Republicans Declare 'War' On Liberals In Response To Kirk's Death

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Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.

I'm Tamara Keith.

I cover the White House.

I'm Elena Moore.

I cover politics.

And I'm Stephen Fowler.

I also cover politics.

Today on the show, how conservatives are responding to the assassination of MAGA activist Charlie Kirk and what that means for the direction of the Republican Party and the future of the movement Kirk-led.

Stephen, there have been a lot of reactions, but I want you to start by talking about people like Steve Bannon and some of the strongest language that we've seen.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, there was some very aggressive responses and reaction from very online corners of the right.

You had Steve Bannon, the one-time Trump aide who's been sort of a MAGA media whisperer, take to his show, the War Room Podcast, and say that Charlie Kirk was a casualty of the war, and that's a war against the left.

The day after Kirk was shot, Wisconsin Republican Congressman Derek Van Orden tweeted,

Today we remember those lost on September 11th, 2001.

It was the reason I went to war for over 20 years.

Yesterday is the reason I will be at war for the next 20.

I will not allow these leftist scumbags to take my country.

So you just had this very aggressive posture online from the corner of the internet where Charlie Kirk had a lot of sway of people arguing that it wasn't just one person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but rather a larger symptom of the quote-unquote left doing this.

And that's why they have this footing.

But it wasn't even just, you know, the MAGA media world that was talking about this.

We saw related rhetoric coming from the White House.

I mean, just earlier this week, Vice President J.D.

Vance took over the host chair and sat in for Charlie Kirk and hosted a two-hour long podcast remembering the 31-year-old conservative activist.

And he talked to some really key Trump officials from, you know, White House House press secretary Caroline Levitt to Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller to Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.

We should say there was not as extreme rhetoric used by these people.

Here's how Vance put how people should respond.

So when you see someone celebrating Charlie's murder, call them out in hell.

Call their employer.

We don't believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility.

Yeah, and I think it's just really important to note here that for all of those people who appeared on the Charlie Kirk podcast with J.D.

Vance and for President Trump, for J.D.

Vance himself, for many people on the right, this is personal.

Charlie Kirk was very close with a lot of these people.

Vice President Vance even credited Kirk with, one, getting him into politics, and then ultimately with him becoming the vice president of the United States.

But Elena, I do want to talk to you about this idea of calling people out, call their employer.

It almost seems as though there has been a retribution campaign in response to the response to the assassination.

Yeah, I think so.

I think almost immediately after Kirk was shot, we saw people online commenting and speculating on this violent attack, but then we also saw this real movement in the right-wing circles to essentially dox people.

I think folks have kind of disputed that term, but call people out and, you know, shame them online for their celebration of Kirk's death or just comments opposing him.

We should say, you know, NPR polling shows that Americans across the political spectrum overwhelmingly oppose political violence.

And though President Trump himself has been the target of political violence, he also commuted the sentences of January 6th rioters who attacked police and, you know, disrupted the transition of power in 2021.

Also, it's just hard to attribute the rise in violence to a single cause.

Now, a lot of this conversation, Stephen, happened in the absence of clear information about the shooter.

Stephen, we did learn more about the motivations of the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old.

in charging documents and also a press conference yesterday from prosecutors in Utah.

And law enforcement pointed to things he allegedly said that express a view that comes from the left.

In the charging documents, we learned the alleged shooter's mother said that over the last year or so, Robinson had become more political and started to, quote, lean more to the left.

And also in the documents, there's alleged text messages sent to the romantic partner that said, I had enough of his hatred.

Some hate can't be negotiated out, talking about Charlie Kirk.

All right, well, we're going to take a quick break and we'll have more on the Trump administration's response when we get back.

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And we're back.

And we've been unpacking some of the messages coming from Republicans in the days since Charlie Kirk's death.

Elena, Kirk was a major player in the Republican Party's efforts to mobilize young voters, and he had an organization called Turning Point USA that was on both college and high school campuses all over the country.

Is there a sense of what happens next with the movement that he built?

I think that's the big question.

It seems like right now the focus for a lot of the direct people in the Turning Point world is the funeral, which is this upcoming weekend.

But we have, you know, seen Kirk's close colleagues and allies be very active online memorializing him and just talking about his legacy.

