance with the President's March Executive Order, establishing the Making D.C. safe and beautiful task force. The details provided are subject to change to meet law enforcement needs as the operation continues. The results since August the 7th include 2,310 total arrests that have been made since the start of the operation that Thursday.

20 known gang members have been arrested, including MS-13 and TDA. Seven missing children have been rescued. 225 firearms have been seized. To date, 50 homeless encampments have been cleared by multi-agency teams. Last night alone, there were a total of 133 arrests. Of those 133, 30 were of illegal aliens, many of whom were arrested with prior criminal histories, including felony assault. battery on a law enforcement officer, false identity, identity theft, DUI, hit and run, soliciting prostitution, and simple assault. Then they go through some of the other arrests. More firearms were seized. There were over 3,200 participants from 22 agencies in last night's operations. So that is on the D.C. side of things. Mayor Bowser, as we pointed out multiple times, actually seems fairly sensible about this. She's looking at the massively reduced crime and the arrest of dangerous people, and she's not reflexively opposing it. But she kind of feels like a lonely voice in her party on that front. Absolutely. And first of all, doing this in Washington, D.C. is where the president has the strongest hand because... The federal government has total control over the District of Columbia, and the president is in charge of the District of Columbia National Guard. So he has a very, very strong hand, and he's gotten really good results. But all of the cheering from Democrats goes in the other direction. I want to read you just a paragraph of a column by Mark Fisher from the Washington Post. And the thrust of the column is that the government of Washington, D.C., local government, is buckling under Trump's pressure, and they should stand up to this. And it begins, quote, an alien force arrives, uninvited to defend your city. Residents see the armed troops chatting with tourists. frightening immigrants, and occasionally clearing storm drains, mulching plant beds or rooting out invasive vegetation. What's the mayor to do? You have an alien forest that comes into the city and it cleans out your drains, it chats with the tourists, and it mulches the plant beds, and we must stand up and resist. This is the atmosphere that still exists. among the voting population and much of the government of the District of Columbia, in great contrast to the mayor, as you just said. In addition to the things that you mentioned, mulching the flower beds and cleaning up the storm drains and all of that, chatting with tourists, they're also arresting dangerous criminals, gang members, and criminal illegal aliens on top of everything else. And Mayor Bowser's like, you know, the fact that we haven't had very many homicides at all, it's almost ground to a halt.

That's maybe a good thing. Maybe we shouldn't complain about that. Maybe we should say thank you. Let's keep going. She's catching hell for it from a lot of her voters and a lot of the left wing. And we'll see how other Democrats around the country decide to play it. We know how they're playing it in Chicago and Illinois. That's for sure. Byron, New York, we're watching all of it with your help. Chief political correspondent at the Washington Examiner, Fox News contributor. Byron, thanks so much. Thank you, Guy. Final hour of Guy Benson on tap as soon as we come back. Raise your glass to Guy Benson Happy Hour. Brought to you by the Finnish Long Drink. Finland's most popular alcoholic beverage is taking America by storm. Visit thelongdrink.com. And now, here's Guy Benson. It's our final hour here on Guy Benson Thursday edition. We're grateful for your listenership every day. Guy Benson.com is our website. The podcast is free and available on demand every day as well, including on the weekend with bonus Guy Benson. That's Guy Benson.com or foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. This radio hour is sponsored by the Finnish long drink. It's an alcoholic beverage, so please drink responsibly, 21 plus only, the longdrink.com. Well, it's been a difficult week for many reasons. We'll have some more thoughts and reflections at the end of the hour today. Adding to the solemnity is the fact that today is the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that murdered nearly 3,000 Americans. on that horrific day. Joining us now is the former governor of New York, George Pataki, the 53rd governor of New York. He was governor that day. And, Governor, it's good to have you on the show. Thank you for your time. Well, thank you, guy. You hit it right. This has been a tough week, and this is a terrible day. It is. I saw a statistic earlier shared by Jim Garrity at National Review, and it definitely stopped me in my tracks for a moment because it was an arresting statistic. It also made me feel a little old. He pointed out that right now, if you look at the population of the United States, nearly 30% of Americans who are alive today were not alive on September 11, 2001. So getting close to a third of Americans weren't even born yet when this happened. For our younger listeners, our younger audience, people who weren't alive that day, I'm sure they have some intellectual understanding of what happened on that horrific morning. But can you maybe talk to our younger audience more viscerally about how things felt on 9-11-1? Sure, Guy. And, you know, when we built a memorial in the museum, it was with the idea that at some point, the vast majority, if not all, of the Americans would not have been around on September 11th. So it was important to tell this story. And I think there are a number of different stories. First,

