Critics condemn Robby Starbuck, appointed in lawsuit settlement, for ‘peddling lies and pushing extremism’
Robby Starbuck speaks in an interview in New York in March. Photograph: Bess Adler/Bloomberg via Getty Images
A prominent anti-DEI campaigner appointed by Meta in August as an adviser on AI bias has spent the weeks since his appointment spreading disinformation about shootings, transgender people, vaccines, crime, and protests.
Robby Starbuck, 36, of Nashville, was appointed in August as an adviser by Meta – owner of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other tech platforms – in an August lawsuit settlement.
Since his appointment, Starbuck has baselessly claimed that individual shooters in the US were motivated by leftist ideology, described faith-based protest groups as communists, and without evidence tied Democratic lawmakers to murders.
Starbuck’s online posts have not changed in tenor since the “anti-DEI agitator” was brought into the Meta fold, and his Trump administration connections raise broader questions about the extent to which corporate America has capitulated to the Maga movement.
The Guardian repeatedlycontacted Meta for comment on Starbuck’s role, and his rhetoric online, but received no response.
The Guardian also contacted Starbuck via an email address associated with his website. In part, he responded: “It seems your piece is an attempted hit job meant to punish Meta for working with me on AI fairness. Nothing I’ve said has been on behalf of Meta – they work with people from every political background.”
He added: “My role is simple: work to make AI fair for everyone, regardless of their views. That’s a goal anyone who believes in fairness should support. What you’re really trying here looks like cancel culture and activism dressed up as journalism, and I won’t cower for holding the same views as the political party that won the popular vote less than a year ago in America.”
Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, said: “It is appalling that Robby Starbuck was given a hand in Meta operations in any capacity. He peddles lies and pushes extremism, and it is hard to believe any of this will help make their platforms safer or better.”
Eric Bloem, vice-president of corporate citizenship at the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, said: “People should be able to find safe, welcoming communities online. Robby Starbuck pushes a dangerous anti-LGBTQ agenda, spreading disinformation and denying the very existence of transgender people.”
Starbuck’s appointment to Meta via lawsuit
Starbuck, formerly a music video director, has gained attention as an opponent of corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. His pressure campaigns have frequently been directed at companies who are perceived as having conservative customer bases, and have induced major American firms to abandon internal DEI measures, or to end their relationships with pro-LGBTQ organizations like the Human Rights Campaign.
Starbuck won his role in the aftermath of one such campaign.
In the midst of a summer 2024 campaign aimed at motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson, Starbuck threatened Meta with a lawsuit over claims its Meta AI chatbot apparently made about him. In August 2024, Starbuck posted a screenshot purporting to show Meta AI’s summary of a Facebook thread of Harley riders angry that the “company chose to go woke “.
A screenshot in reply from a Harley-Davidson dealer appeared to show Meta AI asserting that Starbuck was, among other things, an adherent of the QAnon conspiracy theory, and had participated in the January 6 attack at the Capitol.
Starbuck responded: “Wow thanks for sending, Meta will hear from my lawyers since I was never at J6 and have been a longtime critic of QAnon.”
That lawsuit was filed last April. Starbuck’s appointment to work with Meta was part of the settlement. Other details of the settlement – including whether or not Starbuck was paid or is receiving ongoing compensation for the role – were not made public.
On 8 August, Meta’s chief of global affairs Joel Kaplan posted on X a joint statement with Starbuck.
In part, the statement read: “Since engaging on these important issues with Robby, Meta has made tremendous strides to improve the accuracy of Meta AI and mitigate ideological and political bias.”
The statement continued: “Building on that work, Meta and Robby Starbuck will work collaboratively in the coming months to continue to find ways to address issues of ideological and political bias and minimize the risk that the model returns hallucinations in response to user queries.”
Bloem said: “There’s nothing unbiased about [Starbuck’s appointment].” He added: “Coupled with its January rollback of protections against hate speech across its platforms, this decision calls into question Meta’s commitment to keeping LGBTQ+ people and others safe online.”
‘Portland is working with the terrorists’
Starbuck has long pushed vaccine disinformation, and he has amplified false claims made by health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.
In July, he boosted a debunked claim made by Kennedy in an interview with Tucker Carlson, in which he claimed that hepatitis B vaccinations led to a 1,135% increase in autism risk, adding: “This is absolutely criminal. The people behind this belong in jail and the hep B shot should be pulled immediately from the childhood vaccine schedule.”
