We speak to New York Post columnist & Fox news contributor Miranda Devine about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and her latest column entitled “Charlie Kirk’s assassination is latest evidence that US is suffering an epidemic of leftist violence”
Show script auto-generated by Descript app:
Bob: Well, joining me is Miranda Devine, who’s uh, with the New York Post, uh, and also Fox News, and came to New Zealand to speak at the forum on the family in 2019. Miranda, lovely to connect with you again. How are you? Fantastic. Thanks so much,
Miranda: Bob. Great to talk to you again,
Bob: and people will be able to pick up the Australian accent should we tell people that you’re actually, um, got some Australian heritage as well.
Miranda: Oh yes. Oh, definitely. Um, I was born in New York, but I am a dual citizen and in fact, um, my father was a New Zealander from Blenheim. So, um, uh, I’ve got ties to all three countries.
Bob: You certainly have. Um, Miranda, I can only imagine that, um, being based in New York, traveling around the United States, writing for the New York, uh, post that the last seven days must have been literally torrid.
Miranda: Yes. I suppose that’s the way to describe it. Um, I mean, Charlie Kirk was assassinated on Wednesday. Um, I was in the middle of writing a column then, and, um, it was hard to, to sort of get through that because I knew him. I didn’t know him well, but I, I looked at, at, hi, his, uh, I’d been on his podcast 11 times.
I worked out, um. And, uh, I would probably would’ve done it more if my Fox contract, uh, didn’t stop me from doing video. Yeah. But, um, I, and I, you know, and I, I, I bumped into him as everybody did in the, in the conservative circles. He was all, he was so active. He knew everybody knew President Trump. He was.
Absolutely instrumental in getting out the youth vote for President Trump in the 2024 election, and I think he and the movement that he started turning Point USA that he founded at the age of 18 in his parents’ basement. Uh, I think that has had a good deal to do with the fact that young people, gen Z, are more conservative, a more conservative generation than we’ve seen, um, in 50 years, and particularly young men, really heated.
The message that he had, which was, it was kind of common sense and logic, but it was, be the best you can be. Get married, have children, live a good life, um, and tell the truth always. And I think in a world where young people are lied to by their teachers, by school counselors, even by their parents, certainly by the media, um.
Uh, I think it was a refreshing change and they really, um, came to his message, which of course was a message of Jesus Christ. He was a very strong Christian, and, uh, although he wasn’t, sort of, didn’t beat people over the head with it, um, he felt that that was, you know, everything that he did was. And believed in was from the Bible and revealed, uh, by God through Jesus Christ.
And he talked about that quite openly. Um, and he certainly did save a lot of souls in the universities, which were sort of ground zero are still ground zero of the radicalization and the sort of left wing brainwashing of young people.
Bob: Mm-hmm. It’s been interesting to watch the responses. I mean, there’s been people who would be his natural opponents of ideas.
Um. President Obama, president Biden, Bernie Sanders. There’s been many that have come out and been quite, um, you know, gracious and respectful in their response. But there has been some really ugly, uh, comments made almost, you know, that he was a hatem monger and that he deserved what he got. Has it shocked you?
Just how, uh, visceral some of the comments have been?
Miranda: Yeah. The celebrating, uh, his death. It has actually, I mean, I know that, that sort of thing. Exists on the fringes of the, uh, you know, the internet. Um. That, that sort of hateful trolling. But this is from, you know, a lot of teachers, a lot of university professors, a lot of people with big careers, public profiles, uh, very influential and successful people, nurses, doctors.
And a lot of them have been fired pilots, a lot of them been, been fired. And I think it was more a shock to them really, because it’s extraordinary that they thought that they could openly celebrate the murder, the assassination of a human for, um, for expressing his opinion in this country that is founded on free speech, the First Amendment, um, Americans pride themselves on that.
And yet here was Charlie Kirk. Um, who was just, uh, basically espousing truths that we all believe, all conservatives believe they were pretty mainstream. Um, and, uh, you know, like, like, like capitalism is better than socialism. Like boys can’t become girls. Um, you know, there are two sections. There is one man,
Bob: one woman.