We lost 3,000, virtually 3,000 wonderful people who went to work that day, not expecting anything. We were not at war. It was a beautiful day. They went to their officers or they went to their fire station or police station, and within a matter of a few hours, almost 3,000 had died. And it didn't take long to figure out that these were terrorists. They were Islamic radicals from overseas who had come here trained. and plan these horrific attacks and that it was to cow us. to give us a lack of confidence in our freedoms, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, freedom to pick our own leaders. And that day, while they conquered the towers and killed thousands of people, they failed to take away our spirit. And that's the other part of the story, Guy, is how New Yorkers responded with unbelievable courage, not caring for their own lives. running into the towers, running to the towers, doing everything they could to save lives. And then in the days after, 24 hours a day, construction workers, firefighters, digging through the rubble, trying to save lives and bring us back. And so it's a horrific day. It's a day when we have to understand that we can't take our freedoms for granted, even though there are times we do, and that we should be proud that we're Americans and proud at the courage that... New Yorkers and American showed that day and thereafter. I remember very well, all too well, that day. I was a junior in high school. I was just across the river in northern New Jersey in a town called Ridgewood where we lost 12 people that day. Our town did. There were days of uncertainty, right? There was so much chaos that morning itself with the attacks and then the collapse of the towers and it was like a living nightmare. And then there was a lot of understandable paranoia about whether this was finished yet. If there were more rounds of attacks to come, I remember hearing rolling thunder. one evening and wondering are those bombs? Every low-flying airplane, you'd sort of look up and have a thought because of those hijacked planes being used as weapons, four of them. And there was this really distinct fear and almost a certitude that there was going to be more. Thank God there wasn't, and a lot of people worked very hard to prevent follow-on attacks because al-Qaeda and their network would have been very happy to inflict even more damage and pain on us. Can you speak to that and the fear and the uncertainty that we all felt in those initial days in particular? Well, Guy, you're absolutely right. There was tremendous uncertainty. No one had anticipated these attacks. They came out of the, literally out of the blue at a time when America was appeased, and we took our freedoms for granted too much, I believe. And because of that, you just knew there was this network of...

violent Islamists who had come to this country in the case and who existed literally around the world who wanted to carry up more attacks. So you just had no idea, no way to know whether or not there be more attacks. And thank God, as you said, there were not. People were proactive. President Bush launched his war on terror. We controlled the airspace. And, you know, for my generation, there's pre-September 11th and post-September 11th. Pre-September 11th, we went around our lives with tremendous certainty, no doubts. And post-September 11th, you had concerns. And you couldn't get on an airplane. You had the TSA created. You had the Department of Homeland Security created. And all of a sudden, things that we were able to do without even thinking twice, we had to be conscious of. Here in New York, you had to have a photo ID to get into an office building, let alone onto a plane or elsewhere. There's pre-September 11th and post-September 11th, and it was because of that uncertainty that the possibility that we could be attacked again. What was it like to be governor in a position of significant authority during a crisis like that? I know there was a lot of attention paid at the national level to President Bush, at the local level to Mayor Giuliani at the time. You were the governor of New York. Tell us about how things unfolded in your world. Well, you know, you can't prepare for something like this. You know, it's just something was completely unanticipated. But we did have the best, I think, state emergency response force and team in the country. And the minute that second plane hit, I knew we were under attack and activated our command center in the state capital, Albany, called up the National Guard, closed the bridges and tunnels in New York City, which are run by the state, talked to Mayor Giuliani, talked to President Bush. and coordinated our response. And then as the day went on, it was just like being in a war zone because people come up to you, did you know so-and-so died or did you know this person died or did you know something happened here? And when you're in charge, when you're the executives. It's hard to say, but you really don't have time for emotion. You know, you go, oh, my God, I can't believe this person who was close to me was killed in the towers, but you can't dwell on it. You're just in crisis mode where you have to act and act decisively at critical moments. And so it was something that was...

