The Brutal Story Every Fake News Outlet Continues to Ignore

The breaking news of this new footage we have of the stabbing murder of the 23 year old Ukrainian refugee Irina zarutska a young white lady who was stabbed to death by a black criminal By a complete stranger on a train in charlotte Now you might have not seen this footage yet This is becoming national news and the left is doing everything they possibly can Not to talk about it. The media is very uncomfortable about this story if you watch this video this

guy was sitting minding his own she was what minding her own business he was minding her own business she was also dressed in like baggy clothes comes up takes out a knife stabs her to death 14 times he was previously arrested one four times 14 times he comes up and just stabs her to death. Situations like this are a nearly daily occurrence in our cities.

And I'm coming back from two nations, Japan and South Korea, that are poorer than us, that are not as populous as us, and their cities are not just safer. They are different planetary realities. As if I went to Saturn and we live on Mars. We do not have to live this way.

You can create a society and a culture where you can get on a train or a subway and not be Irina Zarutska and get stabbed to death in the neck because some black criminal decides, I'm just gonna go do it. 14 times he was previously arrested.

And all of the Koch brother funded liberal criminal justice BS is the reason why guys like him are still on the streets. 14 times, let's put this back up on screen. And Irina Zarutska, why did she come to America? She was fleeing violence in Ukraine. It turns out it's more dangerous on subways in Charlotte,

North Carolina,

than a war zone in Ukraine.

The Associated Press wrote zero stories about this over the weekend. PBS, New York Times, NPR, Wall Street Journal, BBC, CNN, Washington Post, Reuters, MSNBC, zero stories. Now they're finally fixing that, but the stories they're writing like this repulsive headline from Axios this morning The gruesome attack of the fatal knife attack in arena zarutska on a light car rail in Charlotte Has MAGA influencers seeking to elevate the issue of violent urban crime. Oh, this is all about MAGA influencers now

Oh, it's not out the fact that a white Ukrainian refugee was murdered just because she was white Everybody knows that obviously. Stabbed to death. And by the way, the other sick part, which has now become the new urban way, everyone just kind of sat around and didn't administer first aid for 90 seconds. Just glued to their phones. We don't have to live this way.

She survived a war, but couldn't survive progressive criminal justice reform. We should be more like Seoul in Tokyo. The focus of our leaders trying to say, well, we need criminal justice reform. We need more people in jail. We do not have enough people in prison in America. We do not have enough people in jail. We don't have enough people that are arrested on the side of the streets. That is a constant theme of this program. President Trump makes health care affordable again. His 2017 executive

order expanded access to truly affordable group plans to all Americans. But Democrats and deep staters have done everything in their power to block it. But now there is a free market solution to Obamacare that was created in response to President Trump's executive order and it's called Ease for Everyone and it offers affordable health care for every budget starting as low as $59.97 a month. You can keep your doctor, never pay a deductible and access over 400 prescription drugs for

free. Call 888-EASE-123, that is 888-327-3123, 888-EASE-123. Visit easeforeveryone.com slash charlie and join today. That's EASE4EVERYONE.COM slash charlie. Joining us now is Megan Basham, author of Shepherds for Sale and Daily Wire Culture Reporter. Megan, I'm so glad to

have you on here. You live in Charlotte where the killing of Irina Zyrutska occurred, who was an incredible person. A Ukrainian refugee comes to America and was murdered in cold blood for no reason, a senseless killing. If a random white person simply walked up to and stabbed a nice law-abiding black person for no reason, it would be an apocalypticly huge national story used to impose national sweeping

political changes on the whole country. Instead, Megan Basham, no one seems to care when a white woman gets stabbed to the death. Her death. Why is that?

Yeah, that was pretty shocking to go, you know, for two weeks now, none of our major media outlets have covered her at all. Not one word. They finally started to cover her a little bit this morning, but only because of the massive public shaming because this video was so very shocking. And what I really want to emphasize here, Charlie,

is that this is not a dangerous part of town where Zyrutzko was killed. It's a very lovely, popular part of town, bustling restaurants, trendy restaurants, boutiques. My family and I go there frequently on the weekend. So this was an area where you will see families on the weekend.

