Republican Senator and NewsNation Host Compare Charlie Kirk to Martin Luther King Jr. 

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) and a NewsNation host compared conservative activist Charlie Kirk to Martin Luther King Jr.

Kirk was killed on Thursday by a single shot to the neck as he spoke at Utah Valley University. The gunman is still at large. King was gunned down at a hotel in Memphis in 1968. According to Mullin and host Leland Vittert, there are other similarities.

“I compared what we are going through right now to 1968 and to the assassination of Martin Luther King,” Vittert said. “Not because King–”

“I’ve heard that comparison,” Mullin interjected.

“You think it’s a fair comparison?” the host asked.

“I heard that comparison earlier today, and I do believe that, because you had two non-elected officials that was taking a political stand and both their voices were silenced or tried to be silenced because of someone’s opposing view.” Mullin insisted.

“I think also because, for Martin Luther King, spoke for part of the population that felt marginalized, was marginalized, had been beaten down and kept down,” Vittert said. “And I think Charlie spoke to a group of young, male conservatives and young female conservatives who felt as though they had been disenfranchised and beaten down and kept down. And he gave them a voice and he championed.”

Mullin replied that he would go even further and pointed to Kirk’s Christian faith.

“He also wasn’t ashamed of his Christian beliefs and those that walked on the campus, which had been silent, saying that that’s hateful speech because you’re speaking your faith, your speaking, your love of Christ, any believe in the biblical principles with traditional values, that somehow that was that was hateful to other people,” the senator said. “That was a bold stance that people took refuge in.”

Last year, Kirk waged a campaign against the federal holiday in King’s honor.

“Who was MLK?” Kirk wrote on social media in January 2024. “A myth has been created and it has grown totally out of control. While he was alive most people disliked him, yet today he is the most honored, worshipped, even deified person of the 20th century. Today we are going to tell the truth and explain how this myth was born. Happy Monday.”

Kirk also spoke out against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which King championed. The late conservative called the legislation a “mistake” that was used as “an anti-white weapon.”

Watch above via NewsNation.