September 12, 2025 • 11 mins
The FBI has identified 22-year-old Tyler Robinson as the suspect in the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Robinson was arrested on suspicion of capital murder, weapons and obstruction offenses.
On today’s Big Take podcast, Bloomberg national security reporter Myles Miller and host Sarah Holder discuss the latest from the investigation into the shooting.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, We got him.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
The FBI identified twenty two year old Tyler Robinson as
their suspect and the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Robinson has been arrested on suspicion of murder and weapons offenses.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
On the evening of September eleventh, a family member of
Tyler Robinson reached out to a family friend who contacted
the Washington County Sheriff's office with information that Robinson had
confessed to them or implied that he had committed the incident.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Kirk was fatally shot Wednesday during an event at Utah
Valley University.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Tyler Robinson is twenty two years old, and as far
as we understand, he had expressed that he was no
fan of Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Bloomberg Senior National security reporter Miles Miller.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
He didn't like his ideology. He told this to family
members during a dinner recast and knew that he was
coming to Utah and that is all part of the investigation.
Much of what he did he talked about in a
discord server with friends, and his roommate shared that information
with law enforcement, where he hit the gun, how he
(01:17):
fled this investigation. Now we'll focus on how much of
that is true, If he was self radicalized, if he
had any support to do this, where he got the gun.
There's still so much we don't know.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Over the last forty hours, I have been as angry
as I have ever been, as sad as I have
ever been.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
During the FBI press conference, Utah Governor Spencer Cox warned
those watching and listening against further violence.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
History will dictate if this is a turning point for
our country, but every single one of us gets to
choose right now. If this is a turning point for
us to make decisions, we have our agency, and I
desperately call on every American Republican, Democrat, liberal, progressive, conservative, maga,
(02:11):
all of us to please please please.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Follow what Charlie tuppy.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
I still believe that there is more.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Good among us than evil.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
And I still believe that we can change the course
of history. I'm hopeful because Americans can make it so.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I'm Sarah Holder, and this is the big take from
Bloomberg News today. On the show The Latest on the
assassination of Charlie Kirk, Miles Miller covers national security for Bloomberg.
He's been closely following law enforcement's investigation into the killing
(02:57):
of Charlie Kirk and he reports that, according to a
person with knowledge of the investigation, Robinson's father recognized him
as the suspect and the photos released by police and
confronted him, and.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
His father says, you look a lot like that guy
in the photo. Were you responsible for this? He says, yes,
I was. Then he says, you need to turn yourself in.
I'm going to call our youth pastor at our church.
The youth pastor just happens to be a task force officer,
which is a local cop who is assigned to a
federal task force, the one that actually is looking for him.
(03:31):
He calls a deputy, a deputy calls the FBI, and
they bring him in. He makes statements, and they arrest him.
Parallel to that happening, the FBI is doing their own
investigation into trying to figure out who this person is.
And so once they did get some information about him,
then they were able to piece together and confirm things.
(03:53):
So one thing is that the person who jumped from
that roof had a Dodge challenger. Okay, this person that
we know have in custody, we confirm has a Dodge Challenger,
same person. One thing that's really interesting is that the
FBI got about eleven thousand leads, and just because this
person is in custody does not mean those leads go away.
They'll continue to track all of it down because you
(04:15):
have to figure out if anybody gave material support, who
gave him the gun, how he planned this, and was
anybody else involved.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
And Tyler Robinson has been taken in as the suspect,
But what evidence has been shared with the public so
far that links this man with this The car that.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Was used as part of the getaway, the fact that
he on discord says I had this gun in the
drop point that's where police found the gun believed to
be used in this incident, the fact that he had
said that he inscribed bullets. All of those things are
going to be crucial. But the most easy thing that
(04:51):
links him to all this is that he's wearing the
same clothes, wearing the same exact clothes that police said
he was wearing in surveillance video when he jumped from
that roof.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
If we're going to be passing through all those details
in the coming days and over the weekend. But I
want to talk about those inscriptions on the casings. What
can you tell us about those?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yeah, one of the inscriptions talked about fascism. Another one
was Belichow, which was used in Italy and it was
linked to fascist anti fascist movements. Another one was a
reference to the furry community.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
These are very online references, it seems.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Like, very much so, and so part of our reporting
today is to figure out how online he was. In
our initial searches, you know, we're not seeing a lot
of his public profile being meme driven and all that
kind of stuff, but it'll take sort of that background knowledge.