She's a young woman, 23 years old, a refugee, getting off work at a pizzeria and gets onto that light rail. So you know, the initial reaction of our Democrat mayor was appalling. She said that she, she didn't mention Irina Zyrucka at all in her initial statement. Instead, what she called for was compassion

for the perpetrator, who she said is suffering from mental illness just like cancer or heart disease. So we're supposed to have empathy for him as some sort of victim. And she said that we cannot arrest our way to safety, which

is, of course, ridiculous. Yes, we can. And she said that we cannot arrest our way to safety, which is of course ridiculous. Yes, we can. If we put people behind bars when they're a public threat, we can have safe public streets. But just to go a little bit more into the weeds on this,

I wanna let you know that our current governor who was then attorney general, his response has also been appalling. So back in 2020, within two weeks of George Floyd's murder, he had not only issued public lament, well, I think at this point we can say it was not a murder, but he issued public lament over George Floyd's death and instituted a new task force for racial equity

in criminal justice system. So he initiated an entire task force for George equity in criminal justice system. So he initiated an entire task force for George Floyd's death, but it took him longer to acknowledge Irina Zyrutska's death. It took him two more days than it did to acknowledge George Floyd, even though this happened in his own state where he is governor. So if you look back at what that task force that he implemented in 2020 did, they specifically

called for more lenient pre-release policies, meaning they wanted low bail or no bail for minority offenders. They also called for decriminalizing homelessness and quote unquote public behavior, meaning being a public menace on the streets. So these were the very policies that allowed this perpetrator, DeCarlos Brown, to be on the streets. He did in fact receive pretrial release back in January on his most recent arrest because

he's been arrested 14 times before, including for grand larceny and breaking and entering and assault with a deadly weapon. And almost every time he has been released and given fines and community service and probation. He has not been behind bars where he belongs. And so these were the direct policies

that came out of that racial equity task force.

I have so many questions here. So let me just ask a micro question. Has this been talked a lot about in local communities in Charlotte, North Carolina? Are people understanding the racial element here that a random black guy murdered a white woman? Is it shocking the community?

Walk us through what's happening locally here, because I would imagine it should be.

Yeah, I think it is. One of the things you're hearing is that this was a light rail that we all felt perfectly safe using just a few years ago, and we don't feel that way anymore. Because of these policies, you are suddenly seeing an increase in homelessness in the Charlotte area.

We came here in 2016, and when we first got here, you really didn't see panhandlers, public disturbances on the street. You see that now when you go into our uptown metro areas. And so I think so many people are feeling that. And when you look at the increasing rates of crime in Charlotte, you can trace it back to 2020.

So our last homicide high was in 2020 when the Black Lives Matter riots were occurring on our streets. And the second high of homicide rates in Charlotte were now 2024. So we don't have it for 2025 yet,

but for 2024, when they were up 25% from the year before, when these racial equity policies started taking effect. So yes, I think people are very much waking up to the fact that all of these sort of Black Lives Matter, DEI pushed policies are having a direct impact on our safety because the argument was

for the sake of racial equity, we need to not jail black offenders. We need to give them fines and probation. And look, Charlie, this guy's mother, DeCarlos Brown's own mother, tried to get him involuntarily committed.

She has said he was not safe to be on the streets and she actually tried to do something because she knew he was a threat. And instead we have a criminal justice system here that was sold out to social justice instead of actual justice.

So now I want to transition to the Christian element here. So you have a great book, Shepherds for Sale. You've also called out all the wokeism stuff. Has Stephen Furtick, whatever his name is, spoken out against this? Because he was really big Elevation Church, big BLM guy about George Floyd. Has Stephen Furtick, the popular mega church pastor, has he spoken out against the black criminal who killed a white woman on a bus?

Because he's in Charlotte.

You know, I haven't specifically checked on what Stephen Furtick has said, but it feels like if he did speak out, that would certainly be something making news in our area. And I have heard nothing about that. In fact, I have heard nothing from many of the-

Weird, that's strange.

Yes, from the social justice pastors who are very popular in this area. Derwin Gray is another, I have heard nothing from him. And so you have so many of these church leaders who got on board with Black Lives Matter. They got on board with these DEI policies.

And now they have suddenly very much backed away from quote unquote political issues now that we're starting to see the fruit of what these policies have borne, and it is actually the innocent citizens of North Carolina who are bearing the brunt of these policies.

Why is it that pastors were so quick to talk about the drug overdose of George Floyd, but they won't talk about this?