As part of his anti-DEI push, Starbuck has also spread overheated claims and falsehoods about transgender and LGBTQ people.
He has also boosted such claims made by members of the Trump administration.
In March, boosting a claim Donald Trump made in an address to Congress that the government had spent “$8m for making mice transgender”, Starbuck wrote: “Democrats are trying to pretend that Trump was wrong about the government funding a study to turn mice transgender. He was NOT wrong. This is the study and it’s vile. Eighty female mice were ‘sacrificed’ after their last injection. Democrats funded this.”
In fact, the mice studies sought to gauge the effect of hormone therapy on maladies such as wound-healing, HIV, and infertility.
Starbuck’s online demeanor has continued largely unchanged since he was appointed, with him backing far-right figures in America and around the world and posting dubious pro-Trump narratives.
Starbuck recently expressed support for authoritarians and he posted a video of Stephen Miller’s speech on the Memphis Safe Task Force, which has seen federal officers and national guard troops making arrests in there.
Starbuck added the caption: “I’ve been advocating for us to make Memphis safe again for YEARS now by carrying out similar initiatives @nayibbukele executed successfully in El Salvador and finally… It’s happening.”
El Salvador president Nayib Bukele, self-styled as the “world’s coolest dictator”, is celebrated by the far right in the US for his unconstitutional crackdown, which has seen up to more than 1.5% of the country’s population imprisoned, almost a quarter of those without trial, according to World Prison Brief.
Starbuck also baselessly asserted that city officials in Portland were working with anti-fascists, and appeared to urge a violent response. Starbuck claimed that injuries to rightwing online personality Katie Daviscourt indicated that “the leftist government in Portland is working with the terrorists”, adding: “It’s time to treat Antifa cells like we would treat Isis cells.”
In a comment on this allegation, Starbuck wrote: “The record is not in dispute. Portland councillors Angelita Morillo and Candace Avalos both publicly defended an antifa activist charged with assaulting a federal officer. Morillo has even posted tips to help antifa evade law enforcement. “
He added: “When elected officials openly side with violent extremists, they are enabling them.”
Morillo told the Guardian: “When influencers like Robby refer to ‘terrorists’, I’m not sure who they’re talking about – the guy in the frog suit? The people doing the Cha-Cha Slide outside the Ice facility in Portland? I can’t take anyone seriously who relies on sensationalized clips, AI content and outright lies to inform their thinking.”
Avalos said: “People are free to say what they like on social media. That doesn’t make their statements true, and it doesn’t mean we have to take them at face value.
“As a federal judge found in her recent ruling against the administration, the idea that there are coordinated attacks from ‘antifa, and other domestic terrorists’, as Trump alleged on Truth Social, is simply ‘untethered to the facts’. Who should we listen to: a sitting federal judge or someone with a Twitter account?”
She added: “When I advise my constituents on how to protect themselves from federal agents acting unlawfully, I am speaking to the vast majority of Portlanders, who rightfully oppose fascism and are certainly not terrorists.”
Starbuck also claimed that a high profile Trump detainee who was once incarcerated in Bukele’s brutal Cecot prison that “Kilmar Abrego Garcia [is] almost certainly an MS-13 member”.
Two federal judges this year rejected the administration’s claims that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS13, and the government was ordered to facilitate his return from El Salvador.
Commenting on his allegation, Starbuck wrote: “This is simple: an immigration court, DHS, and the president of the United States all identified Garcia as an MS-13 member. Denying it is no longer reporting – it’s spin in the pursuit of your own make-believe narrative. So once again, my language was perfectly appropriate.”
(*** Editorial edit from Scottie. This statement above by lying Starbuck is completely false yet he does as most hateful bigots do and repeat forcefully as it if it was a truth everyone knows and given by go. It is the tatic of a scammer, he is lying yet the maga media will report what he says as truth when again it is a lie. This guy is perfect for the tRump party area, if we say it then it must be the truth because we say it. Hugs *** )
‘This is domestic terrorism’
In recent weeks, Starbuck has energetically attempted to connect the alleged perpetrators of high-profile shootings to the Democratic party.
These claims culminated in a video posted to X in which he claimed that “in less than 2 weeks there have been 5 domestic terrorism attacks by leftists”, citing the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the armed attack on an ABC affiliate in Sacramento, California; the attack on a wedding reception in Nashua, New Hampshire; and the attack on an Ice facility in Dallas. Another example he offered were purported chants of “Fuck Charlie Kirk!” by leftists in New York in the wake of Kirk’s death.
