NC GOP leaders sound alarm about violence, safety after Charlie Kirk assassination
The day after conservative political activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated during a large public event on a Utah college campus, Republican House Speaker Destin Hall said Kirk’s murder, and the recent murder of Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light rail train, “should never happen in this country.”
Hall said that people and leaders on both political sides should be “simply repudiating any sort of political violence whatsoever.”
Hall said Kirk, a founder of conservative group Turning Point USA and close ally of President Donald Trump, was “an incredible advocate for the conservative cause.”
Kirk was popular especially with younger conservatives, and the event where he was shot and killed was part of a campus speaking tour during which he discusses and debates issues with audiences.
“ That’s not the kind of thing that should happen in this country, and especially cannot happen in North Carolina,” Hall said.
Hall said Kirk was “an incredible advocate for the conservative cause.”
Kirk had also focused in recent days on Zarutska’s murder, which became a national issue after light rail surveillance video was released to media about a week ago.
Speaker Hall calls for ‘repudiating any sort of political violence’
Referencing Kirk’s death, Hall said the U.S. is “a different country today than it was, frankly, yesterday.”
“That’s not the way that we handle disputes in this country. We handle disputes through our words and at ballot boxes. And so anything that we can, we need to do to keep people safe, we’re going to do,” he said.
U.S. Senate candidate Michael Whatley also joined Hall and Senate leader Phil Berger for a news conference Thursday at the North Carolina Legislative Building in Raleigh, focused on upcoming legislation in the wake of the light rail transit stabbing.
House Minority Leader Robert Reives, a Chatham County Democrat, criticized Whatley’s presence at the news conference in the Legislative Building.
“Our time can be spent on political campaigns or it can be spent on legislating. In this building we cannot do both at the same time. The press conference today used state taxpayer resources to promote a political candidate when it was billed as a legislative announcement,” Reives said in a statement — suggesting a better venue would have been the NCGOP headquarters, also in Raleigh.
Whatley, who previously led the Republican National Committee and N.C. Republican Party and was picked by Trump for his endorsement in the 2026 Senate election, blamed “the left” for recent violence, saying that rhetoric and soft-on-crime policies are responsible.
Political violence ‘calls us to act,’ Berger says
Berger told reporters that “yesterday’s assassination of Charlie Kirk is the latest in a string of political violence that also calls us to act.”
The Eden Republican talked about other recent assassinations and assassination attempts, of both Democrats and Republicans.
“Last year, there were horrific assassination attempts carried out on President Trump. Earlier this summer, there was an assassination of former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman, her husband, and the shooting of Minnesota Sen. John Hoffman and his wife. We must take crime and violence seriously, and our law and legal processes must reflect that seriously,” he said.
Berger said he and Hall have a proposed bill in the works, and are taking recommendations from other state lawmakers. The General Assembly reconvenes in Raleigh the week of Sept. 22.
New laws about public safety at events? Mental health?
Berger said that “as far as public spaces and places where people are having events, I think in some respects, our ability to legislate specific rules about that kind of thing are severely limited.”
He said that people need to be aware “of the need to have security available and our local law enforcement obviously needs to be consulted whenever anybody is planning to have an event that draws that size of (a) crowd.”
Berger also said that if Charlotte light rail had enforced fare payments for passengers, Zarutska’s killer would not have been there, and he hopes that will change. Hall said that lawmakers could also look at how involuntary commitment works for those with mental health issues.
Safety for state lawmakers
Asked about their own safety concerns, Hall commended the General Assembly Police Department for safety for legislators. The Legislative Building in downtown Raleigh, where hundreds of people work and visit regularly, has security screening at the door and bans guns.
“I look at my role as speaker — I have some duty to do what I can to protect the safety of all the members of the House, and whether that’s Republican or Democrat, when any sort of perceived threat comes in, we act quickly, give them all the resources that they need,” he said.
Asked about safety in public spaces, Hall said “fundamentally, it’s a sad, sad day in this country when we’re dealing with issues like that, where you have to worry about that sort of thing,” he said.
This story was originally published September 11, 2025 at 3:12 PM with the headline "NC GOP leaders sound alarm about violence, safety after Charlie Kirk assassination."
