In the days since the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, President Donald Trump has ramped up his attacks on “the radical left,” whom he blames for his friend’s death and for broader political violence — a sharp contrast from his responses to violence against Democrats.
Speaking to NBC News on Saturday, the president said he wants the nation to “heal,” but added: “We’re dealing with a radical left group of lunatics, and they don’t play fair and they never did.”
Trump’s Saturday comments echo remarks he made Wednesday in a video from the Oval Office hours after Kirk was fatally shot. The president said in the video that rhetoric from “the radical left” is “directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today.”
“My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it,” Trump said in the video. The president went on to list other acts of political violence — including the attempted assassination of him last year in Butler, Pennsylvania — but didn’t mention attacks against Democrats, such as the killing of a member of the Minnesota House in June or the arson attack of Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home in April.
On Friday, Trump further escalated his attacks, telling Fox News that left-wing radicals “are the problem” and implied right-wing radicals are not.
“The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime,” the president said on “Fox & Friends.” “The radicals on the left are the problem, and they’re vicious and they’re horrible, and they’re politically savvy.”
While the president did issue a brief statement condemning the killing of Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, his reaction to Kirk’s killing marks a more forceful approach compared with his responses to political violence against Democrats. Trump did not attend Hortman’s funeral, but has said he plans to attend Kirk’s funeral.
And when campaigning in California in 2023, Trump mocked the 2022 assault on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband at their home, according to Politico, saying: “We’ll stand up to crazy Nancy Pelosi, who ruined San Francisco — how’s her husband doing, anybody know?”
He added, “And she’s against building a wall at our border, even though she has a wall around her house — which obviously didn’t do a very good job.”
In recent days, other Republicans have followed the president’s lead, vowing to go after anyone who made light of Kirk’s killing.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Thursday that the department is “tracking … very closely” instances of military personnel celebrating or mocking the incident.
Meanwhile, Rep. Clay Higgins, who sits on the House Oversight Committee, said he will “use Congressional authority and every influence with big tech platforms to mandate” lifetime social media bans for anyone who made a comment or post “that belittled” Kirk’s death.
“I’m basically going to cancel with extreme prejudice these evil, sick animals who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination,” the Louisiana Republican added.
Will Creeley, legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told CNN that such an effort would be unconstitutional.
“The government does not have the power to dictate to private social media companies what content they can or cannot have on their private platforms,” Creeley said, adding: “When government officials put pressure on private companies to do their bidding and censor unpopular views, that violates the First Amendment just as plainly as it would if the government itself was doing the censoring.”
CNN has reported that there is an online effort among Republicans — including elected officials like Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn and activists such as Laura Loomer, who has close ties to the president — to spotlight social media posts and messages that make light of Kirk’s death and punish the posters behind the message. Dozens of people have reportedly been fired as a result of this effort.
In one example, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Saturday that American Airlines pilots who were allegedly celebrating Kirk’s killing “have been immediately grounded and removed from service.”
“Any company responsible for the safety of the traveling public cannot tolerate that behavior,” he said.
Creeley told CNN that such retribution will have “a chilling effect.”
“You may not like somebody celebrating the death of a political figure, but that is fully protected speech and, unfortunately, given the response from lawmakers, I think too many folks are going to bite their tongue,” Creeley said. “We’re going to see a chilling effect, which, again, is deeply depressing and unconstitutional.”
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