Obama addresses Charlie Kirk’s past Michelle Obama insult— calls death a ‘tragedy’ but says it’s OK to debate his ideas

Obama pushed back on Kirk’s 2023 claim that a group of high-achieving Black women, including Michelle Obama, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, MSNBC’s Joy Reid, and the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee “do not have the brain processing power” to be taken seriously, while stressing that rejecting political violence “doesn’t mean we can’t debate the ideas.”

Former President Barack Obama addressed a live audience this week in Erie, Pennsylvania, covering everything from Donald Trump to conservative commentator Charlie Kirk’s past attacks on Black women — including his wife, former First Lady Michelle Obama.

In 2023, Kirk claimed that women such as Michelle Obama, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, MSNBC host Joy Reid, and the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee lacked intelligence and only advanced by taking opportunities from others via affirmative action.

“You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously,” said Kirk, who attended community college briefly before dropping out to pursue his political interests.

Kirk specifically targeted a group of high-achieving Black women with elite educational backgrounds: Michelle Obama, who graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School; Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School; Joy Reid, who graduated from Harvard University; and the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), who graduated from Yale University, earned a master’s degree from New York University, and a law degree from the University of Virginia.

Obama responded directly to Kirk’s comments, making clear that while Kirk’s murder was wrong, so too were his ideas.

“I disagree with the suggestion that my wife or Justice Jackson does not have adequate brain processing power… I can say that I disagree that MLK was ‘awful’…”

The former president also rejected Kirk’s embrace of the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, which falsely claims that white Americans are being deliberately “replaced” by immigrants and people of color.

Obama emphasized that condemning violence does not mean abandoning debate about harmful beliefs or merely accepting them.

“Those are all topics that we have to be able to discuss honestly and forthrightly, while we still insist that in that process of debate, we respect other people’s right to say things that we profoundly disagree with…That’s how we should approach this,” he said.

Obama said that denouncing political violence and mourning its victims “doesn’t mean we can’t have a debate about the ideas” that were being promoted. He added that while he believes Kirk’s ideas “were wrong,” that “doesn’t negate the fact that what happened was a tragedy and that I mourn for him and his family.”

“He was a young man, with two small children and a wife, and huge number of friends and supporters who obviously cared about him,” he continued. “So we have to extend grace to people during their period of mourning and shock.”

The former president warned that the country is at an “inflection point,” urging leaders to remind Americans of “the ties that bind us together.”

“There are no ifs, ands or buts about it, the central premise of our democratic system is that we have to be able to disagree and have sometimes really contentious debates without resorting to violence.”

Watch Obama’s full remarks at the link below.