Well, I think it's pretty obvious why. You know, at that time, there was a desire to curry favor with the progressive wing, to be winsome. And so that's why they really want to appeal to the, I would say, the elite class of our society. And when they look at the elite class, they see the New York Times, the Atlantic, CNN, and those are the people who they want plaudits and applause from. And so those are the people

that they will go out and appeal to. And yet, when you see crimes like this, where this horrific stabbing of an innocent young woman who came here from a war-torn country, and it actually turns out she probably would have been safer in her war-torn country than in a large American city, they go very, very quiet because that is not appealing to that particular urban,

upper-class professional that they want to appeal to. So suddenly, we had so much politics from these people prior to Donald Trump's election in 2025, and now we hear nothing from them. Now it's, let's not politicize the pulpit, even though, you know, this is a moment for pastors to speak into,

because you have a community that is hurting, that is scared, and they want to know, you know, what are some of the answers to this kind of pain? And look, the Bible does have answers about justice. If a man like this had been incarcerated and punished as he should have been,

when he initially broke into people's houses, when he committed armed robbery, when he committed assault with a deadly weapon, then he wouldn't have been on the streets to commit these crimes. But they don't talk about those elements

of biblical wisdom that tell us that the government exists to terrorize the unrighteous and the wicked, not to ensure that the innocent can be terrorized. And that's exactly what's happened in this situation.

So Megan, you wrote this amazing book, Shepherds for Sale, all about how our pastors are selling themselves out to the highest bidder. On this racial issue though, I know you've mentioned it. It's so frustrating because, again, we have a catalog of the current kind of Christian ruling class of what they did.

Carl Lentz, who's obviously been disgraced, George Floyd should be alive. It's not acceptable to kill him, blah, blah, blah. Stephen Furtick, this is what Stephen Furtick said. He said, quote, he said, he said, if you only post a simple prayer emoji and scroll on, we need to challenge the system and sickness that created and enabled

the death of George Floyd. I am part of the problem, is what Stephen Furtick said. I mean, I could go through the list of just the nauseating Christian leaders, and I just... What is it getting better? And how do we call out this from some of our Christian authorities?

You know, I don't know if I would say it's getting better. I haven't seen any of this leadership come out and say, you know what, we were wrong. And they were wrong wrong because what they did was accept false narratives that we had a policing system in our country that disfavored black Americans. And that's simply not true.

The data does not show that. And so they were backers of policies that have now made us more unsafe and have led to incidents like the death of Irina Zarutska. And so what I have found mostly is that no one's really coming out and repenting of that. They're just trying to sweep it all under the rug and pretend like it never happened.

I mean, look, I want to be clear. The president of the largest Protestant denomination in the US, the Southern Baptist Convention, told Southern Baptists that they needed to use the phrase, Black Lives Matter, that they needed to lend that support to a Marxist organization that was trying to dismantle police systems. So there has been, you know, a real cost to that.

They were out marching with these people. And now we see what that ideology and that policy has brought. I mean, we can see it in Chicago, we can see it in DC prior to a couple of weeks ago, and we see it even in previously very safe cities like Charlotte, where the homicide rate has

exploded. So as we look at this, you know, it's really frustrating to me to see some of these pastors trying to pretend like they weren't a part of that. In fact, what you're kind of seeing them do now is reposition themselves and they're using more conservative language. I have seen that. I can give you the example of someone like that as former SBC president, Pastor JD Greer,

who pastors a large church here in North Carolina. He was very much a part of backing social justice and Black Lives Matter. And now he's suddenly using more conservative language, but he's not acknowledging the part that he played in that. And that's what I'm seeing again and again,

is that, you know, I think they know that there's egg on their face, but because of that, what they're doing is just trying to, they're calling it the great rehab tour. They're all going on their great rehab tours to sort of pretend like, hey, we weren't a part of that. And you will not hear them talk about Black Lives Matter

or social justice anymore, even though they were so instrumental in promoting that movement back in 2020.

I think you're right. And it shows that we've made a lot of progress, but we still have yet a lot of work to do. And so I just, the Christian world I know is becoming more center,right, it's becoming better on this.

Not every pastor has to come on on every issue. The reason why Stephen Furtick is necessary is that it's happened in his hometown. And so he felt necessary to call out George Floyd in the streets of Minneapolis, but something that happened in his own city, and that is inescapably biblical. It says that your city matters, your nation matters, your hometown matters, and the welfare

of such. Final thoughts, Megan Basham, author of Shepherds for Sale.

Well, yeah, and I really want to point out that when they did that, it didn't have no impact. They gave aid and comfort to a deceitful, destructive movement. And so those policies that came out of that deceitful, destructive movement are exactly what are making our cities unsafe right now. And that is why we are seeing things like young women being murdered on a light rail

train just when they're trying to get off work and go about their business. Because we dishonestly bought into something that was simply popular at the time. And that compromise comes with costs, and we're seeing that now.