In an earlier post, he cited the same events and claimed: “This is domestic terrorism”.
The man accused of the Sacramento ABC attack does have a long history of posting anti-Trump messages on social media, according to prosecutors, and spent two decades as “a lobbyist for healthcare, tribal and labor interests”, according to the New York Times.
Evidence for connections between the other perpetrators and the Democratic party, or even the broader left, is either tenuous or non-existent.
The claim about chanting demonstrators appears to arise from mid-September videos of counterprotesters who, according to videos taken by independent journalists, disrupted a memorial vigil for Charlie Kirk in New York’s Washington Square. The identities, allegiances, and organizational affiliations of the counterprotesters are unspecified, and few media outlets reported on the story except Russian outlet Pravda.
However, Joshua Jahn, who turned his gun on himself after the Dallas Ice attack, was reportedly registered as an independent in Oklahoma, and was described by friends as someone with “a vaguely libertarian bent who despised both major parties and politicians generally, including Trump, but who didn’t engage with politics beyond that”, according to reporting by journalist Ken Klippenstein.
Hunter Nadeau, accused of killing one and wounding two others in an attack on a country club in Nashua, New Hampshire, reportedly yelled “Free Palestine” during the attack. But state attorney general John Formella said Nadeau “made a number of statements during the shooting and appeared to be attempting to cause chaos in the moment as opposed to showing a hate-based motivation”, according to NPR.
Formella added: “We don’t have any evidence to indicate that this was a hate-based act.”
Tyler Robinson, the man accused of Charlie Kirk’s murder, was reportedly registered as a non-partisan voter in Utah, although family members indicated he had moved politically to the left, according to prosecutors.
Nevertheless, investigators reportedly told NBC News that “thus far, there is no evidence connecting the suspect with any leftwing groups”.
All of the reporting clouding the political allegiances of the shooters was on the public record on 25 September, when Starbuck replied to an X user who challenged him that “every single one of the cases I just pointed out are leftists”, blaming “left wing leaders … and their crazy followers”.
Starbuck reiterated his claims about each shooter to the Guardian and linked to four sources he claimed supported him, including a Daily Mail story about Facebook posts by Joshua Jahn’s mother, and a protest footage video published to YouTube by one of the previously cited independent videographers.
He further responded with accusations about the Guardian, writing: “Why is the Guardian fixated on trying to downplay leftwing violence instead of investigating the clear surge of it?”
He added: “I don’t have the luxury of ignoring this reality – my security team and the FBI are actively handling ongoing death threats against me. The dismissiveness from outlets like yours makes you complicit in emboldening this violence.”
Meta adviser
The lawsuit that took Starbuck to Meta was carried out by a firm with Trump administration connections.
Dhillon Law Group (DLG) filed suit in Delaware on behalf of Starbuck. In a press release, the firm said Meta’s chatbot had made “provably false and defamatory statements” about Starbuck.
Between the original posts and the lawsuit, DLG founder Harmeet Dhillon was nominated and confirmed as Donald Trump’s assistant attorney general for civil rights. Trump named her as his pick in December and she was confirmed in April, weeks before Starbuck’s settlement.
According to Office of Government Ethics filings, Dhillon divested her ownership in Dhillon Law Group in the firm in favor of her brother, a non-equity partner in the firm.
In her 27 February ethics agreement, however, Dhillon wrote that she would “retain an interest in a portion of future recovery in 21 contingency fee cases based upon a fixed percentage of compensation”.
The Guardian contacted the justice department to ask whether Starbuck’s case was one of the 21 that Dhillon retained an interest in. Initially, an automated response warned that “during the current lapse in appropriations, this inbox will not be monitored on a regular basis”.
A spokesperson subsequently responded in an email, writing: “AAG Dhillon does not currently have any role in cases involving Mr Starbuck and their relationship is one of friendship and former client.”
The Guardian then asked whether or not she had a role in his case at the time it was settled in April.
The spokesperson said no.
The Guardian previously reported that Dhillon earned a six-figure salary as CEO of a nonprofit, the Center for American Liberty (CAL), according to filings from 2021, 2022 and 2023. During that period, Dhillon Law Group received more than $1.3m as a contractor to the organization over two years. Dhillon, several CAL clients and Dhillon Law attorneys also shared the services of the same Republican-aligned PR operative.
