September 22, 2025 • 11 mins
Charlie Kirk’s life was a testament to faith, courage, and conviction.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, thanks for listening, and welcome back to the Brian
Mud Show. Time now for today's top three takeaways on
the most poignant moments in American history yesterday on the
most poignant moments in American history. That man, that young man.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I forgive him.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
What was on display yesterday was nothing short of the
best that this country can be, nothing short of the
best that humanity can be. And for over five hours
(01:03):
of a formal presentation, and by the time you factor
in the worship service has about two hours before somewhere
in the neighborhood, is seven to eight hours really the
best that humanity had offer, highlighted of course by an
act of faith he heard there. That is the ultimate
(01:24):
act of living and walking in one's faith. Culturally, I'm
not even sure many conservatives necessarily understood or knew where
they were going to get with this kind of thing.
And by the way, I was struggling with this as
(01:52):
recently as midday on Saturday. So for me, the added
dynamic here was that last say, I was tapped to
do the radio broadcast for the memorial, real honor, but
also something that I was like, oh boy, you know,
in terms of tough assignments. I've had tough assignments before,
(02:14):
but this one in particular, one to do a justice.
But then secondly the underlying circumstances with it. I mean,
emotional myself about Charlie, passionate about everything, but also I
out raised my hand to be the first one. I've
never been the type that's been good with with funerals,
with memorials, you know, and you hear the whole thing
(02:38):
about like a celebration of life. We've all had those, right,
We've all heard that, hey, this is going to be
a celebration of somebody's life. And you get there and
what is it? It's really sad, isn't it. It's you know,
and it's there's nothing wrong with that, right. I mean,
people might have the best intentions. You're grieving, you're your mourning.
That's part of the human process. And it's why it
(02:59):
was unbelievab that just two days after her husband was assassinated,
Erica first did that public presentation that was unreal, and
then what she managed to do yesterday, and for some
people still might not understand, you know, why why would
she even and she explained it shortly thereafter, why she
(03:23):
would forgive them that it's what Jesus calls on us today,
It's what Charlie would want. It's the ultimate act of faith. Now,
you always know what people are made of during times
of adversity. Oh my gosh, Erica Kirk, that woman. You
know there are people they're talking about Charlie's presidential material, nonetheless,
(03:44):
least of which is the current president. I have any
idea if eric would ever be interested in politics. She
didn't speak to politics at all yesterday, by the way,
But man, she'd be amazing. Would she ever be amazing?
Because she's somebody who clearly walks and believes in her faith,
(04:09):
not the convenient Christian thing that I think most of
us that are even making a decent effort probably are.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
I wouldn't be the last person to call out anybody, because,
no doubt, I'm nowhere near as good as I should
be in practicing my faith. Nowhere close to Erica, and
not Charlie for that matter. You know what I'll do
(04:39):
it I share a lot with this audience half for
twenty years. When Erica is talking about the relationship with Charlie,
my wonderful and talented wife, Ashley said, I hope you
love me that much too, and I hope you feel
about our marriage that way too, And I said absolutely,
(05:02):
I'm just not as good of a man as Charlie.
And that's the truth. And it takes me to the
whole thing about Charlie, which is why he was who
he was and why this movement of his is just
the beginning. I mentioned it straight away that it bothered
(05:26):
me that people would call him a conservative activist. I mean,
it's technically accurate, right, you can say that, and it's
not a mischaracterization, but it's also a dramatic understatement and
oversimplification of the circumstances, as I ended up breaking out
going back right after words, I believe that Charlie was
(05:48):
assassinated for one reason and one reason alone, and that
was his faith. Because you take a look at how
many influential, how many notable conservative activists there are, Charlie
Kirk was the one who's assassinated. Why nobody's stronger and
better and leading in his faith? He always lived with
his faith always, and you see that with Erica always
(06:14):
leading with the reason was much like the disciples. I
pointed this out. Only one of Jesus' disciples, John didn't
die in Martyr And that's what happens when you go
all in on faith like that and you're willing to
(06:35):
put yourself out there that way. That's what made him different.
If Charlie Kirk was just a conservative activist, A, he
would never have been as successful as he was and
B he's still be alive today. So that has to
(06:56):
always be friend center here in this. But anyway, so
kind of like in preparing for this deal, which was
a lot and throughout the day on Saturday making the
final preparations for the broadcast and never did end up
with like the full final program. So there was a
(07:17):
lot yesterday that was flying a little bit blind in
terms of a lot of additional speakers that I was
aware of that type of thing, but did see the
absolute superstars of Christian music that were going to be
on hand. Chris Tomlin been a legend for a couple
of decades. Brandon Lake, he's been the biggest artist in
(07:37):
Christian music for a couple of years now. Phil Wickham
is a Christian music superstar. He has the number one
song of the charts right now and then also carry
job and could eat Carnes and the two of them
are highly successful Christian artists as well, but not near
to the level of the others. And when I thought
they were included, it just kind of clicked. On Saturday
(07:59):
about midday, I took look at Nashley and said, I
understand now, because I was trying to figure out how
from you know, an emotional standpoint, empathetic standpoint, everything else
where I needed to be for this broadcast. And I said, no,
this is actually going to be a celebration of life.
