WASHINGTON — As politicians of both parties mourned the loss of Charlie Kirk after he was shot and killed on Wednesday, As expected, President Donald Trump placed the blame on the “radical left” for the conservative activist’s death.
Kirk was shot and killed at a Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University.
“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals,” he said in a video message Wednesday night. “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”
Trump called on “all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree”.
However, Trump did not make public statements when Democratic politicians have been targeted. Despite that, he called out “radical left political violence”.
“From the attack on my life in Butler, Pennsylvania, last year — which killed a husband and father — to the attacks on ICE agents, to the vicious murder of a health care executive in the streets of New York, to the shooting of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and three others, radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives,” Trump said.
Officials have not announced a motive for Kirk’s killing.
Utah’s governor called it “a political assassination.”
Political violence has plagued both sides of the aisle. Trump was the target of two assassination attempts last year. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro faced an arson attack at his house, former Minnesota state House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed in what authorities described as a “politically motivated assassination,” and Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s husband was attacked with a hammer.
Trump himself has used incendiary terms to describe his political opponents.
He’s called California Gov. Gavin Newsom, “Newscum” and called Sen. Adam Schiff an “enemy from within.” Last year, he described Pelosi, D-Calif., the former former House speaker, as “evil, sick, crazy.”
