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President Trump reportedly told CNBC anchor Joe Kernen that he thought slain conservative influencer Charlie Kirk “could have been president some day.”
“He’s devastated about Charlie Kirk and said that, what a guy, what a great individual, and he said he helped him greatly in the last election and thinks that Charlie Kirk could have been president some day,” Kernen recounted Thursday morning after speaking to Trump by phone. “He was such a talented guy.”
Kirk, 31, was assassinated during an event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday. Authorities said in an update Thursday morning that they are still searching for the gunman, who fired a single fatal shot from the roof of a nearby building. The president personally knew Kirk, who cofounded the influential youth conservative activist group Turning Point USA in 2012.
Kernen said Trump reached out Thursday to congratulate him on the 30th anniversary of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” but the call turned to Kirk’s death. Kernen took the call privately off camera but relayed points from their conversation on TV.
“He went on to say the country will heal,” the longtime CNBC host continued. “He’s focused on what he has been focused on, and he says, ‘I’m focused on winning, if the country wins and if I do everything I can to help the country win, that we’re all going to be able to come together again.'”
“So that was his message,” Kernen said.
Trump was the first to announce that Kirk had died after he was transported to a local hospital.
“The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us. Melania and my Sympathies go out to his beautiful wife Erika, and family. Charlie, we love you!”
The president released a video message online Wednesday evening, hailing Kirk as a “martyr,” and he announced during a 9/11 remembrance ceremony at the Pentagon on Thursday that he plans to posthumously award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