constant, you know, not just for that one day, but literally for weeks, because as you said, we didn't know if there would be more attacks. People were afraid to come to New York. We were still trying to dig through the rubble to save lives and hope that people's lives could be recovered who had been trapped in the debris of the towers. So it's just a constant exercise in doing, making decisions and doing what you believe is correct. And I'll tell you, Guy, I haven't talked about this much, I'm so proud of the way the state, the city, and the federal government all responded so effectively together. You look at other catastrophes like Katrina, and you have finger pointing. You know, oh, I thought you were going to do this. Oh, I thought you should do that. You're to blame. No, you're to blame. We had none of that. The city, the state, and the federal government all worked seamlessly for months to get through this crisis. And I think I'm proud of that, and I think it's a tribute to the... leadership that President Bush and Mayor Giuliani showed in those days as well. Governor Pataki, I want to take a break because when we come back, let's turn to the act of evil that we witnessed in Utah yesterday, the murder of Charlie Kirk. I want to get some of your thoughts on that. As soon as we return, it's Guy Benson. Same issues, but with a fresh perspective. Guy Benson.

We're back here on Guy Benson with former New York Governor George Pataki. Governor Pataki, you have a book called Beyond the Great Divide. And to me, it feels like there is truly a great divide in our country today. And we have been talking, of course, so much about the events of yesterday in Utah, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the political commentator and activists. And I'm not certain that this divide. breaks down left and right. I think it breaks down, at least in this narrow sense, between those of us who completely forcefully reject political violence and those who are willing to excuse it or even applaud it in some cases. I believe... that an overwhelming majority of us are on the correct moral side of that great divide, but it is a divide, and we are seeing people on that other side of it, and I'm trying to figure out how that can be bridged, what can be done. If you can draw on your experience and leadership, I asked a similar question to a senator in the last hour, what's your message to Americans during this dark hour, another dark hour? Well, first, let me get you mad at me, Guy. You said you referred to Charlie Kirk as an activist and political guy. He was much more than that. I cannot tell you how upset I am about this. He really represented the best of his generation. And the life he gave to promote dialogue and understanding across partisan divide and taking it to academia, to universities across the country. to sit down with people, random people, and just let them ask them anything. And civilly disagree or hopefully agree. I think Charlie Kirk was a tremendous, tremendous asset, not just to the conservative movement, as is described in the media, but to America. And it's a horrific loss. And it's a loss that categorizes this violent divide that has separated us. If anything's good. And by the way, if I can just quickly interject, I'm not mad at all at you for saying any of that. I completely agree. I was just, you know, using that as a shorthand for his bio, but you're of course correct to say he was much more than either of those two labels. But please go on. Yeah, well, I mean, he represented the best of trying to bring us together through dialogue. And that's what we need more of. And to the extent anything positive came out of September 11th, it was that we were unified. When we had been attacked in such a horrific way, we came together as Americans. We weren't Republicans, Democrats, black, white, young, old, north, south. We were Americans, and we stood shoulder to shoulder. And now we're the most divided it's ever been in my lifetime. And I'm going to disagree with it a little bit as well, because I think we've seen tremendous violence from the left. And we saw it, I believe, we'll see it to be the case in the assassination of Charlie Kirk. We saw it in the murder of the head of United Health. We see Catholic kids going to school to pray being massacred. And we see on college campuses, radical leftists.

