The View cohosts reacted to Charlie Kirk’s death at age 31 after he was fatally shot during an outdoor event.

“It’s just people being taken out because of their beliefs or their thoughts,” Whoopi Goldberg lamented.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, who knew Kirk, said he showed young people that “it was okay to speak up.”

The View cohosts joined forces Thursday to condemn Wednesday’s assassination of conservative political voice and TV personality Charlie Kirk.

One day after the 31-year-old was fatally shot while discussing gun violence in America at Utah Valley University, Whoopi Goldberg began the episode by calling Kirk’s death “beyond devastating” and telling the audience that “our hearts of course go out to the family of Charlie Kirk,” including his wife, Erika, and children.

Goldberg then praised “politicians on both sides of the aisle” who spoke out and “urged Americans to come together” in the wake of Kirk’s death.

The 69-year-old said that discourse needs to happen in American politics “without fear, without this kind of horror happening,” especially after another instance of political violence claimed the life of a top Minnesota Democrat and her husband earlier this year.

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‘The View’ cohosts discuss Charlie Kirk’s assassination

“It seems to be something we’ve been seeing more and more of. It’s not even left or right. It’s just people being taken out because of their beliefs or their thoughts,” Goldberg said, before turning the platform over to conservative panelist and former Donald Trump White House staffer Alyssa Farah Griffin, who personally knew Kirk.

Griffin said her “heart just breaks” for his family. “Regardless of your politics, we’ve got to get to a place in this country where we see people we disagree with not as our enemies, but as fellow Americans with different viewpoints that we need to engage.”

She went on to call Kirk an “incredibly influential young activist on the right” whose death “is going to hit young Republicans really hard because he made them feel like when they were the lone conservative voice on campus, one of the only Republicans, that it was okay to speak up and say their viewpoints.”

Sara Haines pointed out the irony of Kirk — whom Trump announced Thursday would receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom — being killed on a college campus, “where you’re supposed to have” these conversations of thought and differing views.

“He’d talk to people openly, who disagreed,” she said. “So the irony of being violently killed while saying those words of what we need more of in this country, I know all of us agree on that part. There’s never a place for political violence.”

Legal expert Sunny Hostin called Kirk a “family man” whose “children will grow up without their father,” and stressed to viewers that “there’s no place for this kind of violence in this country.”

She continued, “I’m heartbroken over it. I can’t believe that someone would kill another person because they were speaking their beliefs. This is antithetical to who we are as Americans. The first amendment is the first amendment for a reason. We should be able to voice whatever opinions we have.”

Reflecting on past assassinations she’s lived through, 82-year-old Joy Behar invoked the shocking deaths of Medgar Evers, John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. at “a turbulent time” in American history that she believes the country recovered from.

“I think we did get out of it. The country survived it, we got better,” she said. “I think we will again. We’re having a traumatic period right now.”

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Charlie Kirk

Goldberg closed the segment with one final message.

“All the things we’ve seen — the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the aggressiveness when they went after Paul Pelosi, the couple in Minnesota — this is not the way we do it,” the EGOT-winning Ghost actress said. “We say this every time, but, somehow, it’s not resonating, and I hope that young Republicans never forget that they have voice.”

She finished, “They have a voice. We all have voices. We should never ever be afraid. It’s beyond, beyond. And Charlie Kirk’s assassin is still at large.”

The TV personality and political commentator died after he was shot Wednesday during an outdoor event at Utah Valley University, the first stop of his American Comeback Tour.

Kirk’s controversial rhetoric on political and social issues led to polarized reactions. Fellow conservative personality Megyn Kelly fought back tears as she discussed Kirk’s death Wednesday on the air.

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Sara Haines, Ana Navarro, Sunny Hostin, Joy Behar, Alyssa Farah Griffin, and Whoopi Goldberg for ‘The View’
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Others online pointed out the irony that, at the time of the shooting, Kirk was discussing with an audience member the issue of gun violence in the country. Many then pointed to a 2023 interview, in which Kirk spoke about the Second Amendment.

“It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights,” Kirk said during the conversation.

Following the shooting, Trump announced Kirk, a longtime Trump supporter, had died and offered his condolences.

“The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us.”