{"id":261025,"date":"2025-09-28T10:16:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T10:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/261025\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T10:16:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T10:16:15","slug":"sean-penn-says-charlie-kirks-death-was-different-than-health-insurance-ceo-we-need-that-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/261025\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean Penn Says Charlie Kirk&#8217;s Death Was &#8216;Different&#8217; than Health Insurance CEO: &#8216;We Need That Debate&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The shooting death of Charlie Kirk was \u201cdifferent\u201d than that of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and of Minnesota House of Representatives Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, Sean Penn said in an interview with the New York Times published Saturday. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we\u00a0need\u00a0that guy. We need that debate,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Penn was asked about Kirk\u2019s death because it occurred only days before he sat down with the Times. The actor thoughtfully laid out a response that measured what it means to be a \u201chuman on Earth\u201d before he addressed the topic directly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFirst of all, just as a human on Earth, it\u2019s fair to say I\u2019m processing what happened. I\u2019ve increasingly lost any kind of understanding about why we have as a country become so compliant with the public-facing polarization, when any of us who talk to each other understand that while there\u2019s this incredible partisanship that is expressed in the power-hustling of politics and media, it isn\u2019t the case with individuals,\u201d Penn began.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m getting to Charlie Kirk. These fashions of violence; this one seems different. It seems different than the members of Congress. It seems different than the insurance executive. It seems even different than the attempt on the president. There\u2019s something about this one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Though Penn also said he didn\u2019t follow Kirk\u2019s work, he said he suspected the conservative podcaster was \u201cone of these people who certainly I disagree with on almost everything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t get the sense that he was one of these snake oil salesmen. I think we\u00a0need\u00a0that guy. We need that debate,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe\u2019ve gotta fight it out and find a compromise. These things do come into fashion, and the way we kill the fashion of it is people of conscience on both sides recognizing that if somebody really believes something, that\u2019s your\u00a0friend.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After Penn was asked whether his answer depends on what someone believes, he clarified: \u201c<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>I\u2019m not talking about some sociopathic Nazism. I\u2019m talking about if somebody believes that a human being starts at conception, if you can\u2019t understand that concept, you\u2019re just stupid. And if you\u2019re not willing to tolerate the concept as a concept that\u2019s held as deeply as I may have a belief that, I don\u2019t know,\u00a0let the woman decide. All of these are valid opinions. What\u2019s the consensus in society, civilly? This murderer who shot the insurance executive? I\u2019m no fan of health insurance companies, but Jesus, man, is that the best argument you got?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read the interview with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/09\/27\/magazine\/sean-penn-interview.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Sean Penn at the New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<a class=\"the-wrap-read-more__image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/tyler-robinson-charlie-kirk-shooter-charges-aggravated-murder-death-penalty\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Tyler-Robinson-and-Charlie-Kirk.jpeg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"Alleged Utah Valley University shooter Tyler Robinson, 22, and right-wing political organizer Charlie Kirk, 31. (Credit: Getty Images)\"   data-portal-copyright=\"TheWrap\" data-has-syndication-rights=\"1\"\/>\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The shooting death of Charlie Kirk was \u201cdifferent\u201d than that of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and of Minnesota&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":261026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[185,19719,171,34616,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-261025","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-charlie-kirk","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-sean-penn","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115281407882629618","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}