OAN Staff Blake Wolf
11:25 AM – Thursday, September 18, 2025
Vice President JD Vance recounted the “very tough moment” he experienced in delivering the news that Charlie Kirk was dead to President Donald Trump.
In a Wednesday Fox News interview, Vance revealed that he “was the person who walked into the Oval Office and said, ‘Mr. President, I’m sorry, but Charlie’s passed.’”
Kirk was assassinated on Wednesday, September 10th, while engaging in debates with students on the campus of Utah Valley University, kicking off his national tour called “The American Comeback Tour.”
Vance stated that he had just finished a meeting in his office in the West Wing when his phone began receiving a massive amount of notifications at around 2:30 p.m.
“I looked at my phone and there were a bunch of group chats — frankly, a lot of them that Charlie was in — where they said ‘Charlie, praying for you, brother. Hope you’re doing OK,” Vance recounted. “I opened up my door and someone said ‘Charlie’s been shot’ and it hit me like, ‘this is very real, this is very serious.”
Vance went on to reveal that he spent the “next hour” attempting to get confirmation on Kirk’s status, noting that he called Kirk’s chief of staff, Mikey McCoy.
“We called Mike and said, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’” he explained. “The news was discombobulated. Nobody knew what was happening. It was a very chaotic moment. There was a brief period where we were getting good reports from the hospital.”
The vice president revealed that President Trump remained “very stoic” after receiving the news of Kirk’s death.
“The president is very stoic. He was clearly upset. He just went quiet and let it absorb a little bit. And then just shook his head and said, ‘Man, he was a good guy and we really loved him.’”
Vance also revealed that he had seen the explicit assassination video once, although he plans to never watch it again because he “[doesn’t] want to see that happen to [his] friend ever again.”
“It felt like we were all mourning our friend before any of the politics or the thought about what a titan he was, how influential he was to the movement, how could we possibly replace him, we were all just sad because our friend had died.”
After Kirk’s death, Vance released a lengthy X post, revealing that his friendship with Kirk began in 2017 after Kirk reached out, praising Vance’s appearance on Fox News with then-anchor Tucker Carlson.
“That moment of kindness began a friendship that lasted until today,” Vance wrote after Kirk’s murder.
Additionally, in the aftermath of Kirk’s assassination, Vance has placed the blame on “left-wing political radicalization.”
“My friend is dead because of left-wing political radicalization,” Vance continued. “And if you want to cut that s*** out, then be honest about it, and look yourself in the mirror.”
“You look at every ounce of evidence that we have, and it is clear,” he added. “This is a person who grew up in a pretty normal family, actually had a pretty good home life, who was radicalized by the far left, by the social networks of the far left, by the ideas of the far left, and got so far down the path of radicalization that he killed my friend.”
Kirk was allegedly murdered by Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah man, who is the main suspect in the assassination.
Robinson was a “very normal young man” who had since become extremely radicalized by “leftist ideology” in recent years, according to Utah Governor Spencer Cox.
According to court documents, Robinson’s mother corroborated Cox’s claim, stating that her son had “become more political,” and supported left-leaning issues such as “pro-gay and trans rights.”
Robinson was also living with his transgender romantic partner, Lance Twiggs.
Messages between Robinson and Twiggs directly after the murder have since been released, in which Robinson allegedly confessed to the murder.
In response to Twiggs asking him why he allegedly committed the murder, Robinson revealed that he was motivated to act because he had “had enough of [Kirk’s] hatred.”
“Some hate can’t be negotiated out,” Robinson added.
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