Saturday, September 13, 2025—We'd like to share a note to Arizonans after the tragedy we witnessed this week. First, to Charlie Kirk’s wife and children, whose loss is irreparable and unjust, we extend our hearts. To the young people of Utah Valley University practicing their First Amendment rights through campus organizing, forced to see an act of callous violence, we offer our support. No one in a free society, and the United States of all places, should have to endure political violence of any kind. Here in Arizona, this loss also lands close to home: Turning Point USA, the organization Mr. Kirk founded, is, of course, based here in Phoenix.
But it is not enough merely to offer sympathies. The tragedy of this assassination isn’t only the fact of a life lost too soon, but the likelihood that we may become further divided. To resist that impulse, we need moral clarity and a renewed commitment to one another. When disagreement curdles into violence, the work of building—here in our state and across the country—stops.
In Arizona, we’ve seen how escalating threats and violent rhetoric can spill over into real harm. Just last year, we saw intimidation aimed at election workers and local officials here in our state, including targeted threats against Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer. Leadership Now Arizona spoke out then, and it’s why we must speak out now. Arizonans across the political spectrum have rightly condemned this terrible act of violence. And it’s important that business leaders are loud and clear, too. Persuasion and civic mobilization are the tools of political opponents in a democratic society, not violence. We must safeguard the principles that let us live and argue together. Freedom, civic debate, and the rule of law do not endure on their own, we must renew them together.