WASHINGTON — Kari Lake, the Trump administration’s acting CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), rebuked those who are “cheering” the assassination of Charlie Kirk and shared how heartbroken she was after hearing the tragic news.
“I haven’t looked at any of those videos of people celebrating the violence of Charlie’s assassination. I don’t want to see those. I don’t want to see people at that level of depravity,” Lake, the 2022 Republican nominee for Arizona governor, told Breitbart News on Friday while walking the red carpet of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. “Charlie Kirk was a really, really good friend of mine — and Erika and his family — and heartbroken is an understatement.”
Kirk was shot in the neck in front of a crowd at a Utah Valley University speaking event last Wednesday. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 31 years old. He leaves behind wife Erika Kirk and two young children.
The alleged gunman was turned in to law enforcement by family members on Friday and identified as 22-year-old Utah resident Tyler Robinson. Kirk was shot the moment he began to answer a question about transgender shooters, and Robinson is in a relationship with his transgender roommate, officials said.
“I’m devastated by it,” Lake continued, before revealing that her daughter, Ruby Halperin, “worked for Charlie.” Halperin’s LinkedIn profile lists that she has been an executive assistant at Kirk’s grassroots organization, Turning Point USA, since 2021.
Lake added that she has “spent many phone calls just crying on this” with her daughter.
“All he wanted to do is debate, which is what we’re supposed to do. If we can’t talk things out, if we have to lead to violence — we don’t want to be there as a country.”
WATCH — “We’re Here to Fight”: Mourners Send Messages of Support to Charlie Kirk’s Family:
Kirk had amassed millions of social media followers from his “change my mind”-style conversations, which involved him setting up a table and microphones on college campuses across the country to inviting students to debate him on various political and cultural issues.
Lake denounced all political violence and was understandably angered at those who have celebrated and justified Kirk’s murder.
“I deeply miss him, and I know his legacy continues on,” she told Breitbart News. “We’re not letting an assassin’s bullet stop what Charlie started. And I’m just not going to lay down and roll over and play dead around these people. These people who are cheering for Charlie’s death, these people who killed Charlie don’t deserve to be on this planet.”
Lake later spoke at a vigil for Kirk held in Washington, DC, on Sunday, also at the Kennedy Center:
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
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