Trump says ‘with a high degree of certainty’, Kirk’s shooter is in custody
The president is being interviewed by Fox News now. It’s a live taping at their studio in New York.
Trump just said, regarding Charlie Kirk’s shooter, that “with a high degree of certainty we have him in custody”.
Key events
‘I couldn’t care less’, Trump says about division within the country
The president, when asked about how we “fix the country” or “come back together” after Kirk’s shooting, says that he “couldn’t care less”.
“The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime. They don’t want to see crime, worried about the border,” Trump says. “The radicals on the left are the problem, and they’re vicious and they’re horrible and they’re politically savvy”.
Trump advocates for death penalty for Kirk shooter
In his interview with Fox News, Trump just said that he hopes the shooter “gets the death penalty”.
Trump says National Guard troops to be deployed to Memphis
The president has just announced in his Fox News interview that he will be sending the National Guard to Memphis, Tennessee.
“We’ll straighten that out,” he said.
Trump says that a “minister who was involved with law enforcement” allegedly recognized the shooter. Then, he said, the shooter’s father convinced his child to go to the police.
“They have somebody that they think did it,” Trump adds.
We haven’t received confirmation from the FBI or Utah Department of Public Safety that they have a suspect in custody.
Here is the clip of Trump making the announcement on Fox and Friends:
Trump says ‘with a high degree of certainty’, Kirk’s shooter is in custody
The president is being interviewed by Fox News now. It’s a live taping at their studio in New York.
Trump just said, regarding Charlie Kirk’s shooter, that “with a high degree of certainty we have him in custody”.
Opinion: Charlie Kirk’s shocking killing sets the stage for a dangerous federal crackdown
Moustafa Bayoumi
I disagreed with Charlie Kirk on pretty much everything, but his shocking and morally repugnant assassination is deeply concerning, and not just because it’s another example of the lethality of our politics. Kirk’s killing is also sending prominent conservatives on a warpath, setting the stage for a dangerous expansion of federal government repression.
Kirk was a social media megastar and the founder of Turning Point USA, the foremost rightwing youth organization in the country. His political positions were to the far-right, and his language was often combative, to say the least. He called Martin Luther King, Jr “awful” and said “we made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s”. He believed in the so-called great replacement theory, which asserts that elites are encouraging mass migration to undermine white people in western countries. “Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America,” he wrote on X the day before he was killed. He also blamed “Jewish dollars” for funding “cultural Marxist ideas and supporters.”
Kirk said being “trans is a mental delusion”. He portrayed himself as a free speech champion while also running a “Professor Watchlist” against liberal professors. “Having an armed citizenry comes with a price,” he said, explaining his opposition to gun control. “I think it’s worth … [the] cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so we can have the second amendment.” And he also suggested a “patriot” should pay the bail of the rightwing conspiracy theorist who attacked Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, with a hammer, fracturing his skull.
So, yeah. I find a lot of what Kirk peddled to be reprehensible, but he should still be alive to say it. Obviously, no one should be killed for their views. In an open society, people like Kirk should be able to say what they want, just as I should have the right to say what I want. And that includes the right to criticize.
You can read the full opinion piece here:
How the Charlie Kirk shooting unfolded – in maps, videos and images
Here is an explainer on the Charlie Kirk shooting.
Here are some images coming to us via the wires.
Utah governor Spencer Cox has asked people to avoid speculation around the killing of Charlie Kirk.
“What we’re seeing is our adversaries want violence,” he said. “They have bots from Russia, China, all over the world, that are trying to instil disinformation and encourage violence. I would encourage you to turn off these streams.”
A UK offshoot of Turning Point USA has said it has received death threats following the death of Charlie Kirk.
Jack Ross, the chief executive of Turning Point UK, told the BBC: “We are certainly worried in the UK, we’ve had death threats from people. We’ve had people suggesting that we should be targeted in the UK as sort of the British Charlie Kirks, and that’s quite depressing,” he said.
“We’ve had people say online and highlight: ‘Oh, by the way, there’s UK Turning Point, maybe somebody should go after them’. We’ve had people send us horrific abuse. We’ve had horrific images of Charlie sent to us with laughing emojis. And it’s really heartbreaking. The internet isn’t the real world, but it’s certainly concerning that these people are out there and hold these extremist views.”
He added: “It’s really sad to see all the abuse … and certainly from our point of view, say this has happened to a prominent left-wing activist, we wouldn’t be out cheering, we’d be offering our condolences and support.”
Kirk co-founded and was the chief executive of the youth right-wing organisation Turning Point USA.
Ross said of Kirk’s killing: “We’re shocked … horrified really. We’re heartbroken.”
He added: “We are rattled, and it’s so wrong that he was killed whilst reaching out to people. He genuinely believed in reaching across the political divide. He didn’t believe in violence.”
Turning Point UK will gather in Whitehall, London, on Friday evening to remember Kirk, PA Media reports.
Where does the US go after the Charlie Kirk shooting? – podcast
In this week’s Politics Weekly America podcast, Jonathan Freedland speaks to the Guardian’s Washington DC bureau chief, David Smith, about the increase in political violence in the country.
Virulent debater and clickbait savant: how Charlie Kirk pushed a new generation to the right
Alaina Demopoulos
After clinching the title of top conservative podcast in America (and second overall news podcast, according to Apple’s ranking) in March, Charlie Kirk said: “We’re not just talking. We’re activating a revolution.”
In the hours after his killing at age 31 on the first stop of a buzzy college campus tour, the rightwing activist’s words echoed through young conservative circles. Social media eulogies rolled in, with users reposting clips of Kirk with his wife and children. Parents of teens wrote on X of learning about Kirk’s death through their children. “My 17 year old is bumming. Told me he plays Charlie in the background on his computer when he’s on it,” the conservative radio host Jesse Kelly wrote on X. Another X user wrote about speaking to teens at a church youth group: “Everyone I talked to is so distraught and heartbroken at his passing.”
A key figure in Donald Trump’s success, Kirk galvanized college-aged conservatives who moved in a different ecosystem from traditional media. The decade or so between Kirk’s beginnings as a teen activist and the shooting saw the rise of Maga politics alongside the shake-up of the conventional media landscape, with Kirk playing a crucial role in both.
You can read the full report here:
