
Former CNN host Don Lemon listened quietly on âThe Don Lemon Showâ Thursday while comedian D.L. Hughley cast aspersions on assassinated Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
Kirk was assassinated on Wednesday while speaking to a large crowd of students at Utah Valley University (UVU) about mass shootings; his last words were questioning a crowd member about whether he was categorizing âgang violenceâ as mass shootings. Hughley falsely claimed on Lemonâs YouTube show that Kirkâs murder did not qualify as an assassination because he was not a politician and characterized him as a despicable person. (RELATED: âI Did See Him Fallâ: Jason Chaffetz Provides Eyewitness Account Of Charlie Kirk Shooting)
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âhe thing that makes me the angriest about this is I always swore that I would never cede my humanity to anybody or any other situation. But thatâs getting more and more difficult to do because I certainly donât believe a young man, 31 years old, should have lost his life,â Hughley said. âBut Charlie Kirk was a horrible human being. He said horribly incendiary things ⌠the very last words he spoke were basically putting the onus of gun violence on gangs, which is synonymous with black people. The very way he died was lying about black people with his last breath.â
âI just think the best thing I can say is that I hope he believed what he was saying,â he added. âI hope he believed that lives being lost were worth it so the Second Amendment could persevere ⌠I hope he believed all the rhetoric he espoused because if not, that was certainly an empty, vacant way to live and certainly a horrible way to die.â
Then-MSNBC political analyst Matthew Dowd also suggested on âKaty Tur Reportsâ on Wednesday that Kirkâs rhetoric inevitably led to him being shot.
âeâs been one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this, who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups,â Dowd said. âAnd I always go back to: hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions.â
MSNBC announced it had fired Dowd on Wednesday after his comments, describing them as âinappropriate, insensitive and unacceptableâ and apologizing. Dowd also apologized in a Wednesday Bluesky post.
Some people also rejoiced over Kirkâs assassination, even though he left behind two young children and a wife.
SiriusXMâs Stephen A. Smith on âThe Stephen A. Smith Showâ Thursday excoriated those individuals.
âI donât care what his political beliefs were! I donât care what he felt! I care about the fact that a man was gunned down in front of two of his children who are 5 years of age or less,â Smith said. âThat heâs dead at the age of 31. That his wife is a widow. That his children are fatherless because his ideas and his beliefs differed from somebody else, apparently.â
âAnd then Iâm going online and Iâm seeing people celebrating it!â he continued. âShame! Shame on you!â
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