What exact words did Charlie Kirk say about George Floyd and are there video clips?
Executive summary
Charlie Kirk publicly called George Floyd “a scumbag” during a campus speech in October 2021, and the remark was captured on video and streamed by Turning Point USA; that clip — and multiple reports documenting the exact wording and context — circulated widely on social media after Kirk’s death [1]. Reporting and contemporaneous video show Kirk prefaced the line by saying he would “offer some context and some nuance” about Floyd’s death and immediately added that calling Floyd a scumbag did not imply Floyd “deserves to die” [1].
1. What Kirk said — the exact words, on record
At a Turning Point USA event on Oct. 6, 2021, in Mankato, Minnesota, Charlie Kirk said: “I am also going to offer some context and some nuance about the death of George Floyd that no one dares to say out loud. Which is that this guy was a scumbag. Now, does that mean he deserves to die? That's two totally different things — of course not,” a formulation reproduced verbatim in archival reporting and in a video of the event [1]. Regional outlets covering the Mankato appearance summarized the same phrasing, noting the “scumbag” line as central to his remarks on Floyd and the broader racial-justice movement [2].
2. Where the words come from — event and tour context
Kirk made the remark as part of his 2021 “Exposing Critical Racism” campus tour, where he framed the racial reckoning following Floyd’s death as a misinterpretation and repeatedly challenged mainstream accounts; local coverage reported an approximately 80-minute speech in which he attacked the Black Lives Matter movement, urban governance, and specific narratives about Floyd’s death [2]. Other reporting indicates Kirk used similar language on tour stops beyond Mankato, with at least one Philadelphia appearance recorded as dismissing Floyd as “unworthy of the attention” his death generated [3].
3. Video evidence and circulation
The Mankato event was livestreamed by Turning Point USA on YouTube and that recording has been cited as the primary source for the quote, meaning the exact words are on video and were publicly available at the time [1]. After Kirk’s death in 2025, social posts quoting the line — including one that read “George Floyd was a father too and Charlie Kirk called him a ‘scumbag’” — gained millions of views, demonstrating that clips and quotations of the remark were widely shared and re-amplified on platforms like X, Facebook and Instagram [1].
4. Corroboration, disputes and related claims
Multiple outlets documented the line and its context contemporaneously — Snopes checked and verified the quote against the video and local reporting, while Minnesota Reformer and other outlets reported on Kirk’s repetition of debunked assertions about Floyd’s criminal history and cause of death during the same speeches [1] [2]. Wikipedia’s entry on Kirk records that he promoted debunked claims about Floyd — for example, alleging counterfeiting or overdose conclusions later contradicted by medical examiner statements and fact checks — which provides context for how Kirk framed Floyd in public statements [4]. Some commentators point to Kirk’s immediate qualifier — that calling someone a “scumbag” is not the same as saying they deserved to die — as mitigating intent, while critics highlight that denigrating a person killed in police custody contributes to a broader environment that minimizes state violence; both perspectives are reflected in the cited coverage [1] [2].
5. Limitations and what reporting does not claim
Available sources establish the exact quoted wording, the event context, and that the event was livestreamed and later circulated, but the provided reporting does not offer a complete catalog of every time Kirk repeated similar formulations at every tour stop or of every clip that exists online; archival platforms and news organizations are the traceable sources for the specific Mankato remark and its video [1] [2]. Where assertions about Floyd’s criminal history or cause of death are referenced, fact-checking organizations and corrections are noted in contemporary coverage and in Kirk’s social-media posts as contested or debunked [4] [1].