In the immediate aftermath of the horrific assassination of Turning Point USA founder and prominent Trump ally Charlie Kirk, even Fox News’ usually balanced roundtable show “The Five” couldn’t escape the Left’s reflexive excuse-making. On Monday, co-host Jessica Tarlov tried to push a tired “both sides” narrative—just days after a leftist shooter gunned down one of the most influential conservative voices of his generation.
Greg Gutfeld wasn’t having it.
The suspect, Tyler Robinson, was reportedly a radical leftist with ties to the transgender movement—communicating with a transgender partner before and after the killing. The circumstances have convinced many on the right that America is facing an increasingly radicalized Left that excuses political violence as long as the victims vote Republican.
Tarlov, however, attempted to redirect attention away from what appears to be left-wing political violence by invoking the unrelated death of Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman (a Democrat), suggesting that conservatives shouldn’t “smear” the killer without “more information.”
That’s when Gutfeld unloaded.
“We don’t need more information!” he thundered, cutting through Tarlov’s deflection. “Why is only this happening on the Left and not the Right?”
Tarlov claimed conservatives were ignoring Hortman’s death, prompting Gutfeld to point out the obvious: Hortman’s tragedy, while sad, was not tied to a national political movement, nor was she the target of a years-long demonization campaign the way Charlie Kirk was.
“Did you know her name before it happened?” Gutfeld asked. “None of us did.”
Tarlov then tried the emotional guilt trip—“So she doesn’t matter?”—but Gutfeld shut that down instantly: “Don’t play that bullsh*t with me!”
He clarified what everyone watching already understood: “There was no demonization, amplification about that woman before she died. It was a specific crime… We don’t care about your both sides argument!”
Exactly. Because the “both sides” trope is nothing more than a political shield meant to protect a violent fringe that too often gets a pass from the media, academia, Hollywood, and progressive politicians who spend their time painting conservatives as villains—then act shocked when an unstable follower takes that rhetoric to its logical conclusion.
Gutfeld didn’t stop there. He hammered the larger issue: the media’s shameful role in helping create the environment that led to Kirk’s assassination.
“The media is dead to us on this story. They built this thing up. We saw a young, bright man assassinated and we know who did it.”
And that’s the truth the Left cannot afford to face. When you spend years branding conservatives as fascists, Nazis, and “threats to democracy,” eventually someone on your side decides violence is justified.
What’s different now is conservatives aren’t apologizing for calling it out. The “both sides” excuse-machine is breaking down. Americans watched a young conservative leader murdered. They know what happened—and who helped create the climate.
And as Gutfeld said, the days of pretending otherwise are over.
