What Kirk actually said matters

The regime’s critics face retribution for accurately reflecting the conservative commentator's words.

Many clips of Charlie Kirk’s show have circulated online in the aftermath of his death. One stirred more controversy than others. In it, Kirk rails against affirmative action, claiming that four of the most prominent Black women in America “do not have [the] brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously” so they had “to go steal a white person’s slot.” It is a blatantly racist argument—the type of ignorant bombast Kirk regularly trafficked in.

Incredibly, instead of shining light on the racism inherent in Kirk’s political ideology, the clip has been used to tarnish Kirk’s critics. MAGA influencers and trolls, including Vice President JD Vance, have used a slightly inaccurate version of Kirk’s quote cited by his critics to claim that they are lying about the conservative firebrand’s views.

That is not true. Kirk’s defenders, including the vice president of the United States, are the ones lying. The truth still matters.

The quote in question first appeared in a social media post referenced by The Nation, which criticized Kirk’s beliefs. In that post, Kirk was misquoted as saying: “Black women do not have brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person’s slot.”

The erroneous words in this quote are “Black women.” Kirk began the sentence with the word “You” instead. Does this absolve Kirk of the racism charge? Hardly.

In Kirk’s telling, “You” was a direct reference to four successful Black women. Readers can view Kirk’s argument, which was clearly racist, for themselves. See the segment beginning at about the 53:45 mark here:

If we would have said … that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. But now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us. They’re coming out and they’re saying, ‘I’m only here because of affirmative action.’ We know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.

Two of the Black leaders smeared by Kirk—former first lady Michelle Obama and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson—are graduates of Harvard Law School and other elite schools. Joy Reid, the former MSNBC host, received her undergraduate degree from Harvard University. Congresswoman Sheila Lee Jackson Lee, who died in 2024, received a scholarship to New York University before transferring to and then graduating from Yale University and later getting her law degree from the University of Virginia.

All four Black women are Ivy League graduates; they proved themselves at America’s top universities. Kirk was accepted for entry by Baylor University but “briefly attended” a community college before dropping out.

MAGA’s leading voices, including Vance, quickly seized on the insignificant error in how Kirk was quoted. While hosting Kirk’s show last Monday, Vance pointed to the story in The Nation to manufacture a new grievance. Vance inveighed against the author, claiming she “lied.” After repeating the slightly erroneous quote—“Black women do not have brain processing power to be taken seriously”—Vance claimed Kirk “never said anything like that,” “never uttered those words,” and merely made an argument based on “individual merits.”

The clip of Kirk tells a very different story. You’ll see that Vance is the one who is being dishonest. Kirk did not literally say that all “Black women” lack “brain processing power.” But how is the full, accurate quotation any less racist? Kirk accused four of the most accomplished Black women in America of being stupid, adding that they only achieved success because they supposedly stole a “white person’s slot.” Kirk’s argument is a quintessential example of racism.

Not content with gaslighting America about Kirk’s remarks, the vice president piled on. Vance claimed The Nation article is an example of the supposed “propaganda” created by “well-funded institutions of the left,” which “lied” about what Kirk had said “to justify his murder.”

Vance cited the piece as a justification for his desire to “go after” non-governmental organizations [NGOs]. The vice president even named the NGOs he’d like to target, claiming that the likes of George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, and “many other wealthy titans of the American progressive movement” fund The Nation, thereby making them targets for the Trump regime’s retribution.

A deputy editor for The Nation quickly pointed out on social media that Vance’s claim is false. Soros provides no funding for the magazine.

Vance, however, faces no comeuppance for his lies.

This simple observation reveals a key asymmetry in the current information environment—and in the struggle against authoritarianism. Vance, President Donald Trump, and the MAGA movement lie with impunity, inventing new grievances and conspiracy theories as a pretext to target the free speech of others. Meanwhile, only the regime’s critics face retribution, including from media companies that are supposed to defend this fundamental right.

Just last week, late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel was sidelined by ABC and its parent company, Disney, for his remarks after Kirk’s death, which he condemned as “horrible and monstrous,” while sending condolences to Kirk’s family. Kimmel’s show was suspended in response to pressure from the Trump regime.

Perhaps more telling, Karen Attiah, the only full-time, Black opinion columnist at the Washington Post, was fired by the newspaper after sharing her thoughts about recent events on social media. Nothing Attiah wrote was offensive—and certainly not nearly as offensive as Kirk’s racist slander. Even so, freedom of speech should mean the freedom to offend. But Attiah is out of a job while the vice president of the United States, a white man, is threatening to shred the First Amendment based on obvious lies. And Fox News host Brian Kilmeade, another white man, can call for homeless people to be executed without worrying about his job security.

Which brings us back to Sheila Jackson Lee, the late Democratic congresswoman from Texas. In the middle of his racist rant, Kirk excerpted a clip of Lee speaking on the floor of the House. People should watch that full clip, too, because Kirk only presented a portion of her remarks to his viewers. Kirk cut off Lee’s full defense of affirmative action, making it seem as if she was admitting that she was otherwise unqualified.

“I rise today as a clear recipient of affirmative action and particularly in higher education,” Lee said. “I may have been admitted on affirmative action both in terms of being a woman and a woman of color, but I can declare that I did not graduate on affirmative action.” Lee went on to tell her personal story, but Kirk did not show the rest of her argument.

Lee argued that the Supreme Court erred in gutting affirmative action. Without it, Lee said, a “group of excellent persons who happen to be people of color” would not be “recognized or accepted” for their intellect and talents. This is “evident,” Lee said, as throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, when “African Americans in particular were not admitted to institutions of higher learning, such as the Ivy Leagues and other schools.” Lee was not arguing that affirmative action gave her and others an underserved “slot” – as Kirk made it seem. She spoke an obvious truth: The playing field has too often been tilted against “excellent” Black women.

Vance claims that Kirk argued against affirmative action merely based on “individual merits.” In fact, the full clip of Lee’s statement shows that was really her argument, not Kirk’s. The full clip of Kirk’s remarks shows that he made a racist and derogatory comment about the intellect of four Black American women.

The murder of Charlie Kirk for his views is horrific and a direct attack on the right to free speech. The reaction to Kirk’s death, including the whitewashing of his statements, also demonstrates that Lee had a point.

Tom Joscelyn is a senior fellow at Just Security Susan Corke is the executive director of Democracy Defenders Action and Democracy Defenders Fund.

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