In the wake of its host’s brutal assassination last week, The Charlie Kirk Show had a guest host yesterday — Vice President JD Vance. The Veep delivered a powerful monologue in honor of his personal friend, posing serious questions and challenges for the nation to consider in the days ahead.

One of Vance’s central themes was tackling the idea of unity. Joe Biden spent four years pretending to foster unity while actually fomenting division and hatred, beginning with his Inaugural Address and continuing through that infamous disgraceful anti-MAGA tirade in front of the ominously red background.

The Democrats spent the last decade calling Donald Trump (and sometimes his supporters) Nazis, fascists, and, as Biden liked to repeat, the “greatest threat to democracy since the Civil War.” It was all projection.

We know all too well what the Left’s vision of “unity” is — submit to their cultish dogmas … or else. Charlie Kirk spoke courageously against the Left’s corrupt and amoral creed, and he paid for it with his life, leaving a wife and two young children to pick up the pieces.

Vance was having none of the Bidenesque phoniness.

He began the show by acknowledging the “extremely hard” days for our country, him and his family personally, and “most of all, for [Charlie’s] darling wife, Erika, and their two beautiful children.” He spoke of how many people “owe something to Charlie,” including him — “If it weren’t for Charlie Kirk, I would not be the vice president of the United States.”

He talked about Kirk’s faith in Christ and how important that was in shaping everything he did. He reflected on what a dedicated husband and father Charlie was. “[Erika] said to me that Charlie never raised his voice, that he never cussed at her, that he was never cross or mean-spirited to her,” Vance recalled. “I took from that moment that I needed to be a better husband and I needed to be a better father.”

Indeed, if more Americans took from Kirk’s death that example while rejecting the false narrative and fabricated smears against him, we’d all be better for it.

He was, by all accounts of the people who knew him, a good man. He was anything but the racist misogynist portrayed by the Leftmedia. And he certainly didn’t deserve execution for voicing opinions.

As for Vance, he really got into a groove in the closing moments of the show. What follows are some key excerpts:

I have heard many calls in the last few days for unity and for healing in the wake of Charlie’s assassination. You have no idea how desperately I want that — how gratified I was when Democratic friends and even former Senate colleagues reached out to offer their condolences to me. I’m so thankful. And I know there are so many like them all across our great country.

I am desperate to wrap my arms around them as we all unite to condemn political violence and the ideas that cause it.

Psalm 133 tells us, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment upon the head.” Oh, how badly have I craved that precious ointment in recent days, and I believe we can have it — but first, first, we must tell the truth.

Vance then launched into a presentation of the Gospel that is rarely given so clearly by an American politician. In fact, he recited part of the Nicene Creed. It was remarkable and welcome, and it was “fundamental” to Kirk’s life and work, he said.

I really do believe that we can come together in this country. I believe we must. But unity — real unity — can be found only after climbing the mountain of truth — and there are difficult truths we must confront.

He cited a recent poll revealing that a quarter of “very liberal” young people condone and justify political violence, while just 7% of young conservatives do.

In a country of 330 million people, you can of course find one person of a given political persuasion justifying this or that or almost anything, but the data is clear: People on the Left are much likelier to defend and celebrate political violence.

This is not a “both sides” problem. If both sides have a problem, one side has a much bigger and malignant problem, and that is the truth we must be told. That problem has terrible consequences. …

By celebrating that murder, apologizing for it, and emphasizing not Charlie’s innocence, but the fact that he said things some didn’t like, even to the point of lying about what he actually said, many of these people are creating an environment where things like this are inevitably going to happen. …

While our side of the aisle certainly has its crazies, it is a statistical fact that most of the lunatics in American politics today are proud members of the Far Left.

He again issued the caveat that “most Democrats don’t share these attitudes,” but he clearly laid the blame for the radicalism on the Left. That’s when he went back to the problem of unity.

There is no unity with people who scream at children over their parents’ politics. There is no unity with someone who lies about what Charlie Kirk said in order to excuse his murder. There is no unity with someone who harasses an innocent family the day after the father of that family lost a dear friend. There is no unity with the people who celebrate Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

And there is no unity with the people who … argue that Charlie Kirk, a loving husband and father, deserved a shot to the neck because he spoke words with which they disagree. …

I’m desperate for our country to be united in condemnation of the actions and the ideas that killed my friend. I want it so badly that I will tell you a difficult truth. We can only have [unity] with people who acknowledge that political violence is unacceptable.

Vance argued that we have to “dismantle” the institutions that foment hate and violence because we simply can’t turn a blind eye to those who would destroy America’s foundations. He promised that the Trump administration would work to stop violence and killing over speech, and bring about “real unity.”

I hope that’s true, although I’ll readily concede that “uniter” is not a descriptor I’d ever use for Donald Trump.

The road won’t be easy, which he illustrated in his concluding reference to the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians and the armor of God: “Let all of us put on that armor and commit ourselves to that cause for which Charlie gave his life, to rebuild a United States of America, and to do it by telling the truth.”

If we want to stop political violence like what happened to Charlie Kirk, we have to be honest about the people who are celebrating it and the people who are financing it.

My closing remarks on today’s episode of the Charlie Kirk Show: pic.twitter.com/pEAqbAL3yr

— JD Vance (@JDVance) September 15, 2025

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