Transcript:
Ed Henry: Betsy as well. What are you what’s your initial reaction?
Betsy Brantner Smith: Well, this is beyond heartbreaking. I I live in Southern Arizona. Turning point is, near and dear to our hearts as is Charlie and his wife and his family to us. He has been not just a friend of Arizona conservatives, but he’s a friend of law enforcement. He appreciates law enforcement.
Turning Point USA has been very good to us at the National Police Association. And I would first and foremost encourage everyone to pray for this young man. He is a young man of great faith, and and he and his family need our prayers. When I when I look at the videos that are circulating, I I you can see that some have been enhanced with AI, but it, you know, it looks like a a horrific horrific wound, one shot from 200 yards away. We know the suspect is in custody.
The university’s put out a statement that the shooting came from building on campus, and and I, you know, I agree with everyone else. This is going to be a culture shift for us here in The United States, and I am already seeing in my x feed just vile responses from some in the legacy media because they don’t like Charlie Kirk or what he stands for. And, and I will say I’m glad that Gavin Newsom had the good sense to step up and tweet out what he did because this needs to be apolitical.
Kelly Sadler: John, what you know, John, it feel I was talking to Tracy earlier about this, but it feels like, these attacks, these really, really violent attacks, are only targeted at one side. You had president Trump in Butler. You had, the the Christian, the Catholic school kids, in Minneapolis. You had, you know, you had the baseball team, the Republican baseball team, years ago. What what what do you make of what do you make of this?
There seems to be an intolerance when it comes to the political left.
John Nantz: Well, think Occam’s razor applies. Right? It’s the simplest explanation is usually the right one. And political violence, if this turns out to be an act of political violence, is almost exclusively the purview of the left. And as you’ve mentioned, we have seen this time and time again.
And I know it’s a little bit early to to say exactly what the motivations were, but, you know, when you have a single shot 200 yards away, you’re looking at, most likely a rifle, of some caliber. And so this was thought out planned out ahead of time. Charlie Kirk, obviously, is a a right leaning religious Christian individual. So it begs the question, you know, who would be the likely opponent or or enemy of those particular ideas? So, you know, your mind automatically goes to, you know, the the kind of violence that we have seen in this country exclusively from the left.
Ed Henry: Yeah. Betsy, what are your thoughts about Charlie, who has been, engaged just in the last twenty four hours in very direct and honest, I would say, conversations about race in America, challenging people like Van Jones at CNN. I I hear heard you a moment ago, Betsy, saying, you know, it’s vile what some on the left are saying about Charlie Kirk being shot. That is sick and disgusting. And just a day ago, Charlie was saying, look.
I wanna have a honest conversation, Van Jones. Come on my show and talk about this Ukrainian refugee who was murdered by this black man. Why won’t you have a real conversation about race after Van Jones had had basically lied on CNN the night before and said that race was not a factor and that Charlie Kirk was a race monger. I mean, folks on the left have been twisting his words and lying about him this very week.
Betsy Brantner Smith: No. You’re absolutely right. And and that that killing in North Carolina, as we now know from the video, appears to have a racial motive. This is the time where we need to regain our humanity, and that’s all Charlie Kirk has been trying to do. He is and I know probably almost everyone on this TV right now, on the show, has met Charlie Kirk.
He is a great kid. He is very affable. He is the type of guy who can go to a guy like Dan Jones. A guy like Gavin Newsom and say, can we just talk about this? And that’s exactly what he was doing on campus today.
When you look out at that crowd, you see what kind of crowd he draws. And the reason he draws those crowds is because he’ll talk to anybody. And so now is the time even as we’re learning, you know, Charlie’s condition, we’re gonna learn more about the shooter, we all need to take a step back and start to regain our humanity. And I sure hope that that’s what the legacy media bosses are doing right now. I’m not real hopeful about it because of what I am already seeing, them put out there.
But this is a young man with a wife and two kids, and we need to stop talking about left or right, and we need to talk about humanity. And let me just add this, it ain’t about the guns, and that’s where they’re gonna go next. And we have got to push back at that as hard as possible. Let’s not forget, the left in this country has been trying to do nothing but support the criminal element for weeks now. It’s not the guns.
Kelly Sadler: John, how would you charge this case? Would you charge it as a, you know, a terrorism case? Because this is gonna have a chilling effect on speech. This Charlie was outspoken. He was courageous.
He was brave. As Ed said, he was taking on, you know, sensitive topics, and trying to speak truth to them, from a conservative perspective. I know that conservatives have been targeted. Other conservatives have been targeted and feel unsafe on college in colleges, on you know, in the college environment, where they’ve had to be ushered away because of their physical safety. But, you know, how would you charge, this this case, and would you consider it an act of terrorism?
John Nantz: Well, I think everything’s on the table at this point, and we’re gonna have to figure out or wait and see what exactly the motive of this individual was. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that this was probably an act in support of some political agenda. You know, as you mentioned, you know, Charlie Kirk isn’t your average citizen. He represents conservatism. He represents a Judeo Christian perspective.
So someone who is trying to take out or silence a voice like his is most likely gonna be an individual motivated by an ideology in attempting to support some sort of political position. So I think that it’s very likely that this will be charged as a domestic terrorism case, which is gonna involve the FBI and its resources and not just the FBI, but if it’s if it’s determined to be domestic terrorism, then that that implicates the rest of the intelligence community bringing all those resources to bear to figure out exactly who this person was, where they came from, who their associates are. So all that’s gonna be very, very important. Betsy makes a very, very good point that this is this this isn’t about the firearms. I’m already seeing the left talking about gun control.
Yeah. We’ve seen time and time again at the Catholic school shooting not long ago. They had gun free zones simply create a target rich environment for for the malicious perpetrators. So Betsy makes a great a great point on that, and I think it’s likely that we’ll see a domestic terrorism charge come out of this. Absolutely.
Kelly Sadler: appreciate Brettner Smith. Oh, sorry. I was just I was just gonna goodbye everyone. And and and I appreciate Betsy Bratner Smith, thank you so much. John Nance, thank you so much for your insight.
Thanks for both being with us today on, you know, a breaking news day that is is very difficult for all of us. We appreciate it.
Betsy Brantner Smith: Thanks for having us.