Republican Vice President JD Vance helped carry the casket of Charlie Kirk onto Air Force Two on Thursday evening as they made the trip from Utah to Arizona.

The vice president’s family is accompanying the friends and family of Kirk on the plane as it returns the remains to Phoenix. Kirk was the CEO and founder of Turning Point USA, which is headquartered in Phoenix.

‘He exemplified a foundational virtue of our Republic: the willingness to speak openly and debate ideas.’

Vance had previously posted about the death of his friend on social media.

“Someone else pointed out that Charlie died doing what he loved: discussing ideas. He would go into these hostile crowds and answer their questions,” he wrote.

“If it was a friendly crowd, and a progressive asked a question to jeers from the audience, he’d encourage his fans to calm down and let everyone speak,” he continued. “He exemplified a foundational virtue of our Republic: the willingness to speak openly and debate ideas.”

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation is assisting local law enforcement in the massive manhunt for the shooter. They were able to recover a rifle believed to be the weapon used to kill Kirk.

RELATED: Charlie Kirk assassination timeline: What we know so far

Kirk was shot while debating with students at his national campus tour at Utah Valley University on Wednesday. He was later pronounced dead, and law enforcement authorities have been on the hunt for the shooter since then.

The Turning Point USA CEO and founder was only 31 years and is survived by a wife and two children.

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Charlie Kirk was only 31 years old when he was taken from this Earth, but his time here has undoubtedly left a lasting imprint on not just the nation’s youth — whom he was dedicated to reaching — but all Americans.

Blaze News editor in chief and BlazeTV host Matthew Peterson, BlazeTV host Jill Savage, and Blaze Media Washington correspondent Christopher Bedford are devastated by the tragic loss.

“Charlie Kirk built an organization and helped build a movement that ultimately propelled him to the very heights of American politics,” Peterson says on “Blaze News: The Mandate.”

“And what we saw today was unspeakable evil, really, a political assassination of someone who was a political leader. This was someone who is a bright light, who I first met at the Claremont Institute’s Lincoln Fellowships,” he continues.

But Charlie wasn’t your average leader.

“Famously, Charlie didn’t go to college. Incredibly smart guy. He sought out wisdom. He sought out knowledge. He was a very sharp student, and he constantly adjusted and changed when he learned new things or saw new things as he was building and helping to make America great,” Peterson says.

“He was an incredible, incredible human being who never stopped doing, who never stopped learning, and who never stopped building,” he says, adding, “And ultimately I think that what he wanted to be was a statesman. … This is what he wanted to become: an American statesman who changed things for the good. And that is what he did.”

Bedford agrees, though he notes that there was “a strange side” of Charlie that he “didn’t expect.”

“Sweetness. Humility, which really surprised me. Soft-spoken, kind. He had taken personal interests in people. You knew him through Claremont. I knew him through some hunting and fishing trips that our late friend Foster Friess put together and then later on through podcasts and events,” he explains.

While Bedford recalls that the events were “big, glitzy, glamorous, shiny, light-filled things with all kinds of celebrities,” he says Charlie “was not like that.”

“Not in person. Someone who’s married, someone with two children,” he says.

And Bedford has noticed that Charlie’s passing has stirred something in Americans, regardless of how political they are.

“One woman I know, who’s not — she just follows politics tangentially, one of my friends’ wives, she texted me and said, ‘I’m feeling really delicate right now. Not delicate like a flower, delicate like a bomb,’” he says.

“They’ve just killed a cultural figure,” he continues. “Not a politician, not a businessman, but a cultural figure who touched a lot of lives and was in a lot of living rooms with people and was on their personal devices and was on their Instagram feeds and TikToks and came into their classrooms and talked to them on campus and touched a lot of people.”

Peterson couldn’t agree more with Bedford’s friend’s wife, commenting, “Delicate like a bomb is right.”

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Several University of Texas at Austin students disgustingly celebrated the murder of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.

‘People were very confrontational, stating that he had gotten what he deserved.’

Voz Media interviewed roughly a dozen students at the university on Wednesday, moments after a shooter struck Kirk, and their responses to the atrocious event were shocking.

When asked to explain how they felt about the shooting, multiple students answered that they were pleased.

“Did you see that Charlie Kirk just got shot and killed?” the interviewer asked.

“That’s good,” one student responded.

“Girl, someone had to do it,” a second student replied. “That’s how I feel at this point in time.”

RELATED: Why Charlie Kirk’s assassination will change us in ways this generation has never seen

Image Source: Voz Media

A third called Kirk “a misogynist” and “a disgusting person with disgusting beliefs.”

When asked whether she would press a “magical button” that could undo his murder if she could, she responded, “No, I think things happen for a purpose. If that’s how his life was ended, then that’s how it was ended.”

Another student called Kirk “a f**king asshole.”

Only one student expressed sadness about Kirk’s assassination.

“I think the left has spewed so much hate and brainwashed so many people into doing stupid s**t like this,” he said. “But they’re going to flip it and say, ‘Oh, he was so hateful, and he spewed all this hatred.'”

“I’ve already seen people saying he deserved it,” he continued. “It’s a sign of, I think, what liberalism has done to U.S. society. It’s just led to a complete moral decay … and any semblance of humanity.”

RELATED: ‘You’re all guilty of this’: How media lies fueled the murder of Charlie Kirk

Photo by Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images

Francesco Kappa with Voz Media told Blaze News, “It is with extreme discontent and sadness and disappointment that I tell you right here, right now, that most people were unbothered by [the fatal shooting].”

“Most people were happy that it took place. People were very confrontational, stating that he had gotten what he deserved. We were shocked by the overwhelming, joyful response to such a heinous act by the students at UT,” he continued, adding that some of their replies showed “true evil.”

Kappa noted that they interviewed between nine and 15 people, only one of whom expressed sadness for the tragic attack.

“It was very fresh, and they spoke their true feelings,” Kappa said.

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