Arnold Schwarzenegger has expressed his upset over the recent assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Kirk was shot in the neck at an event at Utah Valley University on September 10th. He leaves behind a wife and two kids. After a long manhunt, a 22-year-old Utah native named Tyler Robinson was arrested and charged with suspicion of aggravated murder, felony discharge of a firearm causing serious bodily harm, and obstruction of justice.
Hollywood veteran Schwarzenegger was asked for his reaction at a recent event at the University of Southern California. The former California governor responded (per Variety), "I was very, very upset that someone's life was taken because they have a different opinion. It's just unbelievable."
Schwarzenegger then praised Kirk, adding, "This was a great communicator, a great advocate for the right -- for Republican causes. He had such a great way of communicating with the students that agreed or disagreed with him."
In August, it was announced that the actor was preparing to take on California Governor Gavin Newsom over plans to redraw the state's congressional boundaries in a political gerrymandering effort.
He continued to speak of Kirk's passing at the event, lamenting, "It's a human being. A human life is gone. And he was a great father, a great husband. I was thinking about his children. They will only be reading about him now, instead of him reading to them bedtime stories."
The action star then considered the political unrest engendered by the killing. "We have to acknowledge that the cause of all of this is the social media companies that are dividing us, the mainstream media companies that are dividing us," he said.
Both parties, he stressed, are at fault, adding, "The political parties: the Democrats that are dividing us, the Republicans that are dividing us. We're getting hit from so many different angles, and we have to be very careful that we don't get closer to that cliff. Because when you fall down that cliff -- down there, there is no democracy."