After the horrific killing of influential MAGA activist Charlie Kirk — who was struck down by a sniper's bullet as he answered students' questions at Utah Valley University on Wednesday — President Donald Trump had a rare opportunity to call for a moment of national unity. The president could have mourned his close ally, who was a 31-year-old husband and father, a highly effective unofficial adviser to Trump's administration and a popular leader of a mass movement of young conservatives. And he could have taken the opportunity to denounce violence emanating from any spot on the political spectrum.
Instead, Trump saw another opportunity: to squarely lay the blame for Kirk's murder on the media and his political opponents.
The president posted a roughly four-minute video from the Oval Office, during which he paid tribute to Kirk's career and life as a young family man. But then he made wildly irresponsible assumptions about the still-unknown killer's motives. He completely ignored right-wing violence (like the kind he incited in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021), and he explicitly threatened to bring down the force of government on his political opponents.
Trump said "all Americans and the media" must "confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible." He added, "For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals," and he blamed "this kind of rhetoric" as being "directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today."
So far, none of this is out of character for Trump. What was most notable — and disturbing — in Trump's video statement is that he sees himself as the avenger of Kirk's killing. And though there's no indication he had any insight into what motivated the shooter, while avoiding specifics, he telegraphed whom he holds responsible: "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, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials and everyone else who brings order to our country."
This is a preview of Anthony L. Fisher's latest column. Read the full column here.
