Warnock condemns assassination of Charlie Kirk, calls political violence ‘anti-democratic’

WASHINGTON - Georgia’s Sen. Raphael Warnock took to the Senate floor on Thursday with a strong condemnation of the assassination of conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk. 

Warnock, the head pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, the legacy pulpit of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., declared Wednesday’s deadly shooting of the political activist on the campus of Utah Valley University as an un-American act.

Assassination of Charlie Kirk

What we know:

Kirk, 31, was killed while speaking to students. He leaves behind his wife, Erika, and their children.

His shooter remains at large as of early Thursday evening.

Warnock condemns murder on Senate floor

What they're saying:

"I disagreed with Charlie Kirk on just about everything, but I rise tonight, not in spite of those differences, but in a real sense, because of those differences," Warnock said. "I rise to say that he had a right to speak, to think, to change his mind or not, to engage with others, to participate in the free exchange of ideas, to argue it out—that is what it means to live in a democracy, that is who we are."

Warnock said the shooting follows the assassination of former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, calling both killings a devastating trend of political violence. "This should shock the conscience of every American, and it should cause all of us to rise up and say enough," he said.

He called political violence "the most anti-democratic act," stressing that Americans must protect the rights of even those with opposing views. "While pushing back, sometimes hard against those with whom we vigorously disagree, we must with the same voice and vigor, defend their right to be: their right to be heard, to be free," Warnock said.

The senator invoked his church’s history with violence, recounting how Martin Luther King Jr. and his mother, Alberta Williams King, were both killed by gunfire. He pointed to Martin Luther King Sr.’s words after his wife’s death: "Hate is too heavy a burden to bear."

"You either have a democracy or you have political violence. You cannot have a democracy awash in political violence," Warnock said. "At the end of the day, we are all we’ve got. We the People. All we really have is one another."