(The Hill) — Late-night TV hosts Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel are among those decrying the killing of Charlie Kirk and condemning political violence.
“After our scripts for tonight’s show were finished this afternoon, we here at ‘The Late Show’ learned that Charlie Kirk, a prominent right-wing activist, was killed in a speaking engagement in Utah,” Colbert said in a pre-taped message played at the beginning of Wednesday’s “Late Show” on CBS.
Offering condolences to Kirk’s family, Colbert said, “I’m old enough to personally remember the political violence of the 1960s and I hope it is obvious to everyone in America that political violence does not solve any of our political differences.”
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“Political violence only leads to more political violence,” Colbert, 61, said.
“And I pray with all my heart that this is the aberrant action of a madman and not a sign of things to come,” the comedian said.
Kimmel also spoke out after Kirk, the 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA, was shot and killed on the campus of Utah Valley University while speaking at a Wednesday event.
“Instead of angry finger-pointing, can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human,” the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host wrote in a social media post.
“On behalf of my family, we send love to the Kirks and to all the children, parents and innocents who fall victim to senseless gun violence,” Kimmel, 57, said.
Colbert and Kimmel are two of late-night TV’s fiercest critics of President Trump. Kimmel has also been outspoken in the past about gun violence, tearing up on his ABC show in 2018 while calling for action following a fatal mass shooting at a Florida high school.
In remarks Wednesday, Trump described Kirk as a “martyr for truth and freedom” and vowed to “find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence.”