Yeah.
Miranda: Yeah. So, I mean, these are things that, that Christians believe. Conservatives believe more than half the country believes, um, they’re not radical. And yet what has happened, uh, as has happened with Donald Trump is for the last decade, there’s just been this steady drumbeat of lies coming from what I now call the hate media, uh, and the Democrats.
You know, Joe Biden called Donald Trump and his supporters, um, MAGA supporters, he called them semi fascists. Kamala Harris and Tim Waltz called them outright fascists. Um, you know, the New York Times, the Washington Post, C-N-N-M-S-N-B-C. It’s been 24 7. I mean, it’s like, it’s like Rwanda Genocide radio back in 1994 when, um, there was just this steady stream of hatred against the minority tootsies by the hou majority and Radio Rwanda saying, um, that they were cockroaches and vermin and deserve to be exterminated because what do you do with Hitler Fascist Nazi?
What do you do, but exterminate them, uh, a threat to democracy. An existential threat. You know, this is what the hate media and the Democratic party has, um, instilled in the minds, brainwashed the minds of their followers. And so it’s not unusual to find that there will be a, a fringe, um, extremists who take up the call to violence.
Um, but I guess what’s surprising to people is that so many, you know, of, of these sort of mainstream people, the doctors and the nurses and the teachers and the pilots, um, have just felt that they were quite, it was quite fine to celebrate the death of Charlie Kirk publicly, and that there would be no repercussions because there have been no repercussions for them.
They’ve, uh, just steadily become more and more. Um, dehumanizing of the other side more and more, um, certain of their own moral superiority. Um, it’s really been a frightening thing to be living in this country, particularly under the four years of the Biden administration. When. The transgender cult and trans kids, um, which is such an, uh, obscene, um, phrase, trans kids as if children can be transgender or should be given hormones and, uh, you know, hormones to, to make boys become girls and grow breasts and to stop puberty and then have mutilating surgery.
And I mean, I just wrote a column about Joe Biden’s transgender. Top health bureaucrat last year, um, pressured this international transgender health group of doctors to remove any age limits on these mutilating surgeries. So that that was a wpath. Wpath. Exactly. And this was Rachel Levine. Uh, a man dressed up as a woman, an admiral in the US Navy, um, who was, uh, given by Joe Biden this great honor and abused it.
And, um. I mean, you know, the, the, on his very first day, Joe Biden issued one of his many executive orders about trans kids. And there were democrat states who, um, passed legislation to make it that, that it was against the law for parents to try to stop their children from having what is euphemistically called gender affirming care.
So all of this. His madness. And it fostered a, an expectation in, you know, these people who fell into this trap of believing the transgender ideology, um, into thinking that, that this was madness was gonna go on forever, even though it’s an 80 20 issue. And most Americans polling consistently shows do not believe in it.
Um, they do not think that that girls, you know, transgender people should be in girls’ sports or girls’ locker rooms. Um. And so on. So, uh, I don’t understand why the Democrats have decided to die on that hill, but, uh, they insist on it and I don’t think they can find a way of getting out of it. So I’m hoping that Charlie Kirk’s murder will force a reckoning on them and make them actually tell the truth and a tone.
Bob: Well, they have a worldview that is, is, is just doesn’t make logic. That’s why we can’t understand it. And I do want to come back to just, um. When we finish just about the effect that this is gonna have, but I just wanna allude to your article. So this is your latest, uh, editorial piece in the New York Post, and you talk about the fact that it’s an epidemic of leftist violence.
Now, for those who would try to push back on what you’ve said, they would quote that, uh, the Democratic Minnesota lawmaker and a husband were assassinated, uh, that someone by a leftist,
Miranda: by an extreme leftist.
Bob: Josh Shapiro, a Democrat. Uh, his, his house was set fire by, by
Miranda: another leftist.
Bob: So, so your argument, you’ve jumped in with the answer because I knew that was coming.
Your answer is that even attacks on, uh, Democrats has generally been by people on the left. Is that what you’ve argued in this article?
