Charlie Kirk defends apparent abuse of migrants by agents on horseback: “The left has always hated cowboys”

Kirk: “This is an act of international invasion”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

From the September 21, 2021, edition of The Charlie Kirk Show, streamed on YouTube

CHARLIE KIRK (HOST): Border Patrol is now launching an investigation into the Border Patrol agents that are using a bridle or a rein of a horse – not a whip – to go after migrants.

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You have a guy with a bridle and a rein and meanwhile his country's being investigated — I [don't] mean investigated, it's being invaded and he's trying to prevent that from happening. This is an act of international invasion. 

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We're now going to launch an investigation into whether or not some cowboys were trying to rein in criminal vigilantes trying to destroy your country.

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KIRK: It's perfectly acceptable, these people are criminals coming into our country. I mean, maybe I'm failing to understand why we need to have this deep-seated sympathy. Do we have this deep-seated sympathy for people that go around and rob banks? They're breaking into our country. Crime does not elicit sympathy. And this guy was not abusing them. You look at the video. He's using a bridle that's on the horse already.

Now, here's the thing. This is such -- and here's why they hate this more than anything else. You want to know why they hate this? The left has always hated cowboys. Always. This is why they're losing their mind. Investigations, subpoenas, there's a lot of reasons for this. Too much testosterone is the first reason, too much muscle mass. And being a cowboy is the spirit of independence. It is the rugged frontier.

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I have so much respect for people that can ride horses. Just the way my hips are, I can't do it. I just can't. Not that I'm against them, not that I think it's a waste of time. This is why the left hates cowboys because out here, a man settles his own problems. No government, no Fauci, no IRS, no NSA, no. It's the rule of law and a Christian with a gun in each boot.

As Philip Bump detailed for The Washington Post:

Photographer Paul Ratje was standing in the Rio Grande when he captured a remarkable image: a Border Patrol agent mounted on horseback, grabbing the shirt of a migrant unlucky enough to be within reach. Every detail — the apparent anger on the face of the officer, the food in the migrant’s hand, the isolation of the location — is evocative and revealing. Nor is it possible to ignore the historical echoes suggested by a White officer of the law apprehending a fleeing Black man.

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It’s useful to remember the context for Ratje’s photo. This was an apparently isolated encounter, one that soon resolved with those seeking to enter the country and return to or arrive at the camp able to do so. Many of them will probably or have already made asylum claims — an internationally recognized process that usually doesn’t result in success for claimants but one that has allowed thousands of migrants to remain in the United States legally. The man photographed appears to have already come into the country, only to return with food for a group of people or for sale.

But it’s impossible not to see the image as capturing an important moment from a volatile, politically fraught situation.