OAN Staff Blake Wolf
5:49 PM – Wednesday, September 10, 2025
CNN political commentator Van Jones is facing backlash after accusing Charlie Kirk of “race mongering” for questioning the racial motivation behind the death of Ukrainian Iryna Zarutska. The remarks come just a day before Kirk’s assassination.
Jones criticized Kirk for his coverage of Zarutska’s murder, allegedly carried out by Decarlos Brown, an apparent homeless Black man.
Brown, the suspect in the case, allegedly stabbed Zarustska to death in an unprovoked attack on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina, on August 22nd.
In the video of the murder, the suspect can be heard saying, “I got that White girl,” leading Kirk to question the racial motivation of the attack while also exposing the suspect’s 14 prior arrests, arguing, “This individual should not have been on the streets.”
“It really makes you wonder, why are we putting up with this? Why are we allowing so many people who have committed these crimes to keep on being released? The magistrate judge continued to release this individual, and this is a horrific thing. You know, it’s really interesting, the media was totally covering George Floyd, tens of thousands of articles reconfigured and changed the entire American body politic,” Kirk stated on Tuesday.
“Yet when it came to Iryna Zarutska, the entire media was quiet, silent. In fact, we forced them to cover the story. Why do you think that is? What was the difference between George Floyd and Iryna Zarutska? Why did the left care so much about George Floyd, and they couldn’t care less about Iryna Zarutska? What could the difference be?” Kirk added, suggesting the attack was not initially covered by mainstream outlets due to Zarutska’s race.
Jones responded to Kirk’s message, slamming him for questioning the racial motivation despite the suspect clearly saying he “got that White girl,” directly after the attack.
“We don’t know why that man did what he did. And for Charlie Kirk to say, ‘We know he did it because she’s White,’ when there’s no evidence of that, is just pure race mongering, hate mongering,” Jones stated.
“Someone like Charlie Kirk, he should be ashamed of himself. No one mentioned the word race, White, Black, or anything except him,” he added.
Jones’s comment came just a day before Kirk was fatally shot in the neck by an assassin at a Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah on Wednesday.
Social media users responded to Jones’s comment, arguing that he “has blood on his hands.”
“These people need to be sued for inciting violence,” one user stated after it was announced that Kirk had passed away.
“Van Jones should be fired immediately. Charlie’s family should sue CNN, Van Jones, and Abby Phillip for all that they are worth. This type of senseless rhetoric has to end,” a third user added.
Additionally, Kirk responded to Jones’s comment, pointing towards the suspect’s racially charged comment after the attack, as heard in the security camera footage.
“Do you notice the media all of a sudden tries to play the moral high ground when we start to try to make them live up to the standard that they created, and the construct that they forced, and the paradigm that they constituted under George Floyd. The moment that we make them have to live up to their own standard, they start to cry foul,” Kirk responded on Tuesday.
“As soon as we start to make them live up to the George Floyd standard, ‘Oh, what is Charlie Kirk racializing this?’ And by the way, Van Jones also has a major lie embedded into this whole thing,” he continued.
“The reality is, we’re asking a very simple question Mr. Jones, very simple question, which is, will you apologize for all the criminal justic reform that you pushed for that allowed these 14-time criminal offenders to walk the streets because you are the architect and the designer of constantly feeling bad for the criminal that then can kill more people like Iryna Zarutska,” Kirk added.
Kirk is survived by his wife and two small children.
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