Did Charlie Kirk say children could watch public executions as ‘initiation’ at ‘certain age’?

In October 2026, a claim (archived) circulated that the conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, who was fatally shot on Sept. 10, 2025, once said children could watch public executions “at a certain age” as an “initiation.”

Claims about his alleged quote circulated as U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the U.S. military was planning to livestream the Army firing squad execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter.

One Facebook user wrote that “Charlie Kirk once argued that children watching public executions ‘at a certain age’ would be ‘an initiation.'”

Snopes readers contacted us asking about the truth of this and other Facebook posts (archived, archived) with similar claims about what Kirk said.

Snopes previously investigated what Kirk said about children watching public executions in September 2025 and found that Kirk did say that he thought children could watch public executions “at a certain age” and that this could serve as an “initiation.”

The commentator spoke about children watching executions during an episode of “Thoughtcrime,” his panel discussion show, on Feb. 15, 2024. During that show, Kirk said about the death penalty that (at 49:35), “It should be public, it should be quick, it should be televised.” 

Later in the show, Kirk and his panelists discussed whether children should watch public executions and Kirk said (at 50:17), “I think at a certain age it’s an initiation,” though the panel did not agree on what that age was. Kirk did acknowledge during the podcast that public executions and the death penalty were (at 51:17) “heavy” topics but supported public access as a way to deter crime.

Given the above, we find social media users correctly attributed the quote about children of “a certain age” viewing public executions as an “initiation” to Kirk.

What Kirk said

Kirk and his co-presenters Jack Posobiec, Tyler Bowyer and Blake Neff were discussing capital punishment in the context of whether they believed convicted pedophiles should receive the death penalty. 

About 40 minutes into the show, the discussion about capital punishment moved on to whether it should be public and, if so, who should watch. Kirk said (at 49:35), “It should be public, it should be quick, it should be televised.”

He added (at 49:53), “You could have like ‘Brought to you by Coca Cola’ and no, I’m not kidding. By the way, I would totally tune in to see some pedo get their head chopped off. Convicted by a jury of their peers. I’m talking about a real thing.”

The discussion moved on to whether children should watch publicly broadcast executions. Kirk said (at 50:17, emphasis ours): 

I think at a certain age it’s an initiation. No, but hold on, you see, if all of a sudden, you look at some of these savages like in Indiana, there was this guy that went in and killed a pregnant woman and her three kids. And, you know what, I want to watch that execution, that’ll make my day better. I want to see him on a public block and get him be publicly executed, and I think that would be justice. You think children should have … you should see … what is the age? At what age should you start to see public executions? 

Bowyer and Neff each suggested 16- and 12-year-olds, respectively, as appropriate viewing ages. Kirk said (at 51:13), “But it should also be taken in a holy way. Now, I don’t mean holy in a bad way, I mean that, like, this is heavy.”

Kirk did not say that executions should be mandatory viewing for children or give an opinion on what age he thought was appropriate to start. He did, however, express a belief that making executions public would deter future crimes. The hosts said (at 51:42):

KIRK: I want you to imagine everyday, all of a sudden they said: “And today, remember that awful five, you know, the guy that went and shot up a school?” Because, you know, left hates school shooters, and so do we and, but they focus on the gun, I think they’re evil. So, you know, you take one of these school shooters and they say, “Today we’re going to publicly execute this person.” And they read off—

POSOBIEC: How about the Super Bowl?

KIRK: Yeah, or the shooters at the Super Bowl thing, and you read off what they did and you don’t celebrate it, you know, you just say, “Look, this is what they did and if you do this, this will be your fate,” ready, set, go. Boom, end of life. And say— As a question— Here’s a question for anybody that might be, you know, not persuaded. Would crime go up or down? 

BOWYER: It would go way down

KIRK: Down. So then why is this even a question?

Six states — Texas, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Arizona — have carried out a total of 30 executions so far in 2026, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit group that provides data and analy­sis on issues con­cern­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.

According to a DPIC report from 2018, of the 17 states that carried out executions by lethal injection between January 2011 and August 2018, 14 “pre­vent­ed wit­ness­es from see­ing at least some part of the exe­cu­tion” and 15 “pre­vent­ed wit­ness­es from hear­ing what was hap­pen­ing inside the exe­cu­tion cham­ber.”

For further reading, Snopes has fact-checked a number of quotes attributed to Kirk, including whether he called Martin Luther King Jr. “awful” or said some gun deaths were “worth it” in order to have Second Amendment. We have also investigated whether the U.S. military could legally livestream Hasan’s planned Dec. 3 execution.