The World and Everything in It: September 11, 2025

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MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning.

Americans mourn the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. News commentator Erick Erickson is standing by.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Also, a Christian student at the scene of Kirk’s assassination recounts what happened.

And commentator Megan Basham reflects on the political firebrand who stood firm on the word of God.

BROWN: It’s Thursday, September 11th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

REICHARD: And I’m Mary Reichard.

BROWN: Time now for the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Charlie Kirk fatally shot » Police in Utah said they had a “person of interest” in custody last night after the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk Wednesday on the campus of Utah Valley University. Authorities did not immediately provide details.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox told reporters:

COX:  This is a dark day for our state. It's a tragic day for our nation, and I want to be very clear that this is a political assassination.

. The assassin’s bullet was apparently fired from a high-powered rifle..

Utah Department of Public Safety Commissioner Beau Mason:

MASON: Potentially from a roof, yes — a longer distance shot from a roof.

President Trump confirmed Kirk’s death on social media, just over a year after a would-be assassin on a rooftop shot and very nearly killed him at a rally in Pennsylvania.

He has ordered flags to fly at half-staff until Sunday evening in honor of Kirk.

The 31-year-old husband and father had become extremely influential, especially on college campuses. And many believe he was instrumental in helping Trump secure the victory in last year’s election.

Much more on this still to come in today’s program.

Russian drones in Poland » NATO allies huddled on Wednesday to discuss how to respond after Russian drones entered Polish airspace during another massive aerial attack against Ukraine.

Polish and other NATO fighter jets were scrambled, shooting down some of the drones.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer:

STARMER:  Mr. Speaker, last night, Russia launched drones into Poland in an unprecedented attack. I've been in touch with the Polish Prime Minister this morning to make clear our support for Poland.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said yesterday’s talks were what are referred to as Article 4 consultations. This article allows NATO members to consult when they feel threatened.

It does not lead to military action like Article 5, which is NATO's collective defense clause.

Professor of Strategy and Security at University of Exeter Jamie Shea said it’s deeply concerning.

SHAE:  It's only a matter of time before you have, uh, one of these missiles or drones landing on a supermarket in Estonia or Romania, or landing on a residential building and potentially, you know, killing dozens and dozens of people.

And that likely would lead to an invocation of Article 5.

Russian ally Belarus says the incursion was a mistake, caused by a malfunction. Polish leaders say they’re not buying it.

Israel Yemen strike » European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced plans to seek sanctions and a partial trade suspension against Israel. That’s in response to a humanitarian crisis in Gaza amid Israel’s war with the Hamas terror group.

Meantime, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is defending a military operation this week in Qatar targeting Hamas leaders.

NETANYAHU:  I say to Qatar and all nations of harbor terrorists, you either expel them or you bring them to justice, because if you don't, we will.

He said Israel  ”went after the terrorist masterminds who committed the October 7th massacre.”

Israeli forces on Wednesday also carried out heavy airstrikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen also designated by the US and Israel as a terrorist organization.

IAEA Iran » Iran this week had reportedly agreed to give UN inspectors access to all Iranian nuclear facilities. But Iran’s foreign minister Wednesday said, not so fast. Abbas Araqchi said Iran signed no agreement, which grants inspectors access to nuclear sites.

ARAQCHI: [Speaking Farsi]

He added that the Supreme National Security Council had separately granted the UN access to the Bushehr nuclear power plant. but nothing else.

Earlier in the day, Rafael Grossi, the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency, said inspectors would have access to everything. He also said that Iran would also be required to report on the whereabouts of material at sites attacked by Israel earlier this year.

Wholesale numbers » Some good news on inflation as wholesale prices unexpectedly dropped in August. WORLD’s Benjamin Eicher has more.

BENJAMIN EICHER: The Labor Department reports that producer prices fell one-tenth of one percent from July.

The producer price index is closely watched because it captures inflation before it hits consumers. The wholesale inflation dip came after it rose the month before by seven-tenths of a percentage point.

Wholesalers are reportedly showing slimmer profits. And some analysts say that could be a sign that many companies are absorbing the cost of new tariffs.

Compared to a year earlier, so-called core inflation—which excludes volatile sectors like food and energy was also down a tenth of a percent compared to July.

For WORLD, I’m Benjamin Eicher.

9/11 item » Another solemn remembrance in Manhattan, marking the 24th anniversary of 9/11 terror attacks. Bells chime once again today:

SOUIND: [9/11 ceremony: (bell chime)]

Honoring the victims of the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil.