This isn't going to be the big sad thing where
everybody is remember, it's going to be the future. It's
(08:20):
going to be about honoring Charlie and what happens from here.
I told her, you know, when I saw Carrie and Cody,
I'm like, they're going to sing the Blessing. Blessing is
a very emotional, profound song written by Carrie and Cody,
(08:43):
and it was the one song that was sung not
during the worship service, but by the Christian music superstars
during the actual memorial itself, and it was remarkable and
I think for a lot of people they were exposed
to Christian music for the first I'm probably during this.
By the way, I say this as somebody who knows music,
(09:07):
like I used to program the music. That's how I
paid my dues to get to news talk in my career.
So I know I used to You used to deal
a lot in you know, pop culture music and all
that kind of stuff. These artists blow away the stuff
that's out there mainstream. There's a reason why, like your
top forties stations have not been doing all that well
for a very long time. Now. All the good artists
(09:29):
are in Christian music. Okay, you got Taylor Swift back
to you. I mean, but that's it's having a moment.
It has been for a while, and I think even
more people are exposed yesterday. But anyway, that really kind
of brought it all home. And speaking of having the moment,
talk about Erica being the best version of walking in
(09:53):
one's faith, the best version of oneself. I think that
was true many of those speakers yesterday. Hey, hey, you
know what Marco Rubio known him since he was a
state legislator a couple decades ago. He was tremendous yesterday.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
He did this on campuses, He did this on podcasts,
He did this on radio shows, He did this on
television shows time and again. He sought to engage those
he disagreed with, because he understood that we were not
created to isolate ourselves from one another, but to engage.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
And President Trump nellick Trump's going to Trump right in
Trump Trump's We had some self that didn't have a
lot to do with what was happening there. We also
had some jokes. We also had this.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
On that terrible day September tenth, twenty twenty five, our
greatest evangelist for American liberty became immortal.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah. Absolutely, just the beginning for Charlie Kirk and turning
points what happened here. But even Trump, in his own way,
he made a reference on a couple of occasions to
Charlie basically being the better man, the bigger man than
he that he you know, Charlie always talks about, you know, loving, engaging,
(11:19):
you know all these things that the discourse, and you know,
Trump was saying, I I hate my enemies. Charlie wouldn't
like that, but I hate my and just the just
kind of the the human moment there where Trump's like,
you know, Charlie's better man than me that way, no
doubt about it. And the lessons that he brought to everybody,
(11:42):
So yeah, it really brought out, I think the best
that any of us can be, all throughout the course
of that incredible memorial yesterday
Hey, thanks for listening, and welcome back to the Brian
Mud Show. Time now for today's top three takeaways on
the most poignant moments in American history yesterday on the
most poignant moments in American history. That man, that young man.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I forgive him.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
What was on display yesterday was nothing short of the
best that this country can be, nothing short of the
best that humanity can be. And for over five hours
(01:03):
of a formal presentation, and by the time you factor
in the worship service has about two hours before somewhere
in the neighborhood, is seven to eight hours really the
best that humanity had offer, highlighted of course by an
act of faith he heard there. That is the ultimate
(01:24):
act of living and walking in one's faith. Culturally, I'm
not even sure many conservatives necessarily understood or knew where
they were going to get with this kind of thing.
And by the way, I was struggling with this as
(01:52):
recently as midday on Saturday. So for me, the added
dynamic here was that last say, I was tapped to
do the radio broadcast for the memorial, real honor, but
also something that I was like, oh boy, you know,
in terms of tough assignments. I've had tough assignments before,
(02:14):
but this one in particular, one to do a justice.
But then secondly the underlying circumstances with it. I mean,
emotional myself about Charlie, passionate about everything, but also I
out raised my hand to be the first one. I've
never been the type that's been good with with funerals,
with memorials, you know, and you hear the whole thing
(02:38):
about like a celebration of life. We've all had those, right,
We've all heard that, hey, this is going to be
a celebration of somebody's life. And you get there and
what is it? It's really sad, isn't it. It's you know,
and it's there's nothing wrong with that, right. I mean,
people might have the best intentions. You're grieving, you're your mourning.
That's part of the human process. And it's why it
(02:59):
was unbelievab that just two days after her husband was assassinated,
Erica first did that public presentation that was unreal, and
then what she managed to do yesterday, and for some
people still might not understand, you know, why why would
she even and she explained it shortly thereafter, why she
(03:23):
would forgive them that it's what Jesus calls on us today,
It's what Charlie would want. It's the ultimate act of faith. Now,
you always know what people are made of during times
of adversity. Oh my gosh, Erica Kirk, that woman. You
know there are people they're talking about Charlie's presidential material, nonetheless,
(03:44):
least of which is the current president. I have any
idea if eric would ever be interested in politics. She
didn't speak to politics at all yesterday, by the way,
But man, she'd be amazing. Would she ever be amazing?
