After Kirk's killing a growing chorus of conservatives wants his critics
ostracized or fired
[September 15, 2025]
By JOSH BOAK and NICHOLAS RICCARDI
BASKING RIDGE, New Jersey (AP) — After years of complaints from the
right about “cancel culture” from the left, some conservatives are
seeking to upend the lives and careers of those who disparaged Charlie
Kirk after his death. They’re going after companies, educators, news
outlets, political rivals and others they judge as promoting hate
speech.
A campaign by public officials and others on the right has led just days
after the conservative activist's death to the firing or punishment of
teachers, an Office Depot employee, government workers, a TV pundit and
the expectation of more dismissals coming.
This past weekend, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted that
American Airlines had grounded pilots who he said were celebrating
Kirk's assassination.
“This behavior is disgusting and they should be fired,” Duffy said on
the social media site X.
As elected officials and conservative influencers lionize Kirk as a
warrior for free expression who championed provocative opinions, they’re
also weaponizing the tactics they saw being used to malign their
movement — the calls for firings, the ostracism, the pressure to watch
what you say.
Such tactics raise a fundamental challenge for a nation that by many
accounts appears to be dangerously splintered by politics and a sense of
moral outrage that social media helps to fuel. For his part, Trump on
Sunday suggested he was already using the government to look into his
political adversaries when asked if he would investigate them after
Kirk's death.
“They’re already under major investigation, a lot of the people that you
would traditionally say are on the left," Trump told reporters.
The aftermath of Kirk’s death has increasingly become a test of the
public tolerance over political differences. Republicans are pushing not
only to punish the alleged killer but those whose words they believe
contributed to the death or dishonored it. At the same time, some
liberals on social media have criticized those, such as actress Kristin
Chenoweth, who expressed sympathy online over Kirk’s death.
“This pattern that we've seen for decades seems to be happening much
more now and at this moment than it ever has before,” said Adam
Goldstein of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. He
dates the urge to persecute people for their private views on tragedies
at least to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. “If there was ever time to
support the better angels of our nature, it's now.”
Goldstein noted that it's unpopular speech, like people praising the
assassination, that stands as the greatest test of acceptance of the
First Amendment — especially when government officials get involved.
“The only time you're really supporting free speech is when it's
unpopular,” Goldstein said. “There's no one out there trying to stop
people from loving puppies and bunnies.”
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, has cautioned that the motive for
the assassination has not been confirmed. He said the suspect in custody
clearly identifies with the political left and had expressed dislike of
Kirk before the shooting. But he and other authorities also say the
suspect was not known to have been politically engaged.
Kirk was seen as an architect of President Donald Trump's 2024 election
win, helping to expand the Republican outreach to younger voters. That
means many conservatives see the remarks by liberals as fomenting
violence, rather than as acts of political expression.
“I think President Trump sees this as an attack on his political
movement,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on NBC as he noted the two
assassination attempts against Trump as well as Kirk's killing. “This is
unique and different. This is an attack on a movement by using violence.
And that’s the way most Republicans see this.”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who is running for governor, called on
social media for the firings of an assistant dean at Middle Tennessee
State University and professors at Austin Peay State University and
Cumberland University.
[to top of second column]
|
Crime scene tape surrounds Utah Valley University after Turning
Point USA CEO and co-founder Charlie Kirk was shot and killed ,
Saturday, Sept. 13, 2025, in Orem, Utah. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
All three lost their jobs for comments deemed inappropriate for
expressing a lack of sympathy, or even for expressing pleasure, in
the shooting of Kirk. One said Kirk "spoke his fate into existence.”
Some NFL teams chose on Sunday to hold a moment of silence for Kirk.
Football teams have in the past chosen to memorialize victims after
school shootings or an attack on a house of worship. They have also
marked notable deaths of public figures, weather-related disasters
and international crises such as Hamas' attack on Israel in October
2023.
Because conservatives previously felt canceled by liberals for their
views, Trump on his first day back in office signed an executive
order prohibiting everyone in the federal government from engaging
in conduct that would "unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of
any American citizen.”
In February at the Munich Security Conference, Vice President JD
Vance criticized the preceding Biden administration for encouraging
“private companies to silence people who dared to utter what turned
out to be an obvious truth” regarding the pandemic. He assailed
European countries for censoring political speech.
“Under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views,
but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public
square, agree or disagree,” Vance said at the time.
Still, the Trump administration has also cracked down on immigrants
and academics for their speech.
Goldstein noted that Trump's State Department in the minutes after
Kirk's death warned it would revoke the visas of any foreigners who
celebrated Kirk's assassination. “I can't think of another moment
where the United States has come out to warn people of their
impending cancellation,” Goldstein said.
The glimmer of bipartisan agreement in the aftermath of the
assassination was in a sense that social media was fueling the
violence and misinformation in dangerous ways.
“I can’t emphasize enough the damage that social media and the
internet is doing to all of us,” Cox said on NBC's “Meet the Press.”
He said "the most powerful companies in the history of the world
have figured out how to hack our brains get us addicted to outrage.”
But many Republican lawmakers have also targeted traditional news
media that criticized Trump for contributing to a toxic political
climate with his consistent rhetoric painting anyone against him as
an enemy.
On Fox News' “Sunday Morning Futures,” Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala.,
blamed news outlets for having guests on who called Trump a “facist"
or compared him to the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
Such statements have been borne out of Trump's attempt to overturn
his 2020 election loss, his pardoning of Jan. 6 rioters and a range
of policy differences. Among them, his deportations, deployment of
the National Guard, mass firings of federal employees and his scorn
for the historic limits on the power of the presidency.
But for Britt, those expressions were unfair, inaccurate and
triggered violence.
“There must be consequences with regards to people spewing that type
of hate and celebration in the face of this,” Britt said. "And I
believe that there will be."
__
Riccardi reported from Denver. Associated Press writer Jonathan
Mattise contributed to this report from Nashville, Tennessee.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