disrupting classes, not allowing conservative speakers, engaging in anti-Semitic activities to prevent Jewish students from gathering or worshipping. And the vast majority of this comes from the left. And the Trump assassination attempts, of course, too. And the Trump assassination attempt. And it's something that we just have to uphold the rule of law, you know, like in New York City and like our college campuses. These activists, so-called activists, they're really left-wing extremists, break the rules, break the laws. They occupy grounds where they're not allowed. They disrupt classrooms. They prevent speakers. In New York City, they steal things from grocery stores and break the law, and there's no consequence. And when you have laws but don't enforce those laws, when you have rules and don't enforce those rules, people just say, hey, I can get away with quite literally murder. Two pieces of advice. Enforce the law. Enforce the rules. If somebody's disrupting your campus on a college campus, the president should either expel them, give them consequences of significance, or the president should resign and let somebody is going to do the job take over. If you have prosecutors who won't prosecute crimes because they think they're unfair, we don't have the rule of law. We have the rule of an autocrat, one person deciding what the law is. Remove those prosecutors. And then on the positive side. Use the model of Charlie Kirk. Sit down with people you disagree with. Let them ask you anything. Respond civilly. Understand that it's okay to have disagreement. There are two sides to virtually every question. And don't be afraid to carry on a dialogue in a civil way. And if you lose an election, so be it. You get ready for the next one and win it because that's what our democracy is about. So, you know, it's a tough day. It's a tough week. We've had a horrific loss. But we're still America. We're still Americans. The vast majority of our people still believe in this country that it's a great country and that when we stand together, we can accomplish anything. We just have to have that leadership and guidance and commitment to work every day to make this great country better. Governor, finally, there's a highly anticipated and closely watched mayoral election coming up in New York City. You were just talking about campus radicals. Frankly, one of them, an outgrowth of that movement, seems to be on the precipice of becoming mayor of New York City. Do you have any thoughts on the race? Is there any chance that Zohran Mamdani can be stopped electorally? Sure, there's a chance. And I'm doing my best to try to help Curtis Lee Wood has devoted his life to trying to make New York a safer, better, cleaner, and more affordable city. So I'm going to keep trying to help Curtis. And until that final vote is counted, you never give up. You keep fighting the fight. New York City's tough for Republicans, but it's not a lost cause. And you just have to make the fight. Zohran Mamdani, I think, is unfit to be there. anti-Semitic. He has violated the rules of law. He is anti-cop. He's talking about things like free grocery stores and free buses that have been tried in places like Venezuela, and they didn't work. And when you have nothing but failed models for the left Marxist socialist agenda, why would you follow it? And we just have to continue to make that case. And, you know, he won a primary.