Miranda: Absolutely. I mean, the overwhelming, you know, what annoys me is when Democrats, um, you know, like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and so on, um, uh, talk about, you know, we have to end political violence and there are, there are Republicans who say as well, they need to come clean and admit that.
Almost entirely the violence that has occurred. The political violence that has occurred, at least in the last decade, has all come from the left, almost entirely from the left, even when Democrats. Like Governor Josh Shapiro are targeted. It’s an a pro hummus, you know, anti-Israel leftist. So, um, I, I don’t think it helps to both side this because it just, it, it’s a lie for one thing and it, it.
Just rubs Republicans up the wrong way. Why do conservatives and Republicans have to pretend that this is not a left wing Democrat problem? Because we are never going to get to the truth of things unless they admit it and stop lying. You know, if everyone just told the truth, the world would be a better place tomorrow.
Bob: Yeah, you made a, uh, comment in your piece and you said, um, America will never be the same, but Kirk’s death, life is like, his life’s work is a turning point. You’ve had 48 hours since you published this, uh, op-ed. You still think that, is this a turning point?
Miranda: I, I think so. Um, I, well, I hope so. You know, it’s, it’s been, I don’t know about whether the hearts and minds of the Democrats and the hate media as I call them, um, can be changed, but certainly the outpouring.
Of love and, um, just enormous feeling that’s come from, you know, young people, but all sorts of people across the country, across the world. I mean, you saw in London, you saw in Australia, um, you saw all over America, these vigils for, uh, South Korea, these vigils for Charlie Kirk. Um, everyone is saying now I am Charlie because.
You know, he, he was someone who tried to reach across the divide, who tried to have dialogue with the other side and persuade them with reason and, um, you know, calm logic, um, to that, you know, to see what the truth was. And he won so many hearts and minds across the country in ca, on campuses. And that was why they had to eliminate him because he was.
A threat to the left and to the Democrats project, the Annihilistic Marxist project. Now that that party has been taken over by the extreme left and you know. This group that Andy No, who’s an independent journalist, has been tracking for at least six years. He calls them tran Far. This is this unholy alliance of Antifa, which is extreme left violent radicals that were responsible for a lot of the violence in 2020, uh, when the BLM protests were hijacked, uh, in American cities.
Um, and, and so, uh, Antifa. Anti-fascists supposedly, but fascists being Donald Trump, um, and the transgender ideology. And so you have people who are unhinged in all sorts of ways and brought together under this militant violent. Nihilistic banner and all. They’re not about building anything. They’re about destruction.
And, uh, I think in, in America, you’re really seeing the battle, um, being drawn, battle lines being drawn, because other countries, I hate to say it like Australia. Like New Zealand, like most of Europe, um, has just, uh, you know, gone along to get along. They just allow the left to make encroachments every year.
Don’t push back. Just be reasonable, let ridiculous things happen, and suddenly the abnormal becomes the normal and they keep on pushing. Um, and, and so before you know it, you’ve lost your country. So in America. Um, people are fighting back, so I think that’s a good thing. It’s inspirational. Charlie Kirk was.
A healer and someone who reached across the divide, but he was also strong and resolute and brave in speaking the truth, even if it was deemed defensive by other people. And I also hate the way the hate media and Democrats say he was a divisive figure. Yeah. Um, no, he, he was not a divisive figure. He just told the truth.
And other people chose to take umbridge. Other people chose to stay in their delusions and, and to be offended by what he said. But he never, he never meant to cause offense. And he always spoke with love and charity and compassion. Um, and so if other people chose to take offense and to find that offensive and divisive, that’s their problem.
And I’m sure that. Jesus Christ himself would’ve been called, um, a divisive and offensive figure by the people who were, uh, against him.
Bob: The New Zealand media or the hate media as you refer to them, uh, have, have checked out of the story. Basically. They’ve moved on, they don’t wanna talk about it anymore.
And I think part of it is because the motivation of the killer, uh, which you alluded to the transa, um, aspect. Has there been confirmation of this? Is it, is it, does it seem to be clear that there Yeah.
