What exact comments did Charlie Kirk make about Black women and when were they said?

1. The recorded remark and the date it was said

An episode of The Charlie Kirk Show from mid‑July 2023 is the primary source for the quoted language: Snopes identifies a July 13, 2023 program in which Kirk named four Black women and said some of them did not have “the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously,” a phrase beginning at about 53:45 of the archived segment ^[1]. NDTV’s reporting likewise points to the July 14, 2023 edition of his show when recounting that Kirk discussed those four figures and said, “If we had said [those women] were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists,” placing the comments in a DEI/affirmative action critique ^[3].

2. Who Kirk was referring to and the immediate context

Multiple fact‑checking outlets and news organizations report that Kirk singled out Michelle Obama, Joy Reid, the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson when making the “brain processing power” claim and tied the criticism to debates over affirmative action and diversity programs rather than a stated attack on all Black women ^{[1] [3]}. The FT published a correction noting some accounts had misquoted Kirk as saying “Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously,” clarifying he was referring to specific women named in the program ^[2].

3. How the quote was amplified and contested after his death

After Kirk’s assassination in September 2025, social media and some news reports circulated blunt paraphrases of the remark — including categorical statements about “Black women” generally — prompting fact‑checkers to correct overbroad summaries and to reconstruct the original wording and context from archived audio and transcripts ^{[4] [2]}. Outlets such as Snopes and FactCheck documented the July 2023 episode and warned that viral posts often blurred the targeted line into a sweeping insult, while others, including conservative commentators, argued the widely shared formulations misrepresented his intent ^{[1] [5]}.

4. Related statements and the broader pattern critics cite

Reporting from The Guardian, WUNC and The Atlantic situates the July 2023 remark within a pattern of incendiary commentary by Kirk, citing additional examples — such as stereotyping Black professionals (“If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified”) and claims that affirmative action explained the advancement of prominent Black figures — that critics say demonstrate a recurring line of racialized commentary ^{[6] [7]}. These outlets and congressional statements have used both the July 2023 audio and other public remarks to argue Kirk repeatedly demeaned Black women and professionals ^{[8] [7]}.

5. How defenders and corrections framed it, and limits of available reporting

Defenders and some fact‑checking summaries emphasize that Kirk’s words in July 2023 targeted four named individuals and were aired in the context of criticizing DEI and affirmative‑action narratives, not a categorical condemnation of all Black women, and several outlets corrected social posts that turned the line into a blanket claim ^{[3] [2]}. The public record assembled by journalists and fact‑checkers supports the specific July 2023 citation, but available reporting does not provide a full verbatim transcript in every source, so reconstructions rely on archived audio and excerpted passages documented by Snopes, NDTV and other outlets ^{[1] [3] [4]}.