Background:
In one of his podcasts, internet personality Charlie Kirk stated:
(You can see the original video clip here:)
https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4026530/embed/embed
Transcript:
CHARLIE KIRK (HOST): I’m gonna say this just off the cuff before I introduce our guest. Can we please just go away with half the screen during these emergency briefings to the sign language interpreters? I have nothing against, obviously, people that cannot hear, but there’s closed captioning. I mean, this is just over the top. We can’t do this. We gotta get back to how it used to be. It’s just, oh, it’s just too much. It’s a distraction is what it is. The reason is they do these emergency briefings for fires or terrorist attacks, and you’re looking at this and you’re not listening. I don’t like it. So we got — we just gotta — closed captioning’s perfectly fine. I think we have to — we gotta get back to basics here.
See NAD’s response at https://www.nad.org/2025/01/10/nad-open-letter-to-charlie-kirk/
DAD Note: DAD supports equal access to critical emergency information at all times including the presence of a sign language interpreter. Time is of importance and good communication is essential.