SOUND: [9/11 ceremony: Lorraine Grace Bay]

Sounds from last year’s remembrance heard there.

Ceremonies are also taking place today at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Nearly 3000 Americans were killed on this date in 2001.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: more on the life and death of Charlie Kirk.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Up first remembering Charlie Kirk. This one hits hard. Charlie Kirk went to elementary school with my kids, and I remember meeting him when he was just eight years old in the third grade, even then he stood out years ago when he was just building turning point. I was teaching at College of the Ozarks, and a student wanted to interview him. So I asked Charlie, and he said, of course, things like that. Charlie Kirk was a giant of his generation, and he was only 31 years old, how to even begin to process this loss? Well, I can't even begin to. So let's bring in someone to help. Here is conservative commentator Eric Erickson.

Eric, thanks for joining us.

ERICK ERICKSON: Thanks for having me.

REICHARD: Well before we got on here, you brought up September 10, 2001 the day before the world changed. How about September 10, 2025?

ERICKSON: I started my radio program today talking about how events change things, and you don't see the events coming until you're in them, and this feels like a turning point. And no pun intended, there it just it does—the political violence escalating in this country. We went through Floyd Lee Corkins attacking the Family Research Council about a decade ago, and then James Hodgkinson mass assassination attempt on Republican members of Congress and instill the violence and the rhetoric becomes more and more shrill. People wish to both sides it, and yes, there's crazy on both sides, but I'm looking at, unfortunately, people wanting to do a body count, where we should just all of us say this is unacceptable, vilifying your opponents who just have a different idea of how to guide the country is wrong, and when we have this much despair and emotion and antagonism in the country, maybe now is the time to tamp down the rhetoric.

REICHARD: Maybe past time, Eric, when did you meet Charlie Kirk and how did your first impressions grow over the years about him?

ERICKSON: He's very tall. That was my very first impression, very tall. He was young when I met him, I forget. It was at a conference in Texas. I did not know him well, and we were actually competitors in radio, we had the same time slot. But he did a remarkable thing with Turning Point USA. My kids knew Charlie, I think, better than me, just from social media interactions and Tiktok and things like that, advocating for conservatism and advocating for Christ.

REICHARD: You know, he has defied all the statistics on Gen Z. Can you talk about how he got this new generation politically engaged for the first time in a long time?

ERICKSON: He went on college campuses, and he had a very heterodox message that was contrary to what you heard on a lot of college campuses. And it was more you don't have to be ashamed of getting married, you can get married, you can have kids, you can devote yourself to Christ. And it was a contradictory message. And he just loved engaging with people who disagreed with him on those simple ideas. He was much more of an advocate, I think, for Donald Trump and his policies than I am, but he wanted college kids to be engaged both in the political process, and he made a compelling case for conservatism and for the right.

REICHARD: And he did it civilly. I mean, when he first started out, he was a little bit more combative, but as the years went on and he was maturing, he learned to listen well and he learned to give dignity to people that he disagreed with.

ERICKSON: Yeah, you know, that's a key point there. He did not just listen well, but giving dignity to the other side. He could mock where mocking was warranted, but typically, he treated their points as valid and disagreed with them and challenged them and debated them, and we should in this country settle our disputes over conversation. In fact, just yesterday, he said on television that we've got to be able to continue to disagree and have conversation in this country.

REICHARD: What would you say his legacy is going to be?

ERICKSON: Getting people engaged, being an advocate for the Lord, and also being willing to have conversations. And I think it's incumbent on the right to, I mean, remember Ephesians: “Be angry, but do not sin.” Do what Charlie Kirk did. Engage in conversation.

REICHARD: Eric, how important do you think it is in covering this event, to use the term assassination as opposed to just a shooting?

ERICKSON: I think it has to be because he was a larger than life figure within conservative politics, and he was specifically targeted for violence because of his political views. That is an assassination.

REICHARD: Anything else that you're watching for?

ERICKSON: I'm worried about where we head as a country. We've had these instances where the CEO of United Healthcare gunned down, and we saw people on the left treated as vigilante justice, the lady from Blackstone and the corporate building in Wall Street. People on the left treated it as some sort of vigilante justice. Donald Trump nearly assassinated twice, and people said he brought it on himself. I'm worried about where the left goes. Do they have any internal monolog to say maybe we should tone it down while always lecturing the right? And it's this is no longer a both side situation. We can't have a body count on both sides of who is more to blame. There has to be a unanimous call from left and right to say we can agree to disagree civilly in this country. And if we can't have that, we have bad things. This is now our choice. Do we keep the country or do we go somewhere that none of us should want to go?