And so this does come up and people have been saying, you know, no one person is likely able to fill the shoes of this young organizer.

It's going to be many people, which is why I think it was really striking to see someone like Vice President J.D.

Vance.

host his show for two hours.

Even Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, kind of alluded to this idea that Kirk had a really unique ability to bring in new Trump supporters.

Here's how Wiles put it.

Now we have three and a half years to convert Trump voters to being Republicans so that in 2028, we can keep the White House, the House, and the Senate.

I should also just say that online outside of the White House, we've seen Kirk supporters who are organizers, content creators, really put the focus on don't let what happened to Kirk make you shy away, make you be more quiet about your views on campus.

Stay organizing, stay active.

And then on top of the conversation going on, we should also say that there has been, at least initially, a real sense of engagement from people looking to get involved.

There's, you know, according to the executive producer of the Charlie Kirk show, they've received 37,000 applications to start chapters around the country.

Currently, there's more than 800 chapters on college campuses.

So that's pretty notable, but who knows if it'll continue.

That is a lot of people responding, saying that they want to create more of what Charlie Kirk was doing.

And on that point, Tam, from the White House perspective, has there been a policy response to Kirk's death?

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah, I think you could call it a policy response.

The president and also his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, have talked about, as Stephen said, the idea of going after a network of left-wing nonprofit entities.

And the president was pressed on this.

Stephen Miller was pressed on.

Like, what does that mean?

And what Miller said is that they are interested in finding organizations that support or pay for protests, essentially.

So that might include the protests that we saw earlier this year, where the president called in the National Guard and then the military in Los Angeles against ICE raids.

They point to attacks on border patrol agents, doxing campaigns, and other things like that.

They mentioned the Black Lives Matter protests back in 2020 as an example.

Essentially, the president is pushing the idea that

these protests are not organic, but that they are bought and paid for by nonprofit organizations.

And they've talked about using racketeering laws to crack down on these organizations.

And I think that until we see precisely what they intend to do, it's not going to be clear.

The White House is trying to figure out how they can, within the constraints of the First Amendment, crack down on organizations on the left that they see as threatening.

And it comes at a really interesting time, again, because just a few years ago, the conversation was all about, I'm thinking of examples, where really the Republican side, maybe the far-right side, was more in the spotlight on this, January 6th, or some of these more recent attempts of violence.

So I think that it's definitely a little bit of

not completely fulsome history here.

And it's also important to put this in the bigger context of everything else happening in the administration.

You have tariffs causing economic angst.

You have people with concerns about how the Trump administration is enacting their immigration priorities.

You have questions around the government shutdown that could be happening with government funding.

And so none of this exists in a vacuum.

And so while there may be some attention right now in this very moment, with the president saying we need to look at these far-left groups, Stephen Miller saying we need to look at these groups.

It's also not clear if they have the capital and the bandwidth to deal with this when there are many other plates spinning up in the air.

Yes.

Elena, Charlie Kirk's funeral is this Sunday.

President Trump, among many other administration heavyweights, will be there.

What are you watching for?

I want to see who shows up.

I want to see if folks travel from around the country, if it's more local.

And, you know, when talking to people, who do they see as the future of this movement?

Are there figures that they admire who they liken to Kirk?

Is that someone like Vance or someone like President Trump's son, Don Jr., both of which Susie Wiles on the podcast mentioned as the next generation?

And so, yeah, I think that's one thing.

I'm also just curious to see how young people continue to speak about the president.

We have seen in recent months that among young Trump supporters, people who voted for Trump under the age of 35, Pew Research found that their approval of Trump's job performance has gone down considerably,

upwards of 90% in February, down to

high 60%

in August.

So is this a moment where they unify a little bit because of this loss?

We'll have to see.

Yeah.

And I will be watching the president's rhetoric because in the immediate aftermath, he didn't have a unifying message for the country as a whole, which is atypical for a president, but not necessarily atypical for this president.

And so, this is another opportunity,

what is going to be a widely watched speech.

And what will the president's message be?

Will it be fight?

Will it be retribution?

Or will it be something about healing the country?

All right, we're going to leave it there for now.

I'm Tamara Keith, I cover the White House.

I'm Elena Moore, I cover politics.

And I'm Stephen Fowler.

I also cover politics.

And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.

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