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Antiwar progressive reporter Ryan Grim posted, on the day after conservative pundit Charlie Kirk was fatally shot, “There are many layers of tragedy to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, first and foremost for him and his distraught family, and then also for our country which only gets ripped further apart.”
Grim added, “But a third layer of tragedy is that Charlie was genuinely grappling with our ironclad support for Israel in a serious way, and now that journey for him has been cut short.”
Grim shared these thoughts with a month-old video of Kirk being interviewed by Megyn Kelly, in which they discussed being attacked as anti-Semites for merely questioning Israel’s leadership. “I have less ability sometimes online to criticize the Israeli government without backlash than actual Israelis do,” Kirk observed. “That's really really weird, isn't it?” Both Kirk and Kelly acknowledged they were on Israel’s side, but also said that its government should not be beyond reproach.
On other topics, Kirk’s anti-war, America First views were undeniable. Six months ago, Kirk, a vocal opponent of the U.S. sending aid to Ukraine, said of America’s role in that country’s war with Russia, “You have to ask the very simple question: Who benefits from peace and who benefits from war?... The people of Ukraine benefit from peace. The people of America benefit from peace. Humanity benefits from peace.”
“But then who benefits from the war?” he asked. “The military-industrial complex, oligarchs of the ruling class of Ukraine.”
These were not one-off, random foreign policy thoughts from Kirk, who was assassinated on Wednesday. As the nation continues to process this tragedy, many are rightly remembering Charlie Kirk as a champion of free speech who was willing to debate anyone, anywhere, anytime on cultural issues. But Kirk was also a valuable part of the ongoing foreign policy battle between old guard, neoconservative Republicans like Texas Senator Ted Cruz and talk host Mark Levin, and a newer crop of genuine MAGA conservatives, like Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, talk host Tucker Carlson, former Trump advisor Steven Bannon, and others of a genuine America First brand of realism and restraint.
Kirk’s popularity on the right rose alongside the Donald Trump phenomenon, part of an antiwar populist conservative movement that the Turning Point USA founder became part of. With the exception of Pat Buchanan at an earlier time, libertarian Republicans like Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and his father, Ron Paul, had been the most vocal non-interventionists on the right prior to Trump’s election in 2016. Kirk was friends with Paul and had long had a certain libertarian bent. In May, when many Republicans supported legislation to punish critics of Israel, Kirk was strongly against it.
He also opposed a U.S. attack on Iran. As the journalist Glenn Greenwald noted, “Charlie Kirk opposed this pro-Israel censorship bill. Kirk has also been simultaneously denouncing any US attack on Iran both publicly and inside the administration.”
Indeed. Kirk said to his audience in June, “Is a nuclear weapon against Iran a threat to America? Probably could be a threat to Israel, but is it a threat to America? I mean, India has nuclear weapons. Pakistan has nuclear weapons. So is it worth, is it worth a potential, another war with Iran?”
“And the people that are, let's just say, advocates for preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons by all means necessary, they're the same architects that were perfectly fine with the Iraq war,” he noted. “The primary way Iran can hurt this country is by sucking us into another Middle East quagmire, and they know it. And Iran would have the potential to be the worst Middle East quagmire of all time. Iran has 90 million people.”
“That's more than three times as big as Iraq was when we invaded 22 years ago,” Kirk added. “It's larger than both Afghanistan and Iraq combined, both in population and in area.”
These are classic non-interventionist arguments for avoiding a U.S. war with Iran, echoes of the Paul family, Carlson, and more.
Of course, Kirk was no perfect non-interventionist. But that’s not the point.
The point is that Kirk often did spread antiwar ideas to people who otherwise would not have heard them. The young pundit was popular not only among teenage and twentysomething conservatives, but also their Republican parents, who may have once voted for George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney but would catch Kirk in a Facebook video opposing regime change wars, sometimes in bold terms. Kirk said in June, “My whole life, I've been told that Iran is getting a bomb. Iran is getting a bomb. Iran is getting a bomb. Iran is getting a nuclear bomb. And yet here in 2025, they do not have a nuclear bomb. So why should we trust the American intelligence without verifying it?”
These were the kinds of questions Kirk seemed to be asking more and more in the days and months before his death. Many critics of Kirk believe that since he presented himself as an ally of Israel that he was no different from a neoconservative like Shapiro. They are missing a lot. Regarding Ukraine, Iran, and U.S. foreign policy broadly, Kirk’s stances were generally anti-interventionist and located within an America First context.
There is a rightwing antiwar universe that exists within MAGA that wasn’t as broad or cemented within the Republican Party before Donald Trump became president. As one of the youngest players within that universe, Kirk used his debate skills to nudge the American right away from war and militarism in a way that shouldn’t go unnoticed.
Charlie Kirk lived a remarkable life and did many remarkable things.
Championing peace often was one of them. May he now rest.