University of Kwazulu-Natal

Trump Invokes Kirk S Killing In Seeking To Silence Opponents On Left

Bonisiwe Shabane
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trump invokes kirk s killing in seeking to silence opponents on left

A flood of false and misleading claims filled social media in the two days it took officials to arrest and publicly identify 22-year-old Tyler Robinson as the suspect in Wednesday’s assassination of conservative activist... President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before departing on Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House, Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) Vice President JD Vance hosts an episode of “The Charlie Kirk Show” at the White House, following the assassination of the show’s namesake, Monday, Sept., 15, 2025, in Washington. (Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP, Pool)

Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, left, and President Donald Trump listen in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Sept. 15, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff, speaks during a memorandum signing with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Sept. 15, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s killing, President Trump and his allies have laid out a broad plan to target liberal groups, monitor speech, revoke visas and designate certain groups as domestic terrorists. President Trump has begun a major escalation in his long-running efforts to stifle political opposition in the United States, using the assassination of the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk to make the baseless argument that... In the six days since Mr. Kirk was gunned down in Utah, Mr. Trump and his top officials have promised a broadside against the political left, indicating that they would go after liberal groups like George Soros’s Open Society Foundations and the Ford Foundation; revoke visas for... Kirk’s death; begin federal investigations into hate speech; and designate certain groups domestic terrorists.

“We want everything to be fair; it hasn’t been fair, and the radical left has done tremendous damage to the country,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Tuesday, as he continued to play down and excuse violence on the right. “But we’re fixing it.” The threats come even as the authorities said the suspect in Mr. Kirk’s shooting acted alone and presented no evidence that political violence is coordinated on one side. Political violence is a scourge across the political spectrum, targeting Democrats and Republicans.

The conservative activist’s killer remains at large and authorities have not said what the motive was behind his shooting. President Donald Trump speaks with reporters on the South Lawn as he departs the White House on Sept. 11, 2025. | Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP President Donald Trump on Thursday told reporters that “we just have to beat the hell” out of “radical left lunatics,” following the killing of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. The president, speaking on the South Lawn of the White House as he was heading to New York City, was responding to a reporter who asked what the president’s message was to conservatives who...

Trump, who also had some more measured comments about Kirk’s killing during the roughly 10-minute exchange with reporters, said: “We have to be brave in life, in all fairness, we have a life. I probably shouldn’t be out here talking to you in all fairness but we will be brave. And we have a great country. We have radical left lunatics out there and we just have to beat the hell out of them.” President Trump and first lady Melania Trump attend a ceremony at the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial in Washington, D.C. on September 11, 2025.

Saul Loeb/AFP hide caption President Trump plans to posthumously award the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's top civilian honor, to Charlie Kirk, the MAGA influencer and close Trump ally killed Wednesday in a targeted attack on a... "We miss him greatly, yet, I have no doubt that Charlie's voice and the courage he put into the hearts of countless people, especially young people, will live on," Trump said, speaking at an... 11 attacks. On Wednesday night in a video message from the Oval Office hours after Kirk was killed, Trump praised Kirk, who he has credited for helping him win the 2024 election, for his activism. He then said what happened to Kirk is a consequence of people demonizing those they disagree with "in the most hateful and despicable way possible," and turned his ire to the political left.

"Radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives. Tonight, I ask all Americans to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died," Trump said. After the assassination of American political activist and commentator Charlie Kirk in September 2025, there followed widespread disciplinary and retaliatory actions against people seen as celebrating, justifying, or trivializing Kirk's death, encouraging further political... These efforts were promoted and directly engaged in by the U.S. federal government, with President Donald Trump explicitly condemning "the left" for the violence in his address to the nation in its immediate aftermath, and pledging to target left-wing groups and causes, monitor political speech,... On the night of Kirk's killing, the Department of State announced it would penalize foreigners considered to be "praising, rationalizing, or making light of Kirk's death".[1] Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced an investigation...

Armed Forces, as well as subsequent firings and dismissals of those found to have made obscene or blasphemous comments about Kirk. Commentary cited as reasons for firings and other reprisals included comments which openly celebrated Kirk's demise, spoke critically of his politics or political influence, or which appeared to justify Kirk's assassination through citing his... In some cases, criticizing the Republican Party's response to his killing—regarded by some as seeking to opportunistically capitalize on Kirk's death to target political enemies and engage in a broad crackdown on dissent against... Following Kirk's death, a number of prominent conservatives called for retaliation against or punishment of private citizens and government or military employees whose comments about Kirk were, in their view, likely to encourage additional... They also called for investigations into left-wing groups, universities, and the military for putative anti-Kirk speech. On The Charlie Kirk Show following his death, Vice President JD Vance called for people heard to make remarks deemed uncivil to Kirk to be reported to their employers for termination.

Trump later announced that any network that criticized him too harshly could be subject to a revocation of their broadcast license. Multiple analysts have regarded these efforts by the political right as a significant crackdown on political speech and dissent in the United States, and an effort to silence criticism of Kirk and the political... The response was criticized as a form of cancel culture, government censorship, and of bearing similarities to McCarthyism.[2][3] Charlie Kirk was an American right-wing influencer who founded Turning Point USA and hosted The Charlie Kirk Show. He was known for his debates on college campuses where he attempted to promote his conservative views to young audiences. His statements about topics such as LGBTQ+ individuals, the role of women in marriage, and race in the United States were controversial.[4][5][6] At a campaign event in Kentucky with Nate Morris in June 2025,...

He told the crowd: "We're on the front lines where it's not always safe."[7] On September 10, 2025, Kirk was engaged in one of his regular debates as part of his American Comeback Tour with college students at Utah Valley University—debating mass shootings in the United States committed... The vast majority of people on both sides of the political aisle condemned the murder; some who opposed Kirk's views celebrated, justified, or mocked his death. After the shooting, some users on Bluesky made posts glorifying or celebrating Kirk's killing—which in extreme cases incited further violence against other right-wing figures, several posting or reposting a meme that said "do Trump... This prompted the platform to issue a statement denouncing such posts. Other social media platforms including Meta, YouTube, and Reddit issued similar warnings to their users.[9]

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... 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... 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...

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.

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