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  • Snopes Digest #115: Charlie Kirk's death, government shutdown — and more

Snopes Digest #115: Charlie Kirk's death, government shutdown — and more

Here's what's happening inside the Snopes newsroom

Author

Izz LaMagdeleine
October 10, 2025

Oct. 10, 2025・Issue #115

1. Behind the Snopes: Charlie Kirk gun deaths quote

Let's talk about what's going on with Snopes: the newsroom, the products, the people, and everything and anything that makes Snopes, Snopes. This month, Senior Reporter Jordan Liles broke down how he verified Charlie Kirk once said some gun deaths were “worth it” in order to have the Second Amendment.

The Sept. 10, 2025, shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk marked one of, if not the, highest-profile stories this year. An alleged quote that received the most attention online after his death claimed Kirk once said, “I think it’s worth it. 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.” We received reader searches for this quote on our website, as well.

In our initial research, we found no reason to doubt the authenticity of the quote. Even so, our report sought to establish definitive confirmation by locating the full video from the event where Kirk said the words. We soon verified the quote originated from an April 5, 2023, TPUSA Faith event on the Salt Lake City campus of Awaken Church. Then, we hit a road block upon learning someone removed the original YouTube video.

Thankfully, further research found the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine website fully archived the video. Also, we noted the PodBean account for the Awaken Church hosted the audio from the same function. (The quote begins in the YouTube video at the 1:16:21 mark, and on the PodBean website at the 41:30 mark.) These resources allowed us to independently confirm a Media Matters for America transcript of Kirk’s words.

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2. Fact-Checking Highlight: Kirk shooting rumors

From Web Producer/Production Editor Izz Scott LaMagdeleine:

Over the past month, Snopes has investigated claims that spread online after Charlie Kirk's death. We fact-checked Kirk’s last words, as well as famous quotes, like a comment he made about Jewish money ruining the U.S. We also have fact-checked claims about the shooting suspect, like whether he was a Trump donor (false).

Here are 5 claims we've fact-checked related to the shooting:

3. Overheard at Snopes

We look into a lot of weird stuff at Snopes. We imagine it's very interesting to be a fly on the wall, so we wanted to give you a look at some of the things we have to say when fact-checking.

Overheard: Apologies, Star Wars got me!!

— Web Producer/Production Editor Izz Scott LaMagdeleine

4. Behind the Snopes: Checking claim government shutdown is over health care for ‘illegal aliens’

From Reporter Rae Deng:

The United States is under yet another government shutdown over disagreements about federal spending — and both parties are blaming each other. Republicans have centered their message around one claim: Democrats forced the shutdown to give free health care to immigrants in the country illegally. 

But a look into the Democrats’ actual proposal to keep the government running determined that the Republicans’ talking point simply wasn’t true. 

U.S. law prohibits people without legal immigration status from receiving federally subsidized health care coverage, and the Democrats’ plan wasn’t trying to change that. Instead, Democrats wanted to repeal a provision in the budget bill President Donald Trump signed in July that would restrict coverage for noncitizens who are lawfully present in the United States. 

Other arguments Republicans used also didn’t hold up to scrutiny. So what did Democrats actually want? We investigated.

Mental Health Break

Snopes investigates some grim and depressing claims, so we know how important it is to your mental health to see something silly, funny, or just plain heartwarming. Here are some links that made us smile.

5. Snopes-worthy Media

What Snopes is paying attention to across the web.

— Death, Sex & Money, Slate

— Alex Mahadevan, Poynter

— Neel Dhanesha, Nieman Lab

Thanks for reading this edition of the Snopes Digest. We send new issues of the newsletter every month, so please add this email address to your white list and keep an eye out for the next issue.

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