Overview
- Welch said on her I’ve Had It podcast that Kirk “justified his death,” citing his 2023 statement that it was “worth it” to accept some gun deaths to preserve the Second Amendment.
- She made the remarks after playing a clip of Erika Kirk rejecting claims her husband “had it coming” during a CBS town hall hosted by Bari Weiss.
- Lemon acknowledged Kirk’s past quote and said “he happened to die that way,” while stressing the view that Kirk should still be alive and that he knows no one who justified the killing.
- Lemon also critiqued aspects of Erika Kirk’s public grieving as seeming “acty,” and Welch attacked Erika Kirk as a “grifter,” according to the coverage.
- Related reporting noted instances of public mockery of the assassination, including a Clemson student caught on video and a Texas Tech student who was arrested and expelled after a campus vigil.