Did Charlie kirk call for the murder of Biden?
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Executive summary
Charlie Kirk publicly advocated that Joe Biden “should honestly be put in prison and/or given the death penalty” on a 2023 episode of The Charlie Kirk Show, a statement that resurfaced after Kirk’s own killing and spread widely on social media [1] [2]. None of the sources assembled for this report show Kirk explicitly calling for Biden to be murdered or assassinated; the documented remarks advocate legal punishment, not extrajudicial killing, and commentators differ sharply on how to interpret the tone and responsibility of such rhetoric [1] [3].
1. What was actually said: the record of Kirk’s words
A resurfaced clip from July 24, 2023, is the core piece of evidence: in that podcast segment Kirk called Joe Biden a “corrupt tyrant” and said Biden “should honestly be put in prison and/or given the death penalty for his crimes against America,” a line attributed to Kirk by fact-checkers and multiple outlets that republished the segment after it reappeared online [1] [2]. Wikipedia’s entry on Kirk likewise summarizes his 2023 comment as calling for Biden’s imprisonment or the death penalty, confirming that this phrasing has been widely reported in the public record [4].
2. Legal penalty versus a call to murder — the critical distinction
The language Kirk used, as reported, advocates the death penalty as a legal punishment and prison as a legal consequence, rather than an explicit directive to commit murder or an assassination; fact-checking outlets framed the quote as Kirk calling for execution as a judicial outcome rather than urging vigilante killing [1]. Conservative commentator responses and some editorialists reject collapsing such rhetoric into a literal call to assassinate — National Review argued it is “moral blindness” to equate Kirk’s hot takes with “calculated political murder,” framing the remark as incendiary political hyperbole rather than a literal directive to kill [3].
3. How the line between rhetoric and incitement became contested after Kirk’s death
Kirk’s public advocacy for the death penalty resurfaced and spread immediately after his September 2025 shooting, and social media amplified versions that presented the clip as proof he had “called for the death” of Biden; outlets such as the Irish Star and aggregated reports flagged the viral dissemination and reaction to the clip [2]. At the same time, national conversations about political violence intensified; The Washington Post covered the broader fallout and warned that the next steps in public discourse “matter” after Kirk’s murder, noting how charged rhetoric is re-examined in the wake of real violence [5].
4. Evidence (or lack of it) tying rhetoric to the alleged killer’s motive
Investigations into the alleged shooter, as reported by The Washington Post, describe that prosecutors say the accused targeted Kirk for his “political expression,” but publicly available material at the time of reporting did not include a videotaped confession or a clear manifesto explaining motive, leaving a gap between the rhetoric Kirk used and whatever singular motive the alleged shooter may have held [6]. The Post’s reporting underscores an evidentiary limit: prosecutors allege politically motivated targeting, but the publicly known record does not document an explicit causal link between Kirk’s comments about Biden and the shooter’s actions [6].
5. Bottom line: what can be stated with confidence and what remains open
It is supported by the documented record that Charlie Kirk advocated the death penalty — saying Biden “should” be put to death — in 2023, and that statement was the specific line that circulated widely after Kirk’s killing [1] [2] [4]. What cannot be credibly asserted from the assembled sources is that Kirk called for Joe Biden to be murdered or assassinated in the sense of urging someone to commit extrajudicial killing; major outlets and fact-checkers characterize the quote as advocacy of a legal penalty and commentators dispute whether such rhetoric crosses into incitement [1] [3]. The link between Kirk’s speech and the motives of his alleged killer remains a matter for prosecutorial proof and further investigation, not settled fact in the reporting available here [6].