Usually twenty four hours after any incident, we get some
of his non public social media platforms and then get
(05:51):
to like parse through that. Oftentimes they'll highlight in incidents
like this, any posts that are germane to trying to
piece together the ideology that thinking behind all of this.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
More on the next steps of the investigation. When we come.
Speaker 5 (06:09):
Back, I hope you'll permit me a moment just to
share a few more thoughts about.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
Where we are and how we got here. Social media
is a cancer on our society right now, and I
would encourage again, I would encourage people to log off, turnoff,
touch grass, hug a family member, go out and do
good in your community.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
On Friday morning, Utah's Republican Governor Spencer Cox spoke at
a press conference updating the public on the status of
the investigation and his thoughts on the last thirty six hours.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
I absolutely believe that this is a watershed in American history. Yes,
the question is what kind of watershed and that chapter
remains to be written. Is this the end of a
dark chapter in our history? We're in the beginning.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
I watched the press conference this morning. After the updates
on the investigation, Governor Spencer Cox went back to the
podium to share some remarks about what he thinks the
shooting means, how he's making sense of it. What was
his message.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Yeah, the Governor's message was that, like, everybody needs to
calm down the rhetoric one and you know, I think
making a very online message, which is to get offline
and touch grass.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
He literally said touch grass.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
I was surprised by that because I feel like those
are not exactly the words of the right, So it
was very interesting to hear that. But to call for
toning down of the rhetoric because it's so different from
what the President spoke about when he was on Fox Today.
But the one thing that was really interesting that the
Governor said in Thursday's press conference was that our adversaries,
(07:52):
China and Russia are using this incident to try to
incite the right against the left.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
And is there evidence of that?
Speaker 3 (08:00):
You know, I have not seen it, but I'm wondering
if in the intelligence reports that come out there is
actual evidence of that.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
What can we say about the role of the FBI
in this investigation so far, because there's been a lot
of different information coming out over the past few days.
The FBI announced they had apprehended someone, then released them.
How typical is this process for an FBI investigation.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
I cover Cash Bettel pretty closely. I talk with his
office pretty much daily. I think you can knock him
for those two tweets announcing that someone was in custody.
He's trying to be a more modern FBI director. And so,
you know, getting out and being more transparent about when
they have information was the goal, but that was not
(08:44):
the outcome. You know, I spoke with the White House
today about it. They, you know, have all the support
for him.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
And what do you make of those eleven thousand leads
that they're still parsing through. What might we learn in
the days ahead.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Somebody may have seen him at a gas station, which
is good because and it helps investigators figure out, okay,
was a credit card use? Whose credit card was it?
You have to track every lead down, some of them
and then probably the bulk of them are incorrect. You know,
I saw a lot on social media. Social media was
very involved, as you know, with this case, identifying people
who had nothing to do with this, or as people
(09:19):
that may be involved because of how they look and
all of that kind of stuff. And so the bulk
of it is that kind of stuff, the open source things.
But you know, when they do an appeal for information,
you always find something that you just weren't looking for.
And that's the reason why they don't let these leads
go just because they have a suspect.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Miles says. The shooting Wednesday is part of a marked
increase in political violence in the US, and it's got
authorities on high alert.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
You know, and talking with the Secret Service and talking
with the FBI. It's something that they're tracking closely, and
you know, It's something that law enforcement around the country
is going to have to spend a lot of more
time and money worried about AOC comes to New York.
When Kamala Harris, now with no secret service, comes to
New York, she'll have to get lucky protection by NYPD
(10:11):
intelligence because they just don't want any problems on their watch.
Will that happen around the country, That's the thing that
you will have to look out for.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
So are there conversations going on about increased security measures
for political figures and politicians?
Speaker 3 (10:26):
One hundred percent. Just look last night to Donald Trump
at the Yankee game with a big bulletproof barrier at
Yankee Stadium. That barrier didn't exist before, but it sure
does now. Let's look back to Butler, after Butler, than
anytime Trump was in public, the big barricade, And the
only reason they didn't have that is because it's so
heavy to carry around and you know, carrying these on
(10:48):
military planes. That is the new normal, at least for now,
until some of this sort of settles.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.
The show was hosted by me, David Gera, and Juan Hak.
The show is made by Aaron Edwards, David Fox, Eleanor
Harrison Dengate, Patty Hirsch, Rachel Lewis, Kristy, Naomi, Julia Press,
Tracy Samuelson, Naomi Shaven, Alex Dudia, Julia Weaver, Yongyong, and
(11:21):
Taka Yasuzawa. To get more from the Big Take and
unlimited access to all of Bloomberg dot com, subscribe today
at Bloomberg dot Com Slash Podcast offer. Thanks for listening.