where there was a low turnout only among registered voters of the Democratic Party. There's a much broader electorate out there. So you just keep fighting the fight, make the case. And it's an uphill fight. He's clearly the favorite. But you have to try. And I'm going to do everything I can to help Curtis Lee will win this race. Do you think that it would be at least more realistic to stop him if it were a one-on-one race rather than three-on-one? You know, I just don't know. You know, I've seen all sorts of polls and, you know... I just don't think he is fit to be mayor of New York City. And I think we just have to keep making the case that that is the case. But, I mean, if it was Curtis Sliwa against Zohran Mamdani, I think Curtis would have an excellent chance. And I don't think it's not impossible that he could win it now. It's an uphill fight. But, hey, I'm a Republican in New York. I fought a lot of uphill fights, and we've won our fair share, and hopefully we can win this one. Former Governor George Pataki of New York with us today on this anniversary of 9-11 and, of course, many other really significant things happening in the country right now. Governor, thank you for your time. Thank you, Guy. Great being with you. Let's step aside and come right back. It's Guy Benson. New talk for a new generation, Guy Benson. In our first hour today, we spoke with Riley Gaines. who was very close friends with Charlie Kirk, knew his family well. Tough conversation with Riley. She's going through it, as so many of us are. Here's part of that discussion. Tell us about how you got to know Charlie Kirk and how that friendship developed. Well, man, gosh, back in 2022, I myself found I was in a situation swimming in college where there's a man in the pool, just the lane next to me. And let me tell you what, it was Charlie Kirk, which comes as a surprise to literally no one, who was one of the first people to reach out to me. when I was willing to put my name in my face to this issue, one of the first people to reach out and offer support or resources or guidance. He explained anything he could do personally. He told me about Turning Point USA and the machine that they are and how they can support me in this time. And it was from that point on, I mean, as soon as I got involved in this is when I started to develop a friendship with Charlie and really what I would describe as. I mean, a mentorship. He was a mentor to me until, I mean, literally his last day on this earth, if I needed advice for anything and it didn't matter what it was, I mean, I can think of times I would go to him, of course, for political advice or personal advice or relational advice or spiritual advice. Like, any time I had a question about scripture or the word, like I went to Charlie. And so, I mean, this, this.

premature death, it just, it still doesn't feel real to me, honestly. Like, I feel guilty for not feeling, you know, tearful. But it's because I think I'm still in total disbelief. I mean, talking in past tense, it doesn't even, it is the most bizarre experience, watching the news, seeing the Chiron that says, you know, looking for Charlie Kirk's assassin. It just, it just hasn't clicked to me that. But this is real. We can't restart yesterday. We can't just respond like a video game or get a new life. It's so just, it's an overwhelming feeling. I'm overwhelmed with emotions, and I think it begs the question of where do we go from here. And I don't say that rhetorically. I ask that genuinely. We live in a sick, sick society where the truth is so, so hated. How do you combat that? How do you coexist with people who genuinely want to and will? They will kill you for disagreeing with them politically. I mean, it's this past week. I think first it was the news of... The beautiful Ukrainian refugee, the innocent law-abiding citizen who lost her life at the hands of a monster who had been released 14 times prior to be back on the streets to roam and terrorize law-abiding citizens. There was nothing she could have done in that situation. You know, watching the horrific clips, there was nothing she could have done to prevent that. And I believe it's the same with Charlie. There are security measures in place, of course. But the end of the day, if you have someone who is so deranged, who is willing to lose their life and they want to kill you, what can you do? There's not a lot you can do to prevent it. And so I'm sick to my stomach over this, but Charlie, I believe his legacy will live far longer than unfortunately he has. Riley, since you mentioned the search for the assassin, I'll just update the audience. The FBI has put out images of this person they believe to be the shooter. They found the gun. I mentioned a Wall Street Journal report about transgender and Antifa ideology etched onto bullets that they have found. That's at least a report in the journal. They have not caught this person yet. They had arrested two other people's subjects or people of interest and then interrogated and released them and said that they had nothing to do with it. And so at this hour, they're still trying to find whoever did this. And the manhunt is on. You can look at those images. I retweeted them into my feed, Guy Benson earlier today. The FBI also offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of this individual. Before we get to Charlie's legacy and the question that you posed about where to go from here, for those who didn't know him personally, I knew him a little bit personally. I've known him for a long time back to his mid-high school days, which is sort of hard to believe all those years ago. You got to know him very well and worked with him very closely in more recent years. How would you describe Charlie Kirk the man?