Because she's somebody who clearly walks and believes in her faith,
(04:09):
not the convenient Christian thing that I think most of
us that are even making a decent effort probably are.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
I wouldn't be the last person to call out anybody, because,
no doubt, I'm nowhere near as good as I should
be in practicing my faith. Nowhere close to Erica, and
not Charlie for that matter. You know what I'll do
(04:39):
it I share a lot with this audience half for
twenty years. When Erica is talking about the relationship with Charlie,
my wonderful and talented wife, Ashley said, I hope you
love me that much too, and I hope you feel
about our marriage that way too, And I said absolutely,
(05:02):
I'm just not as good of a man as Charlie.
And that's the truth. And it takes me to the
whole thing about Charlie, which is why he was who
he was and why this movement of his is just
the beginning. I mentioned it straight away that it bothered
(05:26):
me that people would call him a conservative activist. I mean,
it's technically accurate, right, you can say that, and it's
not a mischaracterization, but it's also a dramatic understatement and
oversimplification of the circumstances, as I ended up breaking out
going back right after words, I believe that Charlie was
(05:48):
assassinated for one reason and one reason alone, and that
was his faith. Because you take a look at how
many influential, how many notable conservative activists there are, Charlie
Kirk was the one who's assassinated. Why nobody's stronger and
better and leading in his faith? He always lived with
his faith always, and you see that with Erica always
(06:14):
leading with the reason was much like the disciples. I
pointed this out. Only one of Jesus' disciples, John didn't
die in Martyr And that's what happens when you go
all in on faith like that and you're willing to
(06:35):
put yourself out there that way. That's what made him different.
If Charlie Kirk was just a conservative activist, A, he
would never have been as successful as he was and
B he's still be alive today. So that has to
(06:56):
always be friend center here in this. But anyway, so
kind of like in preparing for this deal, which was
a lot and throughout the day on Saturday making the
final preparations for the broadcast and never did end up
with like the full final program. So there was a
(07:17):
lot yesterday that was flying a little bit blind in
terms of a lot of additional speakers that I was
aware of that type of thing, but did see the
absolute superstars of Christian music that were going to be
on hand. Chris Tomlin been a legend for a couple
of decades. Brandon Lake, he's been the biggest artist in
(07:37):
Christian music for a couple of years now. Phil Wickham
is a Christian music superstar. He has the number one
song of the charts right now and then also carry
job and could eat Carnes and the two of them
are highly successful Christian artists as well, but not near
to the level of the others. And when I thought
they were included, it just kind of clicked. On Saturday
(07:59):
about midday, I took look at Nashley and said, I
understand now, because I was trying to figure out how
from you know, an emotional standpoint, empathetic standpoint, everything else
where I needed to be for this broadcast. And I said, no,
this is actually going to be a celebration of life.
This isn't going to be the big sad thing where
everybody is remember, it's going to be the future. It's
(08:20):
going to be about honoring Charlie and what happens from here.
I told her, you know, when I saw Carrie and Cody,
I'm like, they're going to sing the Blessing. Blessing is
a very emotional, profound song written by Carrie and Cody,
(08:43):
and it was the one song that was sung not
during the worship service, but by the Christian music superstars
during the actual memorial itself, and it was remarkable and
I think for a lot of people they were exposed
to Christian music for the first I'm probably during this.
By the way, I say this as somebody who knows music,
(09:07):
like I used to program the music. That's how I
paid my dues to get to news talk in my career.
So I know I used to You used to deal
a lot in you know, pop culture music and all
that kind of stuff. These artists blow away the stuff
that's out there mainstream. There's a reason why, like your
top forties stations have not been doing all that well
for a very long time. Now. All the good artists
(09:29):
are in Christian music. Okay, you got Taylor Swift back
to you. I mean, but that's it's having a moment.
It has been for a while, and I think even
more people are exposed yesterday. But anyway, that really kind
of brought it all home. And speaking of having the moment,
talk about Erica being the best version of walking in
(09:53):
one's faith, the best version of oneself. I think that
was true many of those speakers yesterday. Hey, hey, you
know what Marco Rubio known him since he was a
state legislator a couple decades ago. He was tremendous yesterday.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
He did this on campuses, He did this on podcasts,
He did this on radio shows, He did this on
television shows time and again. He sought to engage those
he disagreed with, because he understood that we were not
created to isolate ourselves from one another, but to engage.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
And President Trump nellick Trump's going to Trump right in
Trump Trump's We had some self that didn't have a
lot to do with what was happening there. We also
had some jokes. We also had this.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
On that terrible day September tenth, twenty twenty five, our
greatest evangelist for American liberty became immortal.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah. Absolutely, just the beginning for Charlie Kirk and turning
points what happened here. But even Trump, in his own way,
he made a reference on a couple of occasions to
Charlie basically being the better man, the bigger man than
he that he you know, Charlie always talks about, you know, loving, engaging,
(11:19):
you know all these things that the discourse, and you know,
Trump was saying, I I hate my enemies. Charlie wouldn't
like that, but I hate my and just the just
kind of the the human moment there where Trump's like,
you know, Charlie's better man than me that way, no
doubt about it. And the lessons that he brought to everybody,
(11:42):
So yeah, it really brought out, I think the best
that any of us can be, all throughout the course
of that incredible memorial yesterday
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