Megyn Kelly confronts student at Virginia Tech Turning Point USA event over Charlie Kirk murder rhetoric

Virginia Tech — Megyn Kelly clashed with a student at a Turning Point USA event on Wednesday, in a moment captured on video and circulated across social media, when the student suggested that Donald Trump's rhetoric helped fuel the murder of Charlie Kirk, the group's founder who was killed about two weeks earlier. The event, held on the Virginia Tech campus as part of a tour featuring the conservative group's campus speakers, included a question-and-answer session that followed a pattern similar to Kirk's public forums.

During the Q&A, the student tied Trump's memorial remarks to the killing, asking: "Why do you support a president who contributes to the rhetoric that got your friend Charlie Kirk killed?" He cited Trump's line at Kirk's funeral, saying, "I hate my enemies." Kelly's immediate response was blunt: "This is how we got here. This is a blatant lie, it’s a defamatory blaspheme and it’s inappropriate in this setting." The confrontation intensified as the student tried to walk back the remarks, insisting that "that's not what I said."

Kelly pressed the thread, saying, "Your point is utterly empty. Contributing to the atmosphere? Let's just make clear. This guy was motivated by leftist ideology. We know it from the bullet casings, we know it from the Utah governor, from his own mother." The remarks drew jeers from parts of the conservative crowd, though some attendees remained quiet as the two argued, and the host tried to keep the session moving.

On the broader question of presidential rhetoric and violence, Kelly defended Trump, saying, "The president of the United States has not incited violence against liberals." She argued that Trump had faced multiple legal challenges, and recalled that he had been indicted several times and narrowly escaped assassination attempts last year, contending that he "has every right to loathe his enemies" and that there are times when he criticizes opponents in the course of political fights.

The exchange intensified the room's polarization: portions of the audience booed the student while others urged calm, and Kelly reminded the crowd that disagreement is part of the format. "It’s good to have some folks come up and disagree," she said, underscoring the event's aim as a platform for debate rather than silencing dissent.

Video of the moment circulated widely on social media, fueling a broader conversation about the boundaries between political rhetoric and violence in a heated national climate. The episode occurred amid ongoing scrutiny of how public figures describe opponents and the potential impact such rhetoric has on followers and supporters. While organizers and participants weighed the exchange, no formal statement had been released by Turning Point USA about the incident by publication time, and there was no official confirmation from Kirk's family or representatives about the circumstances surrounding his death.