Well, first and foremost, let me describe his worldview because it was entirely biblical. The way that Charlie interacted with... It didn't matter if it's the President of the United States, President Trump, or it doesn't matter if you're a 19-year-old sophomore in college. The way that he interacted with you, you knew that he was a Christian because of how he proclaimed the Lord, the interactions he had, how he conducted himself, what mattered most to him. And if you spent any amount of time, you knew what mattered most to him. Of course, number one, it's God. Number two, his family, number three, is country, in that order. And so... That first and foremost, and I think that's, I mean, I watched a clip of him saying that's how he would want to be remembered by, and that is absolutely and entirely how I do remember him. Number two is I want to speak to his work ethic. There is no one I have ever encountered in my entire life, and I say this as, you know, a former elite athlete. There's no one I've ever encountered in my entire life who has... or gosh, who had the work ethic of Charlie Kirk. This is a man who traveled the world, number one, not just domestically, like you in South Korea, what last week he was at Oxford in the UK just a few weeks ago. He understood that the threats that we face as a nation, that they transcend borders. He traveled the world. I've been... in cars or in settings where he's listening to audiobooks or podcasts on four times speed guys like that's not normal like normal humans can't comprehend or understand information i mean that much information at one time but charlie kirk could and he desperately wanted to. He yearned for knowledge. That's why he was so articulate and intelligent on every single topic. Didn't matter what it was. Didn't matter what issue, what cultural topic he was talking about. He knew stats. He knew statistics. He knew facts. And that's why they hated them is because he could spout it off. And that's why these proved me wrong tables truthfully were so effective. And I guess that kind of is the last point I want to make is. Well, he... is the most influential and effective activist that this nation, in my lifetime, the past 25 years on this earth, the most effective activists that we've seen on either side. And they knew that, the other side, the person who prematurely ended his life knew that. Again, I believe that's why they did it. They couldn't prove him wrong at the debate table. So they knew they just had to stifle his speech at whatever.

I guess, measures necessary. Yeah, and some of the really overheated rhetoric is, you know, by all means necessary, right? We've seen that, and some of them really mean it, which is frightening, and we saw that play out yesterday. So, Riley, this huge, this institution that he has created from nothing. and a movement, really, that he has created from nothing, that is now enormous. This machinery of activism and information and entertainment. It's a lot of different things, has many different facets. It will now continue, but without him, which is really hard to imagine. No one thought he'd be ripped away like this at this point in time or anytime soon, as such a young man, father, young kids, all of it. So what do you think needs to come next, not just returning point, just like the movement generally. What do you think you know him well, knew him well? What do you think he would want? Are you prepared to answer something like that? Because it's a tough question. It is a tough question. But I feel confident in answering, number one, what he would want because... I mean, he spoke to it. I mean, if you ask him, what is your mission? What is the mission of turning point? Of course, number one is to influence people to Christ, to learn of his goodness, his graciousness, his forgiveness, his righteousness, that first and foremost. And I think even if Charlie were still here, and he knew what happened yesterday could influence one person to Christ. I don't think he would have changed, as crazy as it sounds, I don't think he would have changed the outcome of yesterday. So that first and foremost. But secondly, what I think ultimately Charlie, his mission was and the mission of Turning Point, of course, is too emboldened Gen Z as it is now, the younger generation, and that's exactly what they've done. They've made MAGA cool again. If you ask Charlie what he would like to see. He would tell you, had no problem telling you. He wanted to be able to turn these first-time MAGA voters. So people who went to the polls for the first time, I'm talking 18, 19, 20-year-olds back in November of 2024 and voted for Donald Trump. His goal was to turn these first-time MAGA voters to lifelong conservatives. I have said it before, and I will say it again. I do not think Donald Trump would be president without Charlie Kirk. Like his impact. to the younger generation, and ultimately how that impacted the presidential election, it really cannot be overstated. That is what he would want. So what do we do? I think the person who killed him, the monster, the coward who killed him, didn't think of the consequences because, yeah, maybe they got rid of Charlie Kirk himself. And of course, he, as a person, is irreplaceable. But what this is going to do is create thousands and thousands of Charlie Kirk's, and that's what we need. For his legacy to live on, we need people to speak boldly. We need them to speak unapologetically, fervently, to put themselves in the belly of the beast. That's what Charlie did so well. He put himself where no one else wanted to go, where people were scared to go, and understandably so. Obviously, my message to everyone is to be vigilant.

