‘Expect a Firestorm’: Kirk, 9/11, Oct. 7

“The war started because 1,300 Jews were killed and 200 were taken hostage. And when you declare war on Israel, expect a firestorm in reaction.” – Charlie Kirk

This is a direct quote from Charlie Kirk while debating a student at Cambridge University in England, after the student blamed the war on Israel and regurgitated lots of anti-Israel rhetoric with little to back it up.

Last week marked one year since Kirk was violently assassinated on Sept. 10, 2025, at Utah Valley University while engaging in free speech discussion with college students, who are young voters.

I was at work when Kirk was shot. I got a text from someone who was watching the news when the anchor interrupted the show to break the news. I immediately went to social media and saw the video. I saw blood pour out of his neck. I saw decorticate posturing, his arms bent toward his chest and his hands formed fists. This is a clear indication of severe brain injury. I knew he was dead.

While I don’t personally agree with all of Kirk’s opinions and statements, I admire his determination and strength, especially his devoted support for Israel.

Kirk was 31 years old, the co-founder and longtime president of Turning Point USA, the youth conservative organization he built into one of the largest political operations aimed at young Americans. He was killed by a single sniper’s shot to the neck while answering a student’s question during a campus debate, part of his “American Comeback Tour.”

He was a close ally of President Donald Trump and, by most accounts, one of the few figures on the right who could reliably draw an audience of Gen Z voters and debate them directly rather than talk past them. That’s part of what made his death land the way it did for people my age. He wasn’t shot behind a security line at a rally. He was shot mid-sentence, answering a question, doing the exact thing his career was built on.

Kirk leaves behind a wife, two young children, parents and a little sister.

We live in an interesting time: antisemitism on the rise, political discourse between Republicans and Democrats, the rise of socialism in the United States. This past week brought two anniversaries in close succession. Kirk’s assassination. The 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and United Airlines Flight 93. And next month brings the three year anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel.

It was a strange stretch of days to reflect on all of this at once. Three anniversaries that ask the same thing in their own way: what does America actually do with violence once the shock of it fades?

New York City recently elected a Muslim mayor, who attended the 9/11 memorial ceremony against the wishes of victims’ families. Trump skipped New York to deliver remarks at the Pentagon instead. He is not the first president who did not attend the ceremony at Ground Zero. However, that choice feels notable given that New York is both the city hit hardest on 9/11 and the city with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. It’s also the city Kirk warned about most directly before he died.

Before Mayor Zohran Mamdani was elected, this is what Kirk had to say: “If our biggest city is about to fall to an Islamic mayor, we should take a step back. Twenty four years after 9/11 and we should ask ourselves the question: why did we send all of these hundreds of thousands of young men and women to go fight in Iraq and Afghanistan just to have that ideology come to the biggest city in the United States of America?”

He continued to explain to the audience that this “parasitic ideology” is conquered via maternity wards, delivery rooms and the “mass production of new babies that are brought in via mass immigration.” He continued to explain that Islam and democracy are incompatible.

“The mayor of Minneapolis is about to be a Muslim. So you’re about to have Minneapolis and you’re about to have New York City,” Kirk said. “Islam is not compatible with western civilization. Islam is at odds with all the freedoms that we enjoy.”

It is important to note that the current mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, is Jewish.

Kirk often made me stop and think, whether I agreed with him or not. He forced me to see the world from a perspective I was unfamiliar with, and I appreciated that about him.

I have spent the past week reflecting on the past three years. So I find myself sitting here, writing this blog. And there’s one particular event that keeps coming to the forefront of my mind.

Shortly after Oct. 7, my mom had a few of her friends over, some Jewish and some not. The attacks came up in conversation and my mom expressed her concerns that 2026 America reminds her of 1930s Europe. She commented that her non-Jewish friends may have to hide her and her family. That includes my 26 year old sister, 82 year old grandmother and me. I’m 22.

One of her non-Jewish friends immediately interjected: “I’ll hide you.”

I was stunned. I couldn’t believe my ears. I thought to myself, “Instead of saying, ‘I won’t let that happen,’ this woman is already offering to hide us. Like I’m Anne Frank.”

This is the same problem we saw preceding the Holocaust. Nobody stood up for the Jews. The difference? We are stronger than ever. We have a Jewish state, with one of the strongest militaries in the world. We have somewhere to run to.

I personally believe that Kirk is the reason Trump won his second term. Kirk was influential with Gen Z voters and is the reason Trump’s support surged with Gen Z. Now, without Kirk’s influence on my generation, I find myself worrying about the 2028 presidential election.

What happens if young people swing left? What happens now that we don’t have Kirk debating young voters and educating them about Israel? Will this affect the outcome of the next election? It was that same willingness to sit in a hostile room that made him useful to Trump’s campaign in the first place. I don’t know who will do that job in 2028.

Three dates, one question: has anything actually changed, or have we just gotten better at marking the calendar?

Kirk’s answer to that Cambridge student was blunt: declare war on Israel, expect a firestorm. I’d extend that logic closer to home: normalize a climate where a friend offers to hide us instead of defend us, expect Jews my age to start asking blunt questions.

I don’t know what New York will look like in 25 years. I don’t know if my worry about 2028 is warranted. But I know my grandmother is 82, and for her, this fear was never hypothetical. And I know the answer to my mother that day wasn’t “I’ll hide you.”

A year ago, we lost someone who said the uncomfortable thing out loud, to a room that didn’t want to hear it. The least the rest of us can do is keep saying ours.