Trump administration joins Republicans' campaign to police speech in
reaction to Kirk's killing
[September 16, 2025]
By NICHOLAS RICCARDI and KONSTANTIN TOROPIN
Vice President JD Vance on Monday jumped onto the conservative movement
demanding consequences for those who have cheered Charlie Kirk's
killing, calling on the public to turn in anyone who says distasteful
things about the assassination of his friend and political ally.
“When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out,”
Vance urged listeners on the slain activist’s podcast Monday. “And hell,
call their employer.”
Vance's call also included a vow to target some of the biggest funders
of liberal causes as conservatives stepped up their targeting of private
individuals for their comments about the killing. It marked an
escalation in a campaign that some warned invoked some of the darkest
chapters of American history.
“The government involvement in this does inch this closer to looking
like McCarthyism,” said Adam Goldstein of the Foundation for Individual
Rights and Expression, referring to the 1950s campaign to root out
communists that led to false allegations and ruined careers. “It was not
a shining moment for free expression.”
Campaign broadens to those who quote Kirk critically
Republican-controlled states such as Florida, Oklahoma and Texas have
launched investigations of teachers accused of inappropriate statements
after last week’s assassination. The U.S. military has invited members
of the public to report those who “celebrate or mock” the killing and
said some troops have already been removed for their comments.
At the same time, the Trump administration has vowed to target what it
contends is a “vast” liberal network that inspired the shooter, even as
authorities maintain it appears he acted alone and the investigation is
ongoing.
The campaign has broadened to include even those whose statements were
critical of Kirk without celebrating his assassination.
The Washington Post fired Karen Attiah, an opinion columnist, for posts
on the day of the shooting that lamented how “white America” was not
ready to solve gun violence and that quoted Kirk denigrating the
intelligence of prominent Black women such as Michelle Obama.
PEN America, a press freedom group, warned in a statement that firings
like Attiah's “risk creating a chilling effect.”
Goldstein worried there were many cases of people targeted for simply
quoting Kirk or failing to mourn his passing adequately. “That’s one of
the key symptoms of cancel culture,” he said. “Trying to paint everyone
with the same brush.”
Conservatives coined the term cancel culture for what they claimed was
persecution of those on the right for their views, especially related to
the COVID-19 pandemic and Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol,
leading to campaigns to get regular people fired.
It was a significant cause for President Donald Trum p, who pledged to
end it during his campaign last year. But after the Kirk killing, he and
his administration have instead leaned into it from the right.
A hero to conservatives, a provocateur to many Democrats
A father of two and a Christian conservative, Kirk was a hero to many
Trump Republicans for his fiery warnings about the dangers of Democrats
and ability to organize young voters. But Kirk also was a provocateur
and supporter of Trump’s attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss who
left a long record of partisan quips that enraged many on the left.
“According to Kirk, empathy is a made-up new-age term, so keep the jokes
coming. It’s what he would have wanted,” read one post on X that Melvin
Villaver Jr., a Clemson University music professor, re-posted the day of
the killing, according to a screenshot circulated by college Republicans
demanding his firing. Clemson eventually fired one staffer and suspended
Villaver and another professor after intense pressure from elected South
Carolina Republican officials.
Other targeted posters, such as Army Lt. Col. Christopher Ladnier,
simply quoted Kirk on the day of his assassination. This included Kirk
calling the Civil Rights Act a “beast” that “has now turned into an
anti-white weapon," his criticism of Martin Luther King Jr. and his
statement that some gun deaths are the cost of a robust Second
Amendment.
Ladnier, who has been targeted by conservative activists online, said in
a Facebook message to The Associated Press that he would respond
“when/if” his chain of command takes action.
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Charlie Kirk speaks before he is shot during Turning Point's visit
to Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025.
(Tess Crowley/The Deseret News via AP)
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott approvingly posted a video of a Texas Tech
University student who was arrested Friday after a confrontation at
a campus vigil for Kirk, writing: “This is what happened to the
person who was mocking Charlie Kirk’s assassination at Texas Tech."
Some people targeted have been victims of mistaken identity.
A school district in rural Elkhorn, Wisconsin, reported receiving
more than 800 messages after one conservative influencer mistakenly
identified an associate principal at an elementary school as
celebrating Kirk's death.
Top Republicans vow to go after ‘domestic terrorist network’
Authorities say Kirk was shot by 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, who
grew up in a conservative household in southern Utah but was
enmeshed in “leftist ideology,” according to the state's Republican
governor, Spencer Cox.
Cox said investigators may reveal more about what motivated the
attack after Robinson's initial court appearance, scheduled for
Tuesday. The governor said the suspect, who allegedly carved memes
onto his bullet casings, appeared radicalized by the “dark corners
of the internet.”
On Monday, Vance was joined on Kirk’s podcast by Stephen Miller,
Trump’s deputy chief of staff, who vowed to crack down on what he
called the “vast domestic terrorist network” he blamed for Kirk’s
death.
Alluding to free speech concerns, Vance said: “You have the crazies
on the far left that say, ’Oh, Stephen Miller and JD Vance, they’re
going to go after constitutionally protected speech.'”
But he added: “No no no! We’re going to go after the NGO network
that foments, facilitates and engages in violence,” — a reference to
non-governmental organizations.
The White House did not immediately return a request seeking clarity
on the remarks, including which groups might be targeted.
The idea of a retribution campaign against individuals or groups for
expressing a particular viewpoint has alarmed many.
“Just having that ideology, just believing differently than some
other American is not illegal,” Republican Sen. James Lankford of
Oklahoma said on CNN on Sunday.
Instead, he said any groups that have been involved in illegal or
violent acts should be targeted.
Killing as a pretext to go after political rivals
On Kirk’s show, Vance talked about the need for unity after the
assassination, but then dismissed it as impossible given what he
described as the left’s embrace of political violence. Naming two
foundations that fund a wide range of liberal causes, Vance said:
"There is no unity with the people who fund these articles, who pay
the salaries of these terrorist sympathizers.”
Democratic officials have roundly condemned Kirk’s murder. Democrats
also have been victims of political violence recently, including the
June assassination of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband,
and the 2022 beating of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband
in their San Francisco home.
Caitlin Legacki of Stop Government Censorship, formed to fight the
Trump administration’s use of government against its political
rivals, said it was one thing for people making abhorrent statements
to face consequences.
“When we get concerned is when there appears to be a concerted
effort in the government to use this tragedy to punish political
opponents,” she said.
___
Associated Press writers Collin Binkley and Chris Megerian in
Washington; Meg Kinnard in Chapin, South Carolina; Juan Lozano in
Houston, and Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City contributed to this
report.
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