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What exact comments did Charlie Kirk make about African American women and when were they said?
Executive summary
Reporting shows multiple outlets quote or summarize Charlie Kirk saying that “several prominent Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken really seriously,” and characterizations that Black women “aren’t smart enough to hold certain positions,” but the exact verbatim contexts, dates and full clips are variably reported across pieces and primary-source video links are not consistently reproduced in these sources [1] [2] [3]. News outlets collected many of Kirk’s incendiary comments into retrospectives after his Sept. 10, 2025 shooting; those roundups list the claim but do not all provide a single definitive timestamped quotation or original broadcast date in the articles cited here [4] [5].
1. What the major outlets report he said — the commonly cited phrasing
Multiple news and opinion pieces reproduce the claim that Kirk said “several prominent Black women do not have brain processing power to be taken really seriously,” or that “Black women aren’t smart enough to hold certain positions.” The Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah and Common Dreams both published that paraphrase or screenshot language as an on-record Kirk quote [2] [6]. CBC News similarly summarized the claim as part of a broader profile of Kirk’s rhetoric: “Black women aren’t smart enough to hold certain positions” [3].
2. Where outlets sourced the quotation — video compilations and social posts
Fact-checkers and some outlets point toward clips, social media posts and archived livestreams as the provenance for the quote. Snopes documents the viral circulation of a clip and references an archived Rumble livestream of Kirk from July 13, 2023, as part of the context reporters examined; Snopes treats the broader meme about Kirk’s statement as something that circulated after his shooting and traces it to video fragments and posts [1]. The Guardian and Irish Times compiled many of Kirk’s past remarks in the days after Sept. 10, 2025 but did not single out a definitive original broadcast date for this precise phrasing in their roundup pieces [4] [5].
3. Limitations in current reporting — exact words and timestamps not uniformly published
Available sources do not publish a single, full primary transcript with a definitive timestamp for the “brain processing power” wording. Snopes, while fact-checking related viral claims, references clips and archived livestreams but focuses on the circulation and context of several claims rather than reproducing a single authoritative timestamped quote in full [1]. The Observer and The Guardian present compilations and excerpts of Kirk’s inflammatory language, but those pieces are retrospective and do not consistently tie the specific Black-women quote to an original date in the excerpts cited here [7] [4].
4. How different outlets frame severity and intent
Opinion outlets such as Common Dreams characterize the remark as “rotten, vile hatred,” emphasizing moral condemnation and legacy [6]. Mainstream outlets like CBC and The Guardian place the comment within a pattern of incendiary rhetoric — linking it to other examples (e.g., alleged comments about stoning gay people or references to “the great replacement”) to argue the remark was part of a broader public persona [3] [4]. Snopes adopts a fact-checking posture, tracing circulation of viral posts after Kirk’s death and examining what can and cannot be verified from available clips [1].
5. Why this matters — public record, accountability and viral misinformation dynamics
Journalistic retrospectives after Kirk’s Sept. 10, 2025 shooting compiled many of his incendiary remarks as part of assessing his public record; those compilations amplified the quote but did not always link to a single, original full clip with date in the articles cited here [4] [5]. Fact-checkers and commentators caution that viral posts can compress or reframe earlier remarks, so establishing precise wording and timing requires returning to original audio/video archives — which the sources provided here reference but do not uniformly reproduce [1].
6. What you can do to verify further
To establish the exact phrasing and timestamp, consult primary video archives and platform-native recordings referenced by fact-checkers — for example, the Rumble livestream cited by Snopes and the clips assembled in Guardian/Irish Times retrospectives — and review full recordings rather than quoted screenshots or paraphrases [1] [4] [5]. Available sources do not provide a single definitive, timestamped transcript of the “brain processing power” line in the materials summarized above [1] [2].
Summary: multiple reputable outlets and a fact-checking site report that Charlie Kirk said variants of “Black women do not have the brain processing power” or “aren’t smart enough to hold certain positions,” but the exact verbatim phrasing and a single original date/timestamp are not uniformly documented in the sources gathered here; verifying that final link requires consulting the primary video archives those articles reference [1] [2] [3].