Tulsi Gabbard appeared live on Meghan McCain‘s “Citizen McCain” podcast to discuss the assassination of her close friend, conservative activist Charlie Kirk, and advised listeners not to respond to “hate with hate.”
The Trump-appointed U.S. Director of National Intelligence spoke candidly Monday about her friendship with Kirk, as well as the lessons she has personally learned from witnessing others’ responses to his death. Gabbard noted that the past few days have been a “very difficult time” for her, but ultimately praised the “incredible” and “awesome” tributes and vigils that have been held around the world in Kirk’s honor in recent days.
“The response that we are seeing from people is a true reflection of how Charlie lived his life and how he communicated with people, how he treated people,” Gabbard said. “That’s a really beautiful thing.”
At the top of the show, McCain admitted that she has been experiencing both a “crisis of faith” and a “crisis of patriotism” in the wake of Kirk’s passing.
“I am not in a mood to meet with the other side right now. I don’t feel like I have it in me right now to find what unites us rather than divides us,” McCain confessed, before asking Gabbard, “What do you say to people who are in this head space?”
“I just encourage people to look at Charlie’s example,” Gabbard responded. “This should not be misunderstood, that love means weakness or love means rolling over if someone is coming at you and attacking you or your ideas. Love is strength. Love is the most powerful thing, and it takes many different shapes. It is that strength and that courage that we must draw upon right now.”
“It is important that we look to the example that Charlie set and others have set in choosing that path of love and confronting that hate and darkness and evil with love, and not allowing any ourselves to succumb to responding to hate with hate,” Gabbard concluded. “That’s [when] we find ourselves as a country, and as a people, in a very rapid spiral downward.”
In the wake of Kirk’s assassination, Gabbard was one of several high-profile members of Trump’s cabinet to mourn his death on social media.
“We cannot allow their darkness and evil to perpetuate,” Gabbard wrote at the time on her official X account. “Charlie truly loved our country and dedicated his life to protecting our God-given rights. We must honor his life’s work, and the promise of America, by continuing to lift our own voices and defend our God-given freedoms enshrined in our Constitution.”
Kirk’s assassination has, notably, been denounced by not just Gabbard and other members of the Trump-led Right, but also prominent figures of the American Left, including “Morning Joe” co-anchor Willie Geist. “I think most of us at this table disagree with a lot of what Charlie Kirk would say, but this, obviously, is not the answer,” Geist said on “Morning Joe” last Thursday. “This cannot happen.”
On Sept. 12, two days after Kirk was shot and killed, his suspected killer, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, was taken into custody by Utah police.
