People are still arguing about it. You’ve probably seen the clip—or at least a blurry screenshot of it—floating around X or TikTok. It’s the one where Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk basically disavows empathy. It resurfaced with a vengeance recently, sparked by the tragic news of his assassination at Utah Valley University in September 2025.
Context matters. Honestly, in a world of ten-second soundbites, the charlie kirk empathy quote full video tells a much more nuanced story than the viral outtakes suggest.
Was he actually "anti-kindness"? Or was he making a philosophical distinction that most people just flew right past? To understand why this 2022 clip became the center of a massive moral debate following his death, we have to look at what was actually said, not just the headlines.
The Viral Moment: "I Can’t Stand the Word Empathy"
The core of the controversy stems from an episode of The Charlie Kirk Show that originally aired on October 12, 2022.
Kirk was talking about political strategy. He was specifically dissecting how Democrats use emotional language to connect with voters. Then he dropped the line that would follow him forever:
"I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that—it does a lot of damage."
If you stop the video right there, it sounds pretty harsh. It sounds like he's arguing for a world without feelings. But if you watch the charlie kirk empathy quote full video, he doesn't stop there. He immediately pivots to a comparison that he felt was more "rationally grounded."
Empathy vs. Sympathy: The Kirk Distinction
Kirk’s beef wasn’t with caring about people. It was with the mechanism of caring.
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He explicitly stated in the full clip that he prefers the word "sympathy." To him, empathy was a "political tool" used to manipulate people into making irrational decisions based on shared pain. He viewed empathy as "toxic" because it requires you to actually feel what another person feels, which he argued could cloud your judgment.
Sympathy, in his view, was different. It was the ability to acknowledge someone else’s suffering without being emotionally hijacked by it.
- Empathy: Feeling with someone.
- Sympathy: Feeling for someone.
Kirk argued that by forcing empathy, the left was trying to make people "feel their pain" as a way to push policies he disagreed with—like student loan forgiveness or open borders. He called it a "new age term" because he believed the modern obsession with it was a recent cultural shift, rather than a timeless virtue.
Why the Video Blew Up Again in 2025
The reason you’re likely searching for this now is because of the "Empathy Paradox" that emerged after Kirk was killed.
On September 10, 2025, Charlie Kirk was fatally shot during a "Prove Me Wrong" event at Utah Valley University. The shock was immediate. But so was the vitriol. Because Kirk had spent years being a polarizing figure, some people on social media responded with celebration rather than grief.
This triggered a massive secondary debate.
Conservatives pointed to the "party of empathy" and accused them of hypocrisy. "Where is your empathy now?" they asked. In response, critics of Kirk dug up the charlie kirk empathy quote full video and threw it back at his supporters. The argument was basically: He said empathy was a made-up scam, so why are you demanding it for him now?
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It’s a messy, circular argument. Honestly, it shows just how fractured our discourse has become.
The "Toxic Empathy" Connection
To understand the full context, you have to look at the people Kirk was talking to. Shortly after his initial comments in 2022, Kirk interviewed Allie Beth Stuckey, author of the book Toxic Empathy.
They argued that empathy is often used to justify things that are actually harmful in the long run. For example, they’d say that having "empathy" for someone who entered the country illegally might lead to policies that hurt the economy or national security.
It’s a cold way of looking at the world. But to Kirk, it was "prudent" and "rational." He often said, "Nobody talks like this," acknowledging that his lack of emotional shielding made people uncomfortable.
What the Media Got Wrong (and Right)
Most news outlets, especially during the 2025 fallout, only played the five-second "I can't stand empathy" clip.
That’s a bit of a hatchet job.
However, his critics aren’t entirely wrong to be skeptical. While Kirk argued for "sympathy," his rhetoric on other topics—like his comments about Black pilots, his stance on the Second Amendment despite gun deaths, or his views on the LGBTQ+ community—often felt like it lacked even the most basic sympathy.
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For many, the distinction between empathy and sympathy was just a semantic shield. They saw it as a way for him to justify being "remorseless" about the impact of his words.
Finding the Full Footage
If you want to see the charlie kirk empathy quote full video for yourself, you usually have to go to Rumble. That’s where the full archives of The Charlie Kirk Show live. The specific episode from October 12, 2022, contains the rant.
Look for the segment around the 36:40 mark.
You’ll see him sitting in his studio, wearing the headset, looking directly into the camera. He isn't yelling. He’s speaking in that rapid-fire, "intellectual" tone he was known for. He’s dissecting Bill Clinton’s famous "I feel your pain" line and explaining why he thinks it was the beginning of a downward spiral for American politics.
Final Insights: Navigating the Noise
So, what’s the takeaway?
- Don’t trust the snippet. Kirk didn’t say "don't care about people." He said, "I don't like this specific word because I think it's used for manipulation."
- The irony is real. It is undeniably ironic that a man who spent his career deconstructing the value of empathy became the focal point of a national crisis regarding our collective lack of it.
- Words have consequences. Whether Kirk was right or wrong about the definition of empathy, his dismissal of it made it very easy for his enemies to dismiss his humanity later on.
The full video doesn't make Charlie Kirk a saint, and it doesn't make his critics right. It just shows a man who was deeply committed to a specific worldview—one where logic and "rationality" always took precedence over shared emotional experience.
To see the full context for yourself, search for the October 2022 archives on Rumble or look for the unedited X posts from researchers like Jason S. Campbell, who originally tracked the footage. Seeing the full three-minute stretch provides the necessary background that the 10-second TikTok loops intentionally leave out.