Has Charlie Kirk publicly criticized Joy Reid and what were his main complaints?

1. A public, repeated attack framed around affirmative action

Kirk’s criticisms were not private asides but broadcasted on his show and repeated in other venues; in the July 2023 episode he explicitly singled out Joy Reid by name and argued that she and other prominent Black women owed their positions to affirmative-action policies — a claim he used to question their competence and legitimacy ^{[1] [3]}. Reuters and other outlets summarized his pattern of dismissing affirmative action, DEI and civil‑rights advances as a throughline in his rhetoric ^{[4] [5]}.

2. The substance: “did not earn their spot” and “affirmative‑action picks”

Kirk’s main concrete complaint was that certain high‑profile Black women “were affirmative‑action picks,” and that asserting this openly would have been labeled racist — a formulation he used to suggest these women “did not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously,” according to multiple reports quoting his remarks ^{[2] [3] [6]}. News outlets that replayed his words placed those lines in the broader context of his attacks on diversity programs ^{[4] [7]}.

3. How different outlets reported the line and its scope

Some reports note important distinctions: fact‑checkers and news organizations emphasize Kirk named four specific women — Joy Reid among them — rather than making a claim about “Black women” as a whole, and they correct instances where his words were paraphrased into broader, less precise viral claims ^{[3] [6]}. At the same time, major coverage of his rhetoric treated the remarks as part of a pattern of racist and sexist language that inflamed critics ^{[2] [4]}.

4. Wider context — DEI, the Civil Rights Act and his rhetorical pattern

Kirk’s attack on Reid fit into a larger set of positions he took publicly: he repeatedly criticized diversity, equity and inclusion programs and called the Civil Rights Act of 1964 “a huge mistake,” framing his objection as systemic rather than aimed at a single person ^{[4] [5]}. That pattern helps explain why his specific critique of Reid resonated widely in news coverage as more than an isolated insult ^[4].

5. Pushback, corrections and fact‑checking

Multiple organizations — including Snopes and fact‑checking outlets — documented the original remarks and corrected viral misstatements that expanded the target from the named women to all Black women; they reproduced the tape and noted the precise wording and context of the July 13, 2023 segment ^{[1] [3]}. Editorials and campus newspapers also catalogued the factual errors in Kirk’s claims about credentials and merit, contrasting the named women’s academic and professional records with Kirk’s assertions ^[7].

6. What the available reporting does not say

Available sources do not mention direct on‑air exchanges between Kirk and Reid responding to each other at length; they do not present a sustained debate between the two beyond Kirk’s broadcast remarks and Reid’s later public commentary about covering him ^[8]. They also do not supply a verbatim transcript of every relevant episode beyond the quoted segments excerpted by fact‑checkers ^{[1] [3]}.

7. Why this mattered — political consequences and media framing

News organizations presented Kirk’s attack as emblematic of his wider strategy: appealing to culture‑war grievances by casting diversity policies as mechanisms of illegitimate advantage, thereby delegitimizing prominent Black voices such as Reid’s ^{[4] [5]}. Media coverage also highlighted how misquoting or broadening his remarks on social platforms fed more polarized interpretations — a dynamic flagging both real statements and amplification errors in the public record ^{[2] [3]}.

Limitations: this account relies solely on the provided reporting and fact‑checks; it reflects both direct quotations of Kirk documented by news organizations and subsequent corrections about scope and phrasing ^{[1] [2] [3]}.