During Dhillon’s leadership, the CAL pursued a myriad of culture-war lawsuits on behalf of rightwing influencers, “de-transitioners” and parents of transgender children, and churches that had been subject to California’s pandemic restrictions.
Beirich, the extremism expert, said: “This is just another example of Meta caving to Trump and his allies, and bogus charges of political bias, and makes a mockery of fair content moderation on Meta’s various platforms.”
Elsewhere in his comments to the Guardian, Starbuck wrote: “You should be honest with Guardian readers about the fact that you’ve been accused of extremely close ties with antifa.”
Protesters in support of LGBTQ+ rights and against book bans demonstrate outside of the U.S. Supreme Court Building while the justices heard arguments for the case of Mahmoud v. Taylor in Washington, DC., April 2025
Opinion: In Mahmoud v. Taylor, the justices gave bigotry a permission slip and ruled that parents can “opt out” of LGBTQ-inclusive lessons, further diminishing lessons and practices on inclusivity in civic society, argues Darek M. Ciszek.
The U.S. Supreme Court made a decision earlier this summer that has a significant impact on classrooms nationwide. In their 6-3 decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, the majority completely missed the point as to why LGBTQ-inclusive education matters. By giving parents the option to pull their kids out of lessons that include LGBTQ+ characters or content, the Court prioritized personal religious objections over creating schools where students can learn without feeling invisible.
Justice Alito‘s majority opinion is especially troubling. He treats LGBTQ-inclusive education as if it were some optional “add-on” that schools can easily work around. As a former teacher, I can confidently say that is not how education works, especially when it comes to curriculum and lesson planning. And while Justice Thomas calls LGBTQ-inclusive education “ideological conformity,” he fails to see that most LGBTQ+ adults today grew up in a school system that forced us to conform to a cisgender and straight worldview. Ironically, I’d consider the Court’s narrow view of public education to be ideologically driven.
Let’s be clear about what LGBTQ-inclusive education is and isn’t. When teachers include books like Uncle Bobby’s Wedding in their curriculum, they are not trying to convert anyone’s child or attack anyone’s faith. They are trying to show students that families come in all colors, shapes, and sizes, reflecting our diverse society.
LGBTQ+ people are also part of every community. We have always been a part of human history, and we deserve to be represented in our nation’s schools. The goal is not to change what students believe at home; it is to teach them how to be respectful in a democratic and diverse world. Luckily, in her dissent, Justice Sotomayor got it right when she said that LGBTQ-inclusive education is “designed to foster mutual civility and respect.”
I could not agree more.
But here’s what the Court’s majority really got wrong: they ignored the anti-bullying efforts that motivate many LGBTQ+ inclusive education programs in the first place. According to the latest National School Climate Survey from GLSEN, 68% of American students reported feeling unsafe in school due to their SOGIE (sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression) characteristics.
That is two out of three LGBTQ+ youth.
These aren’t just statistics. These are real children trying to learn while dealing with a school environment that tells them, whether implicitly or explicitly, that their identities or families are somehow wrong or shameful.
When schools include diverse families in their lessons, they are not pushing an agenda. They are teaching kids that being different does not mean bad. They are giving LGBTQ+ students a chance to see themselves reflected in their education and helping other students see and understand those who are different from them.
Research shows inclusive education works. Studies have found that an LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum can improve the social and emotional well-being of LGBTQ+ youth. When kids learn about different types of families early on, they are more likely to treat their classmates with kindness instead of cruelty. In other words, when implemented correctly, LGBTQ-inclusive education can be an essential anti-bullying and student well-being strategy.
For instance, as a result of my doctoral research, I have learned that some schools around the world are starting to address LGBTQ+ bullying head-on, and, not surprisingly, it’s through curriculum and instruction. In Scotland, LGBTQ-inclusive education became required in 2021 across both primary and secondary, and most major subject areas. When I interviewed government staff about their experience implementing the new policy, I learned that they even worked with religious groups to inform the effort. Faith communities could agree that inclusion was important for reducing homophobic bullying, even if they had some religious concerns. Scottish students now learn how homophobic language hurts people and develop the social-emotional skills needed for creating safer schools. It’s not ideological instruction; it’s teaching kids critical peer relationship skills.