Arina Zarutsko would be alive. Fourteen times this guy was arrested. Felony larceny, aggravated assault with a weapon. Megan Basham. Email us as always freedom at CharlieKirk.com and subscribe to our podcast. That is the Charlie Kirk Show podcast page.

Alex Marlow is with us. Alex Marlow is the editor in chief of Breitbart News, breitbart.com. Alex, great to see you. The terrible news of Irina Zyrutska getting stabbed in the neck and the silence from the media. I mean, you've done a great job of covering the media throughout the years. This was an intentional coverup campaign

by not covering this at all from the major media networks. Yet George Floyd dies, everyone covers this relentlessly, tens of thousands of articles a day. Alex Marlow, your thoughts.

Yeah, Charlie, you couldn't have scripted this. I mean, it felt like this story was out of 15 years ago or something that the media wasn't covering it after all of this purported hand-wringing that's been going on, that they've been really looking themselves in the mirror to see where they've gone wrong,

why the media is the least trusted industry of any industry in America. And then they have the easiest opportunity ever to get a little bit of credibility just by writing up the biggest story in America and they won't even write it. They won't put one column inch into it in the New York Times and the Washington Post,

completely ridiculous, but it's something that we all could have seen coming and it just shows you what we discussed on your show like five days ago, Charlie, this shaping up to be a law and order election. The next election as of now, it's a long ways off,

law and order is the number one topic. And you could see a 14 time, a guy had been arrested 14 times, a Ukrainian refugee out of nowhere, there's no context for it at all. There's no provocation at all. There's video of it. This is the nightmare for the left

so long as we get the word out and that's why the media covered it up.

And yeah, it just, talk more about this. So let's go a level deeper here, Alex, because how do these newsrooms operate? Because what you're defining, what we are articulating is a conspiracy. We are articulating a silence conspiracy of media networks that intentionally do not cover. How does this work in practice?

Is there a group chat where they say, no, we're not going to do it? Obviously, I think that's unlikely. But is it also that they just have a narrative that they're trying to accomplish and they all know the goal? Because when you have a dozen outlets, MSNBC, New York Times,

BBC, Wall Street Journal, ABC, CBS, NBC, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and they all technically have different owners and different editors and different reporters, and not one covers the story. What's going on here? Is there a, how do they harmonize

with such incredible efficiency?

Yeah, they're so coached up and they've been coached up for decades on this. And you've been so kind to promote all my books lately, but my first book, Breaking the News, which I wrote about four years ago, I tracked this. It's all corporatism.

It's all about that the corporate boardrooms of all these media companies are controlled by people who want Democrats elected. They see that they're the true oligarchs. You're Bernie Sanders talking about oligarchs. These are the real oligarchs.

And the problem is you cover stories like this and it looks bad for the left because they wanna talk about George Floyd, where there was no element of racism that was involved at all. And they treat it like that was the biggest racial hate crime of all time, even though George Floyd was on drugs and was resisting arrest. So then you have an example like this,

where you see a black guy stabbing a white woman for no reason, how else could you view this other than as racism? If you looked at the world through the lens of the establishment left. And so they know if they cover this clear example of racism, then that nullifies times a hundred, any of the George Floyd covers they've already done.

So they can't cover it. They have to ignore it and hope it just goes away because to cover it reveals that they've been lying to us the whole time, which they have been.

And so the, to go, I just, the incentive structure of the media is so broken and we've been waiting for their collapse and they're not quite collapsed, but they're definitely in a situation of decay, you could say. The right wing world online has been largely covering this

and has been kind of keeping it alive. Why did this become a bigger story just because of the video? What about the video was so animating? Because it was very interesting. I was in Japan and South Korea and someone in Japan mentioned, hey, Charlie, here what happened to the Ukrainian girl in America?

I said, yeah, didn't that happen two weeks ago? Because I actually saw the story when it originally happened. I said, a Ukrainian refugee, they said, no, no, no, it just happened. And actually it didn't just happen, it happened two weeks ago, just the video was just out there. Can we get the still image of this though,

just on screen, Alex Marlow?

Yeah, so first of all, to your first point, I think it's really important to note that the incentive structure, you use the word incentive structure, media companies all lose money. They all lose money. And that's why they stay in business because they protect the corporate status quo. You take a company like ABC, which is part of ABC Disney.

So the ABC News can lose money because they're protecting brands like the Disney brand, which can make a lot of money through theme parks and through movies and through streaming and stuff like that. So ABC exists to cover for the Disney brand.

