Immediate Reaction the Day After the Charlie Kirk Assassination
Senior Editor Jeff Reynolds went on the radio the day after to discuss the raw emotions, the reactions from supporters and detractors, and where we go from here.
I didn't know Charlie Kirk personally, only through sheer bad luck. I have worked, without exaggeration, with dozens and dozens of people who knew him personally or worked directly with him. And, as I have written a couple of times already, the impact hit me and the entire Restoration News team pretty hard. It was in the immediate aftermath, the day after the shooting, that I went on the radio to talk about it with my long-time friend and Salem, OR radio host Denise Quinn (and her radio partner Hunter). It was several days before the shock wore off, but this interview caught all the raw emotions—on an already emotional day commemorating the 24th anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
We first compared alcoholic beverages.
Been a long time since I needed a drink this much.
— jeffery reynolds (@ChargerJeff) September 10, 2025
Tonight I'm opening the bottle my dear departed friend @DlorenDarnell gifted me upon my departure from Oregon.
I never met Charlie Kirk, but I am left in shock at his assassination. I grieve for his wife and daughters. This one… pic.twitter.com/4Bu7cgBGkA
Then we jumped in to the chat. Much like Sept. 11, 2001, we were all in shock and wondering what comes next. Obviously not to the same scope, but it certainly created a cultural inflection point.
The three of us agreed that the teachers and health care workers who released social media videos celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk no longer deserved the privilege or trust placed in their professional positions. I actually had praise for the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which released a thoughtful and prayerful statement of condolence.
This horrific event had an outsized cultural impact. Americans now faces a question of who we want to be as a nation, and who we want to be as individual citizens of that nation.
Something touched the humanity of many Americans that confronted these notions for the first time in a long time.
It's time to confront the fact that the overheated and false rhetoric from the political Left has created the environment that led to increased violence against Trump supporters.
Later, I brought up the uncomfortable truth that those of us on the center-right of the political spectrum, especially in the media that have a platform to reach an audience, can't help but to fear we all can be targets of similar violence. Denise said, "The message is, if they can do this to Charlie Kirk, they can do it to any of you."
The radicals clearly want to intimidate us into compliance. "When the opposition isn't even allowed to think," I said, "we've descended into banana republic territory."
As I noted, in the case of both Charlie Kirk and Iryna Zarutska—the poor Ukrainian girl brutally murdered on the train in Charlotte, NC—the sad truth is that the bad guys got the drop on their victims. Neither saw it coming. This has struck me as a very important time to remember to take personal security seriously. Know your surroundings. Understand the principles of situational awareness no matter where you go.
I haven't spilled all the tea about the entire interview. I humbly submit it's worth listening to the whole thing to hear all the ground we covered, the raw emotions, and our assessment of where we're at as a nation barely 24 hours after the assassination took place. Check it out here:
(READ MORE: Dear America: Holding Normal Opinions Does Not Make One a Fascist)