Do not be stupid. Keep your head on a swivel. Understand there are people who are crazy and who want to take people like you, me, Charlie, anyone who possesses, I mean, what would really be considered default views just a few years ago from really the beginning of time, they want to take us out. So be vigilant, but it's going to take all of us for Charlie's legacy to live on in the way that he would want it to. My full interview with Riley Gaines is available online as part of our podcast. It's free every day online. No charge. Guy Benson.com, Fox Newspodcast.com, or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back, some final thoughts on the home stretch, please stay with us. Not the same talking points here, but Guy Benson. Home stretch. on Guy Benson on this Thursday. Guy Benson.com, podcast always free, including Bonus Guy Benson on the weekends, if you might need a little bit of levity. It's Guy Benson.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. You can follow us on social media here at the show at Guy Benson, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. You can follow me personally at Guy Benson. If you'd like to email the show, it's GBS at Fox.com, GBS at Fox.com. And I'm just mentioning how you can get in touch with us because a lot of you did yesterday. We heard from a lot of our listeners who were just checking in, whether with a... quick hello and thanks for the difficult coverage day and it was very difficult as you might imagine the news broke minutes before we went live and we then were live for three hours reacting to what we knew and didn't know and of course got that horrible news that we were dreading in the middle of the show while we were chatting with martha mccallum and to the extent that our coverage helped anyone yesterday, that's meaningful. So we appreciated some of those notes. But a lot of them were just people, not just saying, thanks for what you do and that kind of thing. It was also checking in on how we are doing. Because I think you could tell, it was a raw broadcast yesterday. It was difficult, right? Emotions were running. very high try to keep those in check of course and be professional but it's not easy and i think what we're experiencing as a country and this blend of emotions of fear really for the country like what are we becoming anger that this happened grief and sadness for the family and the loss It all hits particularly close to home for those of us who work in this business, in this space, and who knew Charlie. And it was just really kind and thoughtful for quite a few of you to get in touch and to reach out and just check in. I mentioned this earlier. I'm not sure I can remember a news event.

That actually inspired as many emails and texts and messages as yesterday's. People from throughout my life, people I hadn't heard from in years. People who had never written in, who've been listening to the show for a long time, for whatever reason, what happened yesterday really impacted many people to the point that they... decided to get in touch and to just say hello and make sure things were okay. And that's something that I really am interested by, just as a phenomenon. That's part of the reason why I think this felt different than anything before in terms of a news event, which is only one aspect to the atrocity of yesterday. But it's also, I think, thoughtful. It's thoughtful of people to do that. And if you had the sense that a lot of people are hurting because of this, you're not wrong. You're definitely not wrong. And I asked Markwayne Mullin in the last hour, what can be done to channel these emotions? Because sentiments and concern are really highly elevated right now. Rightly so. Right? There'd be something wrong with us. You'd have to check your pulse if you weren't feeling something about this. But then what do you do with these feelings? What do you do with these emotions and anxieties and concerns? And I still don't have a great, certainly not perfect answer to that question. I just hope when the options... are a split in the road, and one road leads toward darkness, and the other road leads toward light. Whatever that means, whatever that looks like, I hope that we make a choice collectively to travel down the path toward light. So I just wanted to thank you. Thank you for listening, as always. Thank you for listening yesterday in particular while it was a really, really tough show to put on, and this team did an excellent job on the fly reacting, really, really impressive and proud of the team. But also extremely grateful for this audience, and in particular those who decided to reach out. Because sometimes... A word, a check-in, that kind of thing really does mean the world. So thank you. Our Friday edition of Guy Benson is coming up tomorrow. We will talk to you then. Have a good evening.

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