The widow of slain Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, Erika Kirk, has issued her first statement since the shooting incident during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Discussing what she called a “serious epidemic of dehumanization,” Kirk addressed recent comments made by talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, who joked that First Lady Melania Trump had the “glow like an expectant widow.”
“We are all human beings, and if you can just pause and just take a minute and ask yourself, ‘How would you feel if, even just one person, made cruel jokes about the attempted murder of your loved one?’ That is what Jimmy Kimmel did to the first lady,” Kirk said.
She noted that “if you strip someone of their humanity long enough, you will arrive at the chilling conclusion that they don’t deserve to exist at all.”
Addressing the recent assassination attempt on President Trump, Kirk said the moment was “utter chaos.”
“If you were in that room, you had no way of knowing what the status of the shooter was, how many there were or honestly really anything. It was just utter chaos. And, so, during an active shooting, these journalists are using their phones to find moments to capture for clips,” she said, adding that journalists became “so concerned about getting a video in a room with an active shooter that they could have accidentally and quite literally filmed themselves being shot.”
“Many of those people have become so desensitized that fight or flight became secondary to the opportunity of putting themselves into the story, which ironically breaks the No. 1 rule of journalism,” she noted.
“Everyone is asking why I even went to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and it was because many of the journalists in that room have attempted to dehumanize me, and I wanted to meet some of them face to face,” Kirk further stated. “Why have a conversation about me when you can have a conversation with me?”
“While we may have big problems with illegal immigration in this country, I have to tell you we have an even bigger problem when it comes to the systemic indoctrination and radicalization of our own citizens,” she added.
“This is what got my husband killed. This is what has led to three legitimate attempts on President Trump’s life,” she went on to explain. “I can speak firsthand to that unbearable toll that this must take on our first lady.”
President Trump and the first lady have condemned Kimmel’s comments, with Mrs. Trump saying he spewed “hateful and violent rhetoric” that is “intended to divide our country.”