REICHARD: So much more to say. Erik Erikson is a conservative commentator and columnist for WORLD Opinions. Eric, thank you so much.

ERICKSON: Thank you.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: As we mentioned, Charlie Kirk was a bold voice on college campuses around the country. He was speaking at The American Come Back Tour at Utah Valley University when he was shot and killed.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Hundreds of students showed up to hear Kirk. 20-year-old sophomore, Marko Vladic had a part-time job to get to, but he told me he made a point to walk past the stage where Kirk would be speaking.

MARKO VLADIC: Yes ma’am. I actually had a class today and walked right above his little lecture, I want to say a few minutes before it happened.

BROWN: So tell me what you remember? What did you see and hear?

VLADIC: Absolutely, yeah, so it was a normal day. Classic Wednesday. I went to my two classes, and in order to get to the Walmart, I have to walk across the whole campus. And there's this giant hallway right above where Mr. Kirk was giving his talk, and it's called the Hall of Flags, and it was full. There were so many people. The whole auditorium that he was sitting in was filled to the brim. It was packed. He was a very popular speaker coming into town, and everybody wanted to see him. And as I was walking through, I just kept seeing more people, more people come in, and I never saw any security. There was more of just you came in and found a spot to sit to listen so there was no, no nothing other than that.

BROWN: And you said you didn't see any security. Were you alarmed by that at all?

VLADIC: Not in the moment, not in the moment. I was more focused on just getting to work, and more, kind of like, surprised how many people showed up. I didn't feel like it would have been that full based off the other videos I had seen. But it was all young people, all very patriotic. They all had flags. This is a more of a Republican state of Utah, but the school itself is very liberal, and so I was more surprised to see how many people showed up from both sides. But in regards to a lack of security, I wasn't shocked in the moment, but being at work now, I'm realizing how, how many people you could just like fit in and not check and how easy it would have been to sneak anything in.

BROWN: Was it well publicized? I mean, people knew he was going to be there. People talking about it for a while?

VLADIC: Yeah, it was planned that he would come to our school, and I had definitely heard about it through one of my teachers. I just didn't realize who it was, because I'm not very good with remembering like celebrity names to faces. But I do remember Mr. Kirk and what he did, and I just had work I had to attend. I couldn't stay and watch.

It was just a normal day for me, and so my normal day is I am my last class at 11:50 and I clock into Walmart at 12 and I used to use that 10 minutes to rush across campus to come to work. And I thank God that I did.

I know based off of what happened and the way it happened, that this was not a whim of the moment, that this was a very skillful shooter. There's a video that's been released about him. There's like a outline of a body laying down on a rooftop that I actually walked past every day to get to my class. Which is more than maybe four or 500 feet away. And it was one shot, and it got him right away. I don't think that this was someone who was just, oh, I need to go and get this guy today. It was planned, organized. The killer got away. This was very, very planned out.

BROWN: Tell me about realizing that something had gone wrong.

VLADIC: Well, my sister actually was the first person to tell me that anything happened. I hadn't even heard a gunshot with from within the Walmart. But after I had figured out what had happened and seen videos, it was just very shocking that like such a national event, it was like, you know, you're just sitting in the Walmart, minding your own business, and then you hear some guy that you used to listen to all the time is gone, you know.

BROWN: And you did follow him.

VLADIC: I wasn't a super devout follower, but when his content would come onto my Instagram feed, I was definitely intrigued with what he had to say, and thought he was a very, excellent and well educated speaker who argued using facts and not just feelings.

BROWN: And I think you mentioned this, but I just want to go back to something, do you think the atmosphere was welcoming? You know, people wanted him to be there?

VLADIC: Absolutely. I mean, if you could have seen the amount of people, not only that were planning for a seat, but that were still piling in. People were coming into, like, parking in the Walmart parking lot, the whole school was absolutely slammed.

BROWN: What was it about him that you gravitated to and his message?

VLADIC: I feel like the way he would argue and would claim a point was very direct, and it skipped feelings and the sensitive emotions that people tried to kind of tiptoe around. I feel like he got to the point and was very refreshing to see someone who wasn't scared of what the internet would say. He obviously inspired a lot of people, a lot of young men, and even a lot of young women, to come out there and to listen to him.