Miranda: Yeah, the, the governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, who’s a very moderate Republican. Mm-hmm. Um, he has, and this has also been confirmed by, um, police sources, not to me, but to my colleagues, um, and to lots of other Wall Street Journal and lots of other, mm-hmm.
Publications, um, that, uh, this killer Tyler Robinson had a, uh, boyfriend, a live-in boyfriend who was a transgender or in the middle of transitioning a male to female. Um, and was also, they both had apparently a. Fixation with some sexual fetish called furry, something to do with animals. I don’t really wanna know about that, but it’s something gross.
And um, and you know, that was pretty much what the messages that he wrote on the bullet casings, um, allude to refer to all of that. So it’s pretty clear what the motive was. Um, and I think it’s. You know, ridiculous that so many of the Democrats wanted to pretend and the hate media wanted to pretend that he was somehow a MAGA gun nut.
Because he came from a conservative family when there was evidence from very early on, from neighbors and family, you know, anonymous family members, people who knew him, that he was very far left and that he hated Charlie Kirk. Um, and so now we know there’s a transgender link as well. And I mean, he made it clear on the bullets when he said, catch this fascist and other, and, and alluded to the Antifa Anthem.
Drawn from Italy and World War ii, chow Bella. Um, he also carved that on one of the bullet casings, so he’s made it pretty clear. And I think the New Zealand media, if he had been a maga gun nut conservative Christian gunner, be all over it. They would’ve Oh, they, they would never stop talking about it.
Yeah. They would go on and on and on for weeks, but it becomes inconvenient. I think it’s because they’re cowards. They don’t want to confront the fact that they’ve lied to people. The media has lied to people. They’ve lied that, uh, Donald Trump and Charlie Kirk and every other conservative who support them are fascists and Nazis.
That’s a lie. Um, and they’ve also lied about the transgender ideology and they’ve lied to children. I mean, this is the worst thing, you know, adults can do what adults wanna do.
Bob: Yeah,
Miranda: as long as they don’t force it, force us to change our terminology or force our pronouns and force society to change. No one is going to interrupt whatever they want to be, but children, you can’t do that to children.
And it, and you know when, when you then have. The state stepping in and, um, punishing parents for trying to save their children from this cult. Um, you know, I, I think the country really had gone too far, so let’s hope that, um, Charlie Kirk’s. Assassination. I know that it’s ha having a good effect on galvanizing people to join Turning Point, make more young people turn to God, uh, and turn to the conservative side of things.
Uh, get married, have a family, have a good life. I think that, that, that is going to expand and um, it just won’t stop. And his wife. Or his widow Erica has said as much that, you know, they’ve just, uh, they’ve made a mistake by killing Charlie because it’s just unleashed. His message and his legacy will be that turning point, which has just had some enormous number of new chapters opened up thousands of them.
The vigil on Sunday in Arizona, which I’m going to, um, I mean it was booked out that I think it holds something like 60,000 people. The arena, it was booked out almost immediately, and all the hotels around there are booked out. People are thirsty for the message that Charlie was giving given, and they’ve also started to realize that.
Everything they were told about Charlie was a lie because videos of his words are now, um, throughout the internet and people are debunking the lies that he was a misogynist or, uh, you know, homophobic and fa stick and all of that. I mean, he was none of those things. So, yeah. Um, I mean, if he was those things, so was every Christian and we can’t live with that.
Bob: Yeah, let me just finish with, um, the, the, the, the title of what I’ve put, and that is Political Discourse Under Threat as a result of what we’ve seen over the last seven days. Miranda, what do you think is, is that statement correct? Is political discourse under threat in the United States, or is this actually gonna free it up?
Miranda: I, I, I don’t think, I mean political discourse, as in Charlie was one of the few people that actually did reach across the aisle, um, and try to talk to, uh, you know, people with vastly opposed views to him, young people on university campuses. Um, and that work is never gonna end. I mean, that is the work that the evil doers.