We'll be back on Monday,
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, We got him.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
The FBI identified twenty two year old Tyler Robinson as
their suspect and the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Robinson has been arrested on suspicion of murder and weapons offenses.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
On the evening of September eleventh, a family member of
Tyler Robinson reached out to a family friend who contacted
the Washington County Sheriff's office with information that Robinson had
confessed to them or implied that he had committed the incident.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Kirk was fatally shot Wednesday during an event at Utah
Valley University.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Tyler Robinson is twenty two years old, and as far
as we understand, he had expressed that he was no
fan of Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Bloomberg Senior National security reporter Miles Miller.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
He didn't like his ideology. He told this to family
members during a dinner recast and knew that he was
coming to Utah and that is all part of the investigation.
Much of what he did he talked about in a
discord server with friends, and his roommate shared that information
with law enforcement, where he hit the gun, how he
(01:17):
fled this investigation. Now we'll focus on how much of
that is true, If he was self radicalized, if he
had any support to do this, where he got the gun.
There's still so much we don't know.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Over the last forty hours, I have been as angry
as I have ever been, as sad as I have
ever been.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
During the FBI press conference, Utah Governor Spencer Cox warned
those watching and listening against further violence.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
History will dictate if this is a turning point for
our country, but every single one of us gets to
choose right now. If this is a turning point for
us to make decisions, we have our agency, and I
desperately call on every American Republican, Democrat, liberal, progressive, conservative, maga,
(02:11):
all of us to please please please.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Follow what Charlie tuppy.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
I still believe that there is more.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Good among us than evil.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
And I still believe that we can change the course
of history. I'm hopeful because Americans can make it so.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I'm Sarah Holder, and this is the big take from
Bloomberg News today. On the show The Latest on the
assassination of Charlie Kirk, Miles Miller covers national security for Bloomberg.
He's been closely following law enforcement's investigation into the killing
(02:57):
of Charlie Kirk and he reports that, according to a
person with knowledge of the investigation, Robinson's father recognized him
as the suspect and the photos released by police and
confronted him, and.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
His father says, you look a lot like that guy
in the photo. Were you responsible for this? He says, yes,
I was. Then he says, you need to turn yourself in.
I'm going to call our youth pastor at our church.
The youth pastor just happens to be a task force officer,
which is a local cop who is assigned to a
federal task force, the one that actually is looking for him.
(03:31):
He calls a deputy, a deputy calls the FBI, and
they bring him in. He makes statements, and they arrest him.
Parallel to that happening, the FBI is doing their own
investigation into trying to figure out who this person is.
And so once they did get some information about him,
then they were able to piece together and confirm things.
(03:53):
So one thing is that the person who jumped from
that roof had a Dodge challenger. Okay, this person that
we know have in custody, we confirm has a Dodge Challenger,
same person. One thing that's really interesting is that the
FBI got about eleven thousand leads, and just because this
person is in custody does not mean those leads go away.
They'll continue to track all of it down because you
(04:15):
have to figure out if anybody gave material support, who
gave him the gun, how he planned this, and was
anybody else involved.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
And Tyler Robinson has been taken in as the suspect,
But what evidence has been shared with the public so
far that links this man with this The car that.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Was used as part of the getaway, the fact that
he on discord says I had this gun in the
drop point that's where police found the gun believed to
be used in this incident, the fact that he had
said that he inscribed bullets. All of those things are
going to be crucial. But the most easy thing that
(04:51):
links him to all this is that he's wearing the
same clothes, wearing the same exact clothes that police said
he was wearing in surveillance video when he jumped from
that roof.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
If we're going to be passing through all those details
in the coming days and over the weekend. But I
want to talk about those inscriptions on the casings. What
can you tell us about those?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yeah, one of the inscriptions talked about fascism. Another one
was Belichow, which was used in Italy and it was
linked to fascist anti fascist movements. Another one was a
reference to the furry community.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
These are very online references, it seems.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Like, very much so, and so part of our reporting
today is to figure out how online he was. In
our initial searches, you know, we're not seeing a lot
of his public profile being meme driven and all that
kind of stuff, but it'll take sort of that background knowledge.
Usually twenty four hours after any incident, we get some
of his non public social media platforms and then get
(05:51):
to like parse through that. Oftentimes they'll highlight in incidents
like this, any posts that are germane to trying to
piece together the ideology that thinking behind all of this.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
More on the next steps of the investigation. When we come.
