Washington Examiner Senior Columnist Salena Zito said Wednesday that Charlie Kirk is responsible for “a lot” of President Donald Trump’s support from younger voters, predicting the voting bloc isn’t going to “shrink.”
Zito said she never cries when covering the news, but she “cried last week” and every day since Kirk was killed on Sept. 10. She also said she was “gutted” since following Kirk when he was 18 years old, and that he was “a really bold and brassy kid” who changed the world.
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Zito recalled the book she published earlier this year, Butler: The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America’s Heartland, and spoke on the effect of Trump’s first assassination attempt on the 2024 election. She said people weren’t “paying attention” to large numbers of excited, young voters.
“Young women, young men, they’re excited, they’re happy, they feel purposeful, and a lot of that came from Charlie. And so he had a very direct impact on this younger generation, and if you read the piece I wrote today, they aren’t going to shrink. They are going to be bold and purposeful in carrying forward what he inspired them to be part of,” Zito said on The Hugh Hewitt Show.
Zito also said she attended Mass at a “little country church” on Sunday, where “you couldn’t get in the back door.” She then went to a revival in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where “busloads of kids” were feeling “bold and purposeful.”
Zito, a friend of Trump who witnessed him get shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, said what “really impacted” him was the death of Corey Comperatore, who was killed in the assassination attempt. She said “it’s the same thing” with Kirk’s death and how it is affecting the president.
Zito said she’s still figuring out how Kirk’s death will affect the future, but that she’s seen a “surge” of mothers and women purchasing firearms. She also predicted that if universities try to clamp down on political speech, people will still find “a way” to conduct civil debates.
Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow, said last week she would continue her husband’s movement at Turning Point USA. She also said, “You have no idea what you just have unleashed across this entire country.”