BROWN: This is, some would say, a cultural tipping point. How has this affected you?

VLADIC: This will probably shut down a lot of things here. Everything's going to come to a grinding halt for school. Most definitely. Kids are going to be fighting between each other about if the shooting was right or wrong, as most people do. Everybody has something good or bad to say. I think for me personally, though, it just shows like what Christ talked about, I know that hard times are coming and they're coming fast, so there's a sense of shock, or also a sense of like, you know that this is gonna happen.

And another thing I want to say to all the Christians who are listening to this, we all obviously very upset that someone such a large advocator for Christians and Republicans alike, was taken from this world, but know that no matter how fast that killer runs, that God saw what happened, and we will all be equally judged, equally be judged on the final day. So instead of using the energy that we, that God has given us and the breath that God has given us to feel angry and feel like we deserve to kill him. Instead, live how Christ lived when he was killed, and realize that this just affirms what we've been taught and that we need to carry on living like Christ and living in an example, not in anger.

BROWN: Marko Vladic, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us.

VLADIC: Thank you for having me on it really means a lot to me that I can help. Thank you for having me on.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: As we close out today, another remembrance from a former colleague, Megan Basham. She’s here now:

Well, Megan, you were on Charlie's podcast just last week, so you've met up with him a few times at meetings and conferences. You knew Charlie. I'm wondering if you have some reflection on Charlie's character and what his mission was.

BASHAM: Well, you know, as I look at the arc of Charlie's career, Mary, what really strikes me is how important his Christian faith became to him over the course of his work. I mean, you saw him as a young, 18 year old with $10,000 sort of a political spitfire come out. He had this great, fiery rhetoric. He could always command a crowd. But over the years, particularly during COVID, I think you saw how he went from politics being the most important thing to really faith and Biblical wisdom being married to his political outlook that became really just incredibly important to him. And you know, that was why he founded TP USA faith. He really wanted to encourage Christians to take those values into the public square. And I was very blessed to be invited to speak at those events several times. And, you know, I just look at Charlie and I go, that is somebody who really believed in the power of persuasion and believed in the power of “Come, let us reason together.”

REICHARD: Exactly. He didn't get mad. He listened so well to people. Well, you were probably one of the last people to talk to him in the professional realm…here’s a bit of that between you and Charlie on his podcast:

CHARLIE KIRK: Why is that pastors are so quick to talk about the drug overdose of George Flyod but they wont’ talk about this?

MEGAN BASHAM: I think it’s pretty obvious that there was a desire to curry favor…

REICHARD: clip of that, I believe, was aired on CNN…with Van Jones saying Charlie Kirk was guilty of race baiting. What was that about?

BASHAM: Yes, so and I'll tell you what's so difficult about that is it feels like we're just compounding violence upon violence. So Charlie and I were talking about what happened here in Charlotte just a couple of weeks ago, a young woman, a Ukrainian refugee being murdered on the light rail. We talked about the factors that played into that, the policies, and unsurprisingly, CNN played a clip of that. I would say they dishonestly framed Charlie's point, which was that these policies that are done in the name of racial identity politics have real victims, and they cause real harm. And so he was once again, courageously unafraid to say these things, even though he knew that it put him in the crosshairs every day, he still said them because he believed these were the right things to say.

REICHARD: Megan, are you afraid for yourself?

BASHAM: Yeah, a little bit. I'm going to be honest with you, Mary, I was in that clip that was on CNN, and you don't know if that clip angered some person, if the rhetoric that surrounded that clip on CNN got into some evil person's mind, and I'm going to have speaking engagements in the future. And you think, will I, will I bow out of those, or will I continue to speak? But then I also go, I entrust myself to the same God that Charlie believed in, to the same Christ that He trusted in, and that that's what I'm going to take and that's what I'm going to do.

REICHARD: Well, we love you. We respect you. You're all over the world right now doing wonderful things. We will be praying for your safety. Megan Basham is a former colleague here on world, and now she's culture reporter for daily wire and a best selling author.

BASHAM: Thank you, Megan. Thank you. Miss you guys.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: John Stonestreet is back for Culture Friday. And, WORLD’s Collin Garbarino reviews Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale opening in theaters this weekend. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says: “Whoever belittles his neighbor lacks sense, but a man of understanding remains silent. Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets, but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered.” —Proverbs 11:12, 13

Go now in grace and peace.

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