Speaker 5 (06:09):
Back, I hope you'll permit me a moment just to
share a few more thoughts about.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
Where we are and how we got here. Social media
is a cancer on our society right now, and I
would encourage again, I would encourage people to log off, turnoff,
touch grass, hug a family member, go out and do
good in your community.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
On Friday morning, Utah's Republican Governor Spencer Cox spoke at
a press conference updating the public on the status of
the investigation and his thoughts on the last thirty six hours.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
I absolutely believe that this is a watershed in American history. Yes,
the question is what kind of watershed and that chapter
remains to be written. Is this the end of a
dark chapter in our history? We're in the beginning.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
I watched the press conference this morning. After the updates
on the investigation, Governor Spencer Cox went back to the
podium to share some remarks about what he thinks the
shooting means, how he's making sense of it. What was
his message.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Yeah, the Governor's message was that, like, everybody needs to
calm down the rhetoric one and you know, I think
making a very online message, which is to get offline
and touch grass.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
He literally said touch grass.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
I was surprised by that because I feel like those
are not exactly the words of the right, So it
was very interesting to hear that. But to call for
toning down of the rhetoric because it's so different from
what the President spoke about when he was on Fox Today.
But the one thing that was really interesting that the
Governor said in Thursday's press conference was that our adversaries,
(07:52):
China and Russia are using this incident to try to
incite the right against the left.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
And is there evidence of that?
Speaker 3 (08:00):
You know, I have not seen it, but I'm wondering
if in the intelligence reports that come out there is
actual evidence of that.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
What can we say about the role of the FBI
in this investigation so far, because there's been a lot
of different information coming out over the past few days.
The FBI announced they had apprehended someone, then released them.
How typical is this process for an FBI investigation.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
I cover Cash Bettel pretty closely. I talk with his
office pretty much daily. I think you can knock him
for those two tweets announcing that someone was in custody.
He's trying to be a more modern FBI director. And so,
you know, getting out and being more transparent about when
they have information was the goal, but that was not
(08:44):
the outcome. You know, I spoke with the White House
today about it. They, you know, have all the support
for him.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
And what do you make of those eleven thousand leads
that they're still parsing through. What might we learn in
the days ahead.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Somebody may have seen him at a gas station, which
is good because and it helps investigators figure out, okay,
was a credit card use? Whose credit card was it?
You have to track every lead down, some of them
and then probably the bulk of them are incorrect. You know,
I saw a lot on social media. Social media was
very involved, as you know, with this case, identifying people
who had nothing to do with this, or as people
(09:19):
that may be involved because of how they look and
all of that kind of stuff. And so the bulk
of it is that kind of stuff, the open source things.
But you know, when they do an appeal for information,
you always find something that you just weren't looking for.
And that's the reason why they don't let these leads
go just because they have a suspect.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Miles says. The shooting Wednesday is part of a marked
increase in political violence in the US, and it's got
authorities on high alert.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
You know, and talking with the Secret Service and talking
with the FBI. It's something that they're tracking closely, and
you know, It's something that law enforcement around the country
is going to have to spend a lot of more
time and money worried about AOC comes to New York.
When Kamala Harris, now with no secret service, comes to
New York, she'll have to get lucky protection by NYPD
(10:11):
intelligence because they just don't want any problems on their watch.
Will that happen around the country, That's the thing that
you will have to look out for.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
So are there conversations going on about increased security measures
for political figures and politicians?
Speaker 3 (10:26):
One hundred percent. Just look last night to Donald Trump
at the Yankee game with a big bulletproof barrier at
Yankee Stadium. That barrier didn't exist before, but it sure
does now. Let's look back to Butler, after Butler, than
anytime Trump was in public, the big barricade, And the
only reason they didn't have that is because it's so
heavy to carry around and you know, carrying these on
(10:48):
military planes. That is the new normal, at least for now,
until some of this sort of settles.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.
The show was hosted by me, David Gera, and Juan Hak.
The show is made by Aaron Edwards, David Fox, Eleanor
Harrison Dengate, Patty Hirsch, Rachel Lewis, Kristy, Naomi, Julia Press,
Tracy Samuelson, Naomi Shaven, Alex Dudia, Julia Weaver, Yongyong, and
(11:21):
Taka Yasuzawa. To get more from the Big Take and
unlimited access to all of Bloomberg dot com, subscribe today
at Bloomberg dot Com Slash Podcast offer. Thanks for listening.
We'll be back on Monday,
Hosts And Creators
Sarah Holder
Saleha Mohsin
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