As Erica Kirk called them, uh, wanted to end, but it’s, if anything going to be Red Redoubled. Um, Ben Shapiro, who was a friend of Charlie’s, who’s another conservative. Um, leader, you know, podcaster. He’s got a media empire of his own. Very clever. Um, he has vowed that he will take up the mantle and keep talking to, uh, on campus even though he himself has had terrible death threats.
Mm-hmm. Um, and he has had, for a decade he’s had, had to pay for armed security around him. Um, it’s just a fact of life. But, uh, you can’t let these, um. These cowards and evil doers, um, stop the work that Charlie was doing and trying to reach those young people and rescue them from the brainwashing. And I think the, the redoubling and I, I, I think it’s almost a, a galvanizing of conservatives who might have.
Sat on the fence and not wanted to rock the boat. I think they’re now seeing more clearly what comes from that. And so they’re speaking up and pushing back on, you know, colleagues who are celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk. Yeah. Um, and you know, people are feeling consequences that they’ve never felt before, and I think that’s a good thing.
Um, I don’t think that’s a, a crushing of free speech. I think that’s a, um, a refusal to bow to totalitarian crushing of free speech, which is what’s gone on. Everyone’s just zipped their mouth and they, you know, after Charlie was killed, was, was murdered, assassinated, um, we were told well. By many people across the spectrum, you know, people that should have known better, um, including some Republicans that, oh, well, he was divisive and basically, you know, he said terrible things and this is what happens when you say those things.
And, and, and I think people aren’t gonna put up with that anymore. So I think there’s going to be more, more discourse. People are gonna speak their mind more, and maybe that will lead to more heated debate, but. Yeah, that’s the way you win an argument. You win hearts and minds and somewhere in the middle.
Um, let’s hope that, um, that we find common ground.
Bob: Mm-hmm. Ju just finally, Miranda, I mean, I’ve had limited involvement in the media. Your career is in the media. Uh, as you, as you look at how they’re acting, I mean, I’ve just, I’ve been so troubled by just the coverage, the way they’ve tried to label, uh, make negative, uh, Charlie Kirk.
Um, I mean for you, I mean, you do call them the hate media, but it, it, it must, must be galling and, and almost embarrassing that your profession has s sunken to the level it has.
Miranda: Um, kind of, but I mean, I think the media’s just split two now. And there’s, um, the, the hate media and I guess the other side of the media can more conservative media try to tell the truth?
Just do what journalists used to do. I mean, it’s not rocket science. Not hard. Yeah. But you’re just not propagandists. Um, and so, uh, I think that’s all we owe to people. The fourth estate had the great power It did because it was trusted. To hold, uh, you know, the powerful accountable to tell the truth to the people.
But that’s just been thrown out and I think a lot of people saw that during COVID when they were lied to about everything from, you know, the efficacy of masks and social distancing to, um, you know, the, whether the, the so-called vaccine actually stopped transmission of the virus, which it didn’t. So there were a lot of lies told, and the media.
Knew what better than to go along with those lies. And they should have been holding, uh, people like Anthony Fauci to account, but they didn’t. And so I think a lot of people, and you know, a lot of that was because the big, uh, pharmaceutical companies wielded a lot of power over media companies because they funded a lot of their advertising.
So I think people saw how corrupt that all was. And they just lost faith. They lost faith in all the institutions, like, you know, whether it be doctors and the health authorities or um, or the media. Mm-hmm. And that’s unfortunate. ’cause we need to trust, you know, there need to be institutions we trust, but I don’t blame people for not trusting them.
Bob: Yeah. Um, Miranda, I really appreciate your time. I know it’s been both a, a taxing week, both physically, but also emotionally, I’m sure, um, in all your coverage. And I, I think probably next week is gonna be tough as well, especially if you’re going to the memorial service. That’s gonna be a, a really tough weekend, although hopefully it’s gonna be a celebration and this kind of celebration of turning point in Charlie’s legacy.
Kind of this expectation of what is gonna happen. So really appreciate your time. Thank you for speaking with us and uh, we will stay in contact.
Miranda: Alright, terrific. Thanks so much Bob.
