Rather than condemning violence and calling for unity, the president of the United States accused his political opposition of being accessories to murder.
By Danny R. Johnson – Political News Editor
WASHINGTON, DC–While the nation reeled from the shocking assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, it was President Donald Trump’s televised speech on September 10—a speech that would send shockwaves through America’s political landscape—that historians might ultimately deem even more consequential.
If you did not listen to Trump’s remarks, which have received only light attention from the media, you might have missed the chilling message they contained. Trump may have sounded like he was deploring violence and calling for unity. He did the opposite.
The speech began and ended with eulogies to Kirk’s character and family, which is wholly appropriate. The essential and dangerous passage came in a sequence of four sentences in the middle:
“…For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”
“My administration will find each 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. 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 was reading from a script, so unlike many of his clumsier statements, this bears the mark of deliberate thought.
Trump’s statement suggests that a left-wing activist was responsible for Kirk’s death. Investigators later reported finding bullets “engraved with expressions of transgender and antifascist ideology” inside the suspected murder weapon, according to The Wall Street Journal. However, at the time the president made this assertion, there was no supporting evidence available—not even an identified suspect or established motive by law enforcement.
Trump characterized political violence as a tactic used by the left, citing specific events involving his opponents and allies. His examples begin with the 2017 shooting of Steve Scalise and do not include recent attacks on Democratic legislators, the 2020 kidnapping attempt of Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, or the assault on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, which he has previously referenced in public remarks in his usual insulting fashion.
Notably, Trump’s list ignores the shooting just one month ago at CDC headquarters, in which a man protesting COVID-19 vaccines fired more than 180 shots at the building and killed a police officer, but he made sure to include in his presentation “attacks on ICE agents,” which have not involved gunfire. Trump, of course, handed out pardons to supporters who brutalized police officers on January 6, 2021. This week, his allies in the Senate defended his bestowal of military honors upon former U.S. Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, who was shot trying to smash her way through the Capitol in the insurrection attempt.
Every political movement in history, including the most bloodthirsty, has condemned political violence by its opponents. The only real test is whether you also oppose political violence by your allies. This is a test Trump has repeatedly failed.
Condemning political violence should be consistent, regardless of who commits it. While Trump suggests the left is mainly responsible, a 2022 study by the Anti-Defamation League found that over the past decade, more than 75% of political murders in the U.S. were motivated by right-wing views.
After redefining political violence in a way that excluded certain groups, Trump broadened the concept to include more than just direct acts of violence or incitement. He attributed responsibility for Kirk’s murder to those who equated Charlie with Nazis and notorious criminals.
Trump repeated an argument made following the Butler shooting: comparing an American political figure to a totalitarian could be interpreted as justifying violence against them. The reasoning presented was that labeling someone as part of an authoritarian movement implies that any action might be taken to oppose them.
Creating a rule that discourages Americans from calling out authoritarianism would be counterproductive, as peaceful opposition is crucial to preserving democracy, and violence only worsens escalation. Despite this, Trump often labels opponents with extreme terms, such as “Gestapo administration” for Biden, making his proposed guideline one-sided: it restricts critics without imposing the same standard on himself or his allies.
The breadth of Trump’s targets was notable. He called “the radical left”—a term he routinely uses to describe the entire Democratic Party—”directly responsible” for the murder, and promised that his administration would go after it, including its funding sources.
Both Trump’s intentions and his capacity to follow through on his threats are unclear. Yet here is the straightforward reading of his rhetoric: The president of the United States is treating the political opposition as accessories to murder and threatening to use the full power of the government to attack it.
