The View Expresses Outrage, Frustration After 'Devastating' Charlie Kirk Shooting

Ahead of the show's broadcast, she took to her X account with a strong warning to her former co-hosts. "If my former colleagues at The View have even three brain cells left between all of them," she wrote, "they will do nothing but attempt to be even mildly decent this morning to the millions of heartbroken conservatives in this country."

It's not clear if the women were aware of McCain's post when moderator Whoopi Goldberg brought the topic up at the top of the show, but the entire panel was in definite agreement that what happened was a "devastating" tragedy and has no place in an American culture built on the foundation of free speech.

"I don't even know how to start this because this is-- it's just beyond devastating," Goldberg said. "Our hearts, of course, go out to the family of Charlie Kirk, who was shot and killed yesterday on a college campus in Utah."

She went on to ask the question, "Isn't a fundamental part of being an American that we are able to express our opinions to each other without fear, without this kind of horror happening?"

And yet, she continued, we seem to be seeing this kind of violence "more and more" from both sides of the political aisle. "It's not even left or right, it's just people being taken out because of their beliefs or their thoughts," she added.

Alyssa Farah Griffin agreed, arguing that "regardless of your politics, we have got to get to a place in this country where we see people we disagree with not as our enemy but as fellow Americans with different viewpoints we are willing to engage."

To that point, Sara Haines praised the Turning Point USA co-founder for espousing just those principles even to the moment of his death. "The irony of a man who would go across the country to college campuses ... and his series was called 'Prove Me Wrong.' He would talk to people openly who disagreed."

As seen in video from the event, Kirk was engaging with a student on the topic of mass shootings and gun violence when the shot rang out that would ultimately end his life. Haines highlighted a quote from Kirk himself: "When we stop talking, that's when things get bad."

"The irony of being violently killed while saying those words of what we need more of in this country," Haines asserted. "I know all of us agree on that part as, there's never a place for political violence."

Griffin talked about Kirk's importance to young Republicans, because through his activism on college campuses through TPUSA, "he made them feel like when they were the lone conservative voice on campus, they were one of the only Republicans, it was okay to speak up and say their viewpoints."

"I hope that young Republicans never forget that they have a voice," Goldberg said. "It's already been proved, they have a voice. We all have voices. We should never ever be be afraid."

Joy Behar chimed in to recall that this whole climate of growing uncertainty over political violence is something that rings familiar "being of the age that I'm at." She went on to cite the assassinations of Medgar Evers, John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther Kink Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy across the 1960s. "It was such a scary time," she said of those years, "You kind of clung to each other."

At the same time, she said that in hopes of being somewhat positive, "We did get out of it," she said of that socially and politically turbulent decade, "We survived it and got better. I think we will again. We're having a traumatic period right now."

Goldberg compared Behar's list to recent violence including the July 2024 attempted assassination of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, the October 2022 attack on Representative Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul Pelosi, as well as the assassination of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman in February 2024 and the shootings of Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Ryan Winkler and State Senator John Hoffman and his wife in June 2025.

"This has got to-- This is not the way we do it," Goldberg emphasized. "And we say this every time but somehow it's not resonating ... This is-- it's beyond beyond."

"That's the thing. This man was 31 years old with two children -- I think ages 1 and 3 -- a family man, a wife," said Sunny Hostin. "Now these children will grow up without their father, this woman will grow old without her husband ... I am heartbroken over it."

"I cannot believe that someone would kill another person because they were speaking their beliefs," she continued. "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."

Following the news of Kirk's passing, other celebrities and politicians from across the political spectrum took to social media to react. See the widespread response, here.