Nicely-wishers pay their respects at a makeshift memorial on the nationwide headquarters of Turning Level USA in Phoenix after the taking pictures dying of Charlie Kirk, the co-founder and CEO of the group, throughout a Utah faculty occasion Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025.
Ross D. Franklin/AP
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Ross D. Franklin/AP
President Trump condemned the left and the media for “demonizing” these they disagree with in a video message from the Oval Workplace after his shut ally Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at a Utah faculty campus occasion on Wednesday.
Trump praised Kirk, who he has credited for serving to him win the 2024 election, for his conservative activism and dedication to open debate. He then stated what occurred to Kirk is a consequence of individuals demonizing these they disagree with “in probably the most hateful and despicable approach potential,” and turned his ire to the political left.
“Radical left political violence has harm too many harmless individuals and brought too many lives. Tonight, I ask all Individuals to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died,” Trump stated.
A suspect within the taking pictures had not been named and remained at massive on the time of the video’s launch late Wednesday
President Trump shares a message on the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
“I ask all Individuals to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived & died. The values of free speech, citizenship, the rule of legislation & the patriotic devotion & love of God.” pic.twitter.com/3fBSgs4Zxa
— The White Home (@WhiteHouse) September 11, 2025
“For years, these on the novel left have in contrast fantastic Individuals like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This sort of rhetoric is instantly chargeable for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our nation right this moment, and it should cease proper now,” Trump stated.
Trump stated his administration would discover “those that contributed to this atrocity and to different political violence, together with the organizations that fund it and help it, in addition to those that go after our judges, legislation enforcement officers and everybody else who brings order to our nation.”
Trump drew a throughline from the assassination try at his marketing campaign rally final 12 months to the homicide of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the 2017 taking pictures of Home Majority Chief Steve Scalise at a congressional baseball observe.
Trump didn’t embrace any examples of political violence in opposition to Democrats, such because the June assault in Minnesota that killed a state lawmaker and left one other wounded or the 2022 hammer assault on Paul Pelosi, the husband of then-Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She wasn’t residence on the time, however was the meant goal.
Trump paid tribute to Kirk’s work with younger Individuals and requested Individuals to decide to “free speech, citizenship, the rule of legislation and the patriotic devotion and love of God,” values he stated that Kirk espoused, calling him a “martyr for reality and freedom.”
Again in 2017, early in his first time period, Trump approached the assault on Scalise with much more political restraint, delivering a two-minute speech that didn’t point out the political affiliation of the attacker. The shooter, who was killed by police, had been a Bernie Sanders supporter.
“We are able to all agree that we’re blessed to be Individuals,” Trump stated after the 2017 taking pictures. “We’re strongest after we are unified and after we work for the widespread good.”
