When questioned during a CBS News town hall which aired Saturday about President Donald Trump’s reaction to a video encouraging members of the military to disobey allegedly illegal orders, Turning Point USA (TPUSA) CEO Erika Kirk said all Americans share the responsibility of cooling down rhetoric.
Democratic Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin and five other Democrats who served in the military or intelligence agencies appeared in a Nov. 18 video which urged members of the military and intelligence agencies to disregard supposedly “illegal” orders issued by Trump. The president later accused those Democrats of sedition and claimed their actions could warrant the death penalty. Hunter Kozak, the person who was debating TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk about transgender mass shooters at the Sept. 10 TPUSA event when Kirk was gunned down, asked if Erika Kirk condemned Trump’s comments.
“I want to tell you how much I appreciate your calls for peace and unity, and I’m likewise horrified by the people in my so-called ‘camp’ who were cheering about Charlie’s murder,” Kozak told Erika Kirk. “I believe that they stoke the flames of violence. But even worse is when powerful, influential people on either side of the aisle stoke the flames. When they do it, the flames can become an inferno, and this leads me to Donald Trump, the most powerful and influential person on earth, who has more responsibility than anyone else to put the flames out. Just last month, President Trump called on six Democratic lawmakers to be tried for sedition, which he clarified was punishable by death.”
Slotkin was unable to name an illegal order Trump issued when she was pressed by “This Week” host Martha Raddatz.
“I appreciate your question. You know my heart. Why would I ever say, ‘Yes, go murder people?’” Erika Kirk responded. “This is so much deeper than just one — I understand your sentiment, I do — but this is also so much deeper than just one person. This starts at the home, okay? This starts with family, this starts with a seed that grows and grows. You can choose to have evil in your heart or you can choose to have light. What you consume and what you absorb from the outside world will manifest itself.”
“No, I will never agree with political violence,” Mrs. Kirk said. “My husband’s a victim of it, I’m a victim of it, but what I’m trying to say here is that we can blame everyone else. We have to look in the mirror. When you become a father, when you become a mother, how are you raising your kids?”
Erika Kirk also criticized parents for using iPads and other devices as a substitute for parenting children.
“So my call to action from that is, ‘Parents, step up. Do you want your kid to be a thought leader or an assassin?’” Kirk added. “That’s where we’re at.”
“Do you think our political leaders have a responsibility to turn the temperature down right now?” CBS News’s Bari Weiss asked Kirk.
“Well, I think everyone has a responsibility to do that and I’m doing my part. I’m not in control of other people,” she responded.
TPUSA reportedly received over 100,000 inquiries about starting chapters since Kirk’s assassination, though some efforts to start high school chapters have met resistance in parts of the country. In Royal Oak, Michigan, for example, liberals criticized the school board for allowing a high school chapter to form, while an Albemarle County, Virginia school board member came under fire for comparing TPUSA to the Ku Klux Klan.
In addition, Prince William County, officials resisted the formation of a TPUSA chapter at Patriot High School, prompting one parent to light into the Virginia county’s school board.
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