NBC, NBC Comcast Universal, NBC News loses money. NBC News is designed to keep the NBC Comcast Universal, that entire structure, afloat. And if you look at their board, it's all top Democrat donors and people who are fat and happy,

living off of America's largest. And those are the type of people who are being protected by these newsrooms. That's why they don't do stuff like report on China accurately because there's no incentive to because their corporations all make money off of China.

You look in New York Times' boardroom, it's all people who are AIG and Facebook and all these executives from all these other major corporations. And once you see that, then you understand what they're choosing to cover

and what they're not choosing to cover. So, but to your point about the video, the video shows the innocence of it. This is a public transportation, small white blonde girl, and a black guy who's in a rage out of nowhere, no provocation at all, no interaction at all. The clear nature of I'm seeing this person, I'm taking out all the rage I've ever had in my life

on her like that. And that there's, it's unequivocal because of the video evidence. There's no way to spin it. There's no way to act like there's any sort of a justification or explanation for it. And that does make it all the more powerful.

Vivek, this attack in North Carolina was obviously preventable. There's a racial component to this as well, which is a black criminal which assaults and stabs a white woman to death and the media wouldn't be bothered when George Floyd on the sides of the side of the street in Minneapolis, everyone decided this was the most important thing since Pearl Harbor. Vivek Ramaswamy, running for governor of Ohio, what are your thoughts of this situation and

more broadly the crime issue in america you look at me what happened in charlotte unconscionable but at the same time we wouldn't be talking about it here if it were just a one-off this is part of a national pattern you look at my home town of cincinnati look at the incident of just a few weeks ago

we share some of the same dimensions you just described charlie you look at what's happening in places like New York City, where I am with Senator Scott today, to LA. This is something that represents a broader breakdown of respect for the rule of law in the country. And you know, in this broader conversation

about who are we as Americans, that's a core part of who we are as Americans, is we believe in the rule of law, that's part of what founded this country and the degradation of the respect for the rule of law, I think is almost even more frightening than any one individual incident. And that's what we're gonna have to turn around.

Frankly, Ohio, where I'm looking to govern, we're a state of cities. You got Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo, Akron, Youngstown. It's sad to watch the cities in the heartland of the country to our coasts go down the tubes,

but the good news is we know how to solve the problem. You were talking about some of it. Bring back actually sentencing standards that reflect the standards of the crimes. Bail should not be granted to somebody who is a repeat offender with ease

and with smooth as water now for many of these people to get back out. Juvenile crime is a major issue after the COVID school closures. Deal with the juvenile courts, even for people who are older juveniles in ways that actually recognize violent offenders

and even would-be criminals for what they are. Common sense, but what we're missing is leaders with the spine to see it through. That's a big part of why I'm running in Ohio. We're going to get it done in Ohio. And frankly, if places like New York or otherwise fail, we bastions like Ohio, like Florida, like it's been in the past, for people to actually pack their bags and move.

And that's what we're creating. Senator Rick Scott from Florida is with us. Senator Scott, what is your take on this situation? And I do want to talk about New York here, but what can the US, I mean, acting as if the US Senate's gonna do anything, unfortunately, is laughable because, I mean, not you,

but your colleagues are quite lazy, but theoretically, what could the US Senate do to prevent repeat offenders like this from prowling our streets?

Well, first off, you know, your heart goes out to this lady's family. I mean, I mean, you just imagine sitting on a train, right? And then all of a sudden some guy starts stabbing you and killing you. If you think, you know, I mean, Charlie, this bothers me so much. You know, the biggest thing you can do, and I've got, look, I have two daughters, I have

seven grandkids, is you can't imagine anybody in your family in that situation. So what we've got to do at every level of government, whatever we can do at the federal level, whatever we can do at the state level, whatever we do at local level, we have to enforce our laws. We've got to put criminals in prison. They need to serve their entire sentence, right? We cannot be soft on crime. I mean, I want my family to be safe. I want your family to be safe and the next family to be safe. So what can this, what can this

do is for federal crimes, right? For federal crimes, make sure the sentences are stiff and people serve their time. On top of that, we need, we need to help our local law enforcement every way we can. I'm very appreciative of what the president has done in DC. What this guy has done, I mean, DC is a place where I didn't want to walk around. Nobody wanted to walk around in DC.

It's not safe to walk around in DC. What he's done in DC is he's made it a place that you can walk around now. There's way more people outside now walk around in DC than there was before the President brought in the National Guard. So, but every mayor, every governor, and we've got to all say this is the most important thing we ought to be doing right now. Keep people alive.

is the most important thing we ought to be doing right now. Keep people alive. Keep people safe.