Similar to the Scottish experience, the U.S. Supreme Court could have left the door open for education authorities to find a balance that respects both religious families and vulnerable LGBTQ+ kids. Real inclusion programs do not ask anyone to abandon their faith. They ask people to treat others with respect and dignity, a lesson I believe everyone should support in class. Kids can learn that some families have two moms without being told their family is wrong. They can remember that using “gay” as an insult hurts people without abandoning their religious beliefs. Getting to know your neighbor does not go against faith.
Unfortunately for the U.S., the impact of the Court’s decision may be severe and widespread, especially in ideologically conservative states. Instead of dealing with complicated opt-out policies, I fear many school districts will probably remove LGBTQ+ inclusive materials entirely. Unfortunately, it can be easier to bow to political pressures than to fight, especially when faced with potential lawsuits or a loss of school funding. This means LGBTQ+ kids lose representation, and all students miss out on critical lessons in diversity and inclusion.
The Court’s decision also has broader implications beyond the LGBTQ+ community. By way of a new precedent, the case approves a heckler’s veto, allowing parents to claim a religious objection to any educational content they may not align with at home. This is because the majority opinion wasn’t apparent on how opting out of inclusive education would work in practice, or what would even qualify as a personal religious objection. We might start seeing opt-out forms for instruction on topics like human evolution, women’s rights, or civil rights history. Thanks to the Court, there is no line in the sand.
When we remove students from lessons about diverse communities, we fail everyone. But the call for truly inclusive education is not going anywhere. Our kids—all of our kids—deserve better.
Darek M. Ciszek is a PhD Candidate in Education at UCLA with a research focus on curriculum, learning, and social development.
Voices is dedicated to featuring a wide range of inspiring personal stories and impactful opinions from the LGBTQ+ community and its allies. Visit Advocate.com/submit to learn more about submission guidelines. Views expressed in Voices stories are those of the guest writers, columnists, and editors, and do not directly represent the views of The Advocate or our parent company, equalpride.
Robin Abcarian, Los Angeles Times on Published in Op Eds
I had a difficult time reading the gut-wrenching accounts from the parents of gay children who are part of the Supreme Court case about conversion therapy bans and freedom of speech.
All claim their family relationships were seriously damaged by the widely discredited practice, and that their children were permanently scarred or even driven to suicide.
The case, Chiles vs. Salazar, arose from a 2019 Colorado law that outlaws conversion therapy, whose practitioners say they can change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity to align with heterosexual and cisgender norms. The therapy is considered harmful and ineffective by mainstream medical and mental health organizations.
At least two dozen other states have similar laws on the books, all of them good-faith attempts to prevent the lasting harm that can result when a young person is told not just that they can change who they are, but that they should change because God wants them to. The laws were inspired by the horrific experiences of gay and transgender youths whose families and churches tried to change them.
The case was brought by Kayley Chiles, a licensed counselor and practicing Christian who believes, according to her attorneys, that “people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design, including their biological sex.”
Colorado, incidentally, has never charged Chiles or anyone else in connection with the 2019 law.
Chiles is represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian law firm known for its challenges to gay and transgender rights, including one brought to the Supreme Court in 2023 by Christian web designer Lorie Smith, who did not want to be forced to create a site for a gay wedding, even though no gay couple had ever approached her to do so. The Court’s conservative majority ruled in Smith’s favor. All three liberals dissented.
As for conversion therapy, counselors often encourage clients to blame their LGBTQ+ identities on trauma, abuse or their dysfunctional families. (If it can be changed, it can’t possibly be innate, right?)
In oral arguments, it appeared the conservative justices were inclined to accept Chiles’ claim that Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy amounts to viewpoint discrimination, a violation of the 1st Amendment’s free speech guarantees. The liberal minority was more skeptical.
But proponents of the bans say there is a big difference between speech and conduct. They argue that a therapist’s attempt to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity amounts to conduct, and can rightfully be regulated by states, which, after all, lawfully impose conditions on all sorts of licensed professionals. (The bans, by the way, do not apply to ministers or unlicensed practitioners, and are generally not applicable to adults.)
Each competing brief whipsawed my emotions. The 1st Amendment is sacred in so many ways, and yet states have a critical interest in protecting the health and welfare of children. How to find a balance?
