Comedian Kathy Griffin called the late Charlie Kirk “a straight-up Nazi” on her podcast this week, reigniting controversy over public figures’ rhetoric about the conservative activist who was assassinated at Utah Valley University last September.
“I knew Charlie Kirk. I did a panel with him one time,” Ms. Griffin said on the Tuesday episode of her “Talk Your Head Off” podcast. “And, yeah, I said that, because that dude was a straight-up Nazi. And that is my opinion. But, you know, the way we’ve deified him is bizarre. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Ms. Griffin, 65, also directed comments at Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, mocking a recent video the grieving widow had posted. “Wasn’t that Erika Kirk video weird? Her being not girly and looking like — I don’t even know what, like a sniper?” she said. “She looks like she’s going to an anti-ICE protest, which is something she would not do.”
Kirk, the Turning Point USA co-founder and close Trump ally, was shot and killed on Sept. 10, 2025, while speaking at an outdoor campus debate at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. He was 31. A suspect, Tyler James Robinson, surrendered to authorities the following day. Prosecutors charged Mr. Robinson with aggravated murder and announced they would seek the death penalty, alleging a politically motivated attack.
Bullet casings recovered near the scene had phrases engraved on them, including a reference to an Italian anti-fascist song.
Ms. Griffin’s comments drew swift condemnation from conservative media outlets and came amid a broader national debate over speech and consequences that followed Kirk’s killing. NPR reported in February that a wave of lawsuits had been filed by people who say they were fired, investigated or in one case arrested over social media posts reacting to his death. Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, told NPR the fallout echoed the cancel culture controversies of 2020, though she noted key legal differences arise when elected officials call for firings.
Ms. Griffin acknowledged having appeared alongside Kirk at a panel event in the past but said that history did not change her view of him.
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