Former presidential candidate Cornel West stormed off Piers Morgan Uncensored Monday night after a heated exchange over the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the Turning Point USA founder who was gunned down at Utah Valley University just last week. What began as a panel discussion devolved into chaos when Andrew Wilson, host of The Crucible, accused West of contributing to the toxic rhetoric that fueled the assassin’s ideology.
“You very, very different than brother Charlie, man,” West told Wilson, trying to distinguish Kirk from the fiery exchange. But Wilson fired back: “It’s rhetoric from people like you that got that man killed, sir.”
West bristled, denying responsibility and appealing to Piers Morgan to intervene. “Piers, why you have a brother on who’s not going to allow nobody to speak, man? We just wasting time. If all you’re interested in is making your money and you bring this brother on and nobody can say a word and we can’t even mourn brother Charlie passing…” He then spoke directly of his prayers for Kirk’s widow Erica and their children, before standing up and declaring, “It’s not worth it.”
As West moved to leave, Wilson pressed him again: “Is Charlie Kirk part of the neofascist movement?” West sidestepped, pivoting instead to criticisms of Kirk’s policy views, particularly his opposition to the Civil Rights Act. “When Charlie himself says that he is against civil rights act, does that make him a proponent of Jim Crow?” West asked, a line that drew sharp rebuke from Wilson, who accused him of arrogance and deflection.
“This brother ain’t worth it!”
Dr Cornel West storms off Uncensored after Andrew Wilson calls him a ‘lunatic’ during Piers Morgan’s latest discussion on Charlie Kirk.
📺 https://t.co/MEyy1uFzF1@piersmorgan | @paleochristcon | @CornelWest pic.twitter.com/Ofhlw8clgB
— Piers Morgan Uncensored (@PiersUncensored) September 15, 2025
Morgan tried to keep the conversation alive, reminding West that walking away from a debate undermines his stated commitment to dialogue. But West was unmoved. “This is ridiculous. He’s smoking his cigarettes with his arrogant self. Come on, man. We don’t have enough dialogue at all.” With that, he left the set.
The clash highlighted the raw emotions and political fault lines opened by Kirk’s murder. Authorities arrested 22-year-old Tyler Robinson on Friday, confirming that his rifle was inscribed with anti-fascist slogans like “Hey fascist! Catch!”—a chilling clue to his motive.
The fallout has already begun to ripple through Democratic circles. Former strategist Dan Turrentine, speaking on The Morning Meeting, bluntly urged his party to abandon its years-long fixation on labeling Donald Trump a fascist. “The party should not call Trump Hitler, should not say he’s a fascist. One, it’s bad politics. Two, it’s just not true,” Turrentine said. “Whenever a bad thing happens, parties need to call out in real time, ‘This is not acceptable.’”
West’s walk-off was a moment of theater, but it also captured a larger truth: the rhetoric of “fascism” and “resistance” has metastasized into something far more dangerous. When anti-fascist slogans are carved into bullets, and political assassinations are treated as punchlines in some corners, the stakes are no longer academic. They are deadly serious.