After reading the brief submitted by a group of 1st Amendment scholars, I was convinced the Colorado law should be ruled unconstitutional. As they wrote of Chiles, she doesn’t hook her clients to electrodes or give them hormones, as some practitioners of conversion therapy have done in the past. “The only thing she does is talk, and listen.”
Then I turned to the parents’ briefs.
Linda Robertson, an evangelical Christian mother of four, wrote that she was terrified when her 12-year-old son Ryan confided to her in 2001 that he was gay. “Crippling fear consumed me — it stole both my appetite and my sleep. My beautiful boy was in danger and I had to do everything possible to save him.”
Robertson’s search led her to “therapists, authors and entire organizations dedicated to helping kids like Ryan resist temptation and instead become who God intended them to be.”
Ryan was angry at first, then realized, his mother wrote, that “he didn’t want to end up in hell, or be disapproved of by his parents and his church family.” Their quest to make Ryan straight led them to “fervent prayer, scripture memorization, adjustments in our parenting strategies, conversion therapy based books, audio and video recordings and live conferences with titles like, ‘You Don’t Have to be Gay’ and ‘How to Prevent Homosexuality.’ ”
They also attended a conference put on by Exodus International, the “ex-gay” group that folded in 2013 after its former founder repudiated the group’s mission and proclaimed that gay people are loved by God.
After six years, Ryan was in despair. “He still didn’t feel attracted to girls; all he felt was completely alone, abandoned and needed the pain to stop,” his mother wrote. Worse, he felt that God would never accept him or love him. Ryan died at age 20 of a drug overdose after multiple suicide attempts.
As anyone with an ounce of common sense or compassion knows, such “therapy” is a recipe for shame, anguish and failure.
Yes, there are kids who question their sexuality, their gender identity or both, and they deserve to discuss their internal conflicts with competent mental health professionals. I can easily imagine a scenario where a teenager tells a therapist they think they’re gay or trans but don’t want to be.
The job of a therapist is to guide them through their confusion to self-acceptance, not tell them what the Bible says they should be.
If recent rulings are any guide, the Supreme Court is likely to overturn the Colorado conversion therapy ban.
This would mean, in essence, that a therapist has the right to inflict harm on a struggling child in the name of free speech.
Charlie Kirk, the far-right commentator and ally of Donald Trump, was killed on Wednesday doing what he was known for throughout his career – making incendiary and often racist and sexist comments to large audiences.
If it was current and controversial in US politics, chances are that Kirk was talking about it. On his podcasts, and on the podcasts of friends and adversaries, and especially on college campuses, where he would go to debate students, Kirk spent much of his adult life defending and articulating a worldview aligned with Trump and the Maga movement. Accountable to no one but his audience, he did not shy away in his rhetoric from bigotry, intolerance, exclusion and stereotyping.
Here’s Kirk, in his own words. Many of his comments were documented by Media Matters for America, a progressive non-profit that tracks conservative media.
On race
If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 23 January 2024
If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?
If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?
If we would have said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. Now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us … 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.
We record all of it so that we put [it] on the internet so people can see these ideas collide. When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence. That’s when civil war happens, because you start to think the other side is so evil, and they lose their humanity.
– Kirk discussing his work in an undated clip that circulated on X after his killing.
Prove me wrong.
– Kirk’s challenge to students to publicly debate him during the tour of colleges he was on when he was assassinated.
On gender, feminism and reproductive rights
Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge.
– Discussing news of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement on The Charlie Kirk Show, 26 August 2025
The answer is yes, the baby would be delivered.
– Responding to a question about whether he would support his 10-year-old daughter aborting a pregnancy conceived because of rape on the debate show Surrounded, published on 8 September 2024
We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.
I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.
– Event organized by TPUSA Faith, the religious arm of Kirk’s conservative group Turning Point USA, on 5 April 2023
On immigration
America was at its peak when we halted immigration for 40 years and we dropped our foreign-born percentage to its lowest level ever. We should be unafraid to do that.
The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different.
We’ve been warning about the rise of Islam on the show, to great amount of backlash. We don’t care, that’s what we do here. And we said that Islam is not compatible with western civilization.
100% Christian hate. No one loves more than bigot Christians can hate. This would be a non-story except Kegseth is the head of the military with the authority to remove any group from the military he doesn’t like. Think about the idea that woman shouldn’t vote according to his preacher yet females in the military at every level have authority over men … so if they can’t be trusted to vote …? But Kegseth thinks the US military needs to be an all white male thuggish killing machines like the Russian military who are getting their asses kicked by the inclusive Ukrainian military. The Christian bigotry prevents people like him from seeing the truth. The idea of heavily muscled men facing each other on a field of battle is far in the past. Military tech is way more far advanced. It needs twink kids in the basement playing on gaming machines, it needs females who can out think every man around. Kegseth’s idea of manliness and the military makes me suspect him of having a man fetish, an Arnold Schwarzenegger fetish. It idealizes something that is not true and doesn’t exist. This man grew up on far too many he man cartoons and movies. Hugs.
“We have to overturn Obergefell. Many people will say, ‘That ship’s sailed, man. Gay people are married. We can’t go back.’ Gay marriage does not exist in the world. It can’t, any more than a square triangle can exist. God created marriage. I had premarital counseling today, I opened up the bible to Genesis I and showed them where God created marriage. He made them male and female. He set it.
“You want us to persist in having lies at the fundamental level of our nation? What’s that going to do to our country, other than have it crumble and have judgment be upon it? You have to remember that there’s a God in heaven who has thoughts on these matters.
“Of course, it has to go because it’s non-reality. We have to become sane again as a nation. And because we’ve gotten ourself so deep into this sin, there’s no clean way to do it.” – Pete Hegseth’s pastor Brooks Potteiger, who last appeared here when he called for God to burn down a “demonic” network’s headquarters for featuring a gay couple on a reality show.
Pottigier’s church is part of Pastor Doug Wilson’s Christian nationalist network, which advocates for a full-Gilead theocracy in which women cannot vote and homosexuality is criminalized. Last week Hegseth retweeted a video in which Wilson called for all of those things.
Brooks Potteiger, who is Pete Hegseth's pastor, says that Obergefell must be overturned because "gay marriage does not exist in the world. It can't, any more than a square triangle can exist." pic.twitter.com/KA38SwN5sq
That is pretty much religion all over the world. And they mostly all believe they are the only true religion. Buddhism seems the most benign of all of them.
If Obergefell is overturned, same sex marriage will not go away but we will go back to the bad old days where there will be a patchwork of states where SSM will be valid.
I do wonder for example if someone was married in Oklahoma will their marriage be voided and would need to remarry in SSM state or will they be grandfathered in.
May 23, 2025, 3:13 PM EDT; Updated: May 23, 2025, 3:35 PM EDT
Allie Reed
Correspondent
A large transgender flag with signatures and messages during a protest.
Photographer: Manaure Quintero/Bloomberg
The Trump administration must republish two Harvard Medical School professors’ papers it censored because they contained words related to gender ideology, a federal judge ruled Friday.
“The plaintiffs are likely to succeed in proving that the removal of their articles was a textbook example of viewpoint discrimination by the defendants in violation of the First Amendment,” Judge Leo Sorokin wrote for the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
The US Department of Health and Human Services took down peer-reviewed articles by doctors Gordon Schiff and Celeste Royce from the now-inactive Patient Safety Network website, run by the HHS’s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
PSNet said the articles were taken down in accordance with President Donald Trump’s executive order directing agencies to remove content that promotes “gender ideology.” Schiff’s article, on suicide risk assessment, and Royce’s, on endometriosis, both referenced transgender people.
“This is a flagrant violation of the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights as private speakers on a limited public forum,” Sorokin wrote.
The government can only restrict speech on a limited public forum like PSNet in a way that is reasonable and viewpoint neutral, the order said, and the administration’s restrictions were not.
Sorokin said it is not within his discretion “to evaluate the wisdom of restricting access to peer-reviewed scientific information that enhances patient safety by fostering more informed and timely diagnostic care—or of eliminating entirely a free, online repository of patient-safety resources accessed each year by thousands of medical professionals seeking to provide better, safer care to their patients in the United States. Those are matters for the political branches of government to decide.”
The preliminary injunction applies to Schiff and Royce’s articles, as well as other content removed from PSNet in a similar manner.
The Trump administration is asking a federal judge to reject a challenge from two Harvard University Medical School physicians seeking to block the government’s removal of research papers because they included terms related to the LGBTQ communities. https://t.co/Bj8Wuuu8c7
Robby Starbuck speaks in an interview in New York in March. Photograph: Bess Adler/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Allie ReedCorrespondent
A large transgender flag with signatures and messages during a protest.Photographer: Manaure Quintero/Bloomberg
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