President Trump said he was “full of sadness and anger” and vowed to fight political violence after being shot and killed on Wednesday by conservative idol Charlie Kirk.
“I feel sad and angry at Charlie Kirk’s outrageous assassination on a college campus in Utah,” Mr. Trump said in a four-minute long video of the Oval Office’s socializing truth.
He said Mr. Kirk was “dedicated to the cause of open debate” and the United States, now a “martyr of truth and freedom.”
Mr Kirk, 31, the founder of the conservative organization’s turning point, was shot dead on Wednesday on the Utah campus in Orem.
His killer is still big on Wednesday night.
He is a close ally of Mr. Trump and is close to the president’s eldest sons Don Jr. and Eric.
“This is a dark moment for the United States,” the president said.
He talked about Mr. Kirk’s connection with youth in the conservative movement, who organized through the American turning point and led him to various campuses across the country.
“It’s past the fact that all Americans and the media are going to face the fact that violence and murder are demonized with the people you agree with, day after day, year after year, demonized in the most hatred and mean way,” he said.
He said, “The radical left compares a brilliant American like Charlie with the Nazis and the worst mass murderers and criminals in the world.”
“This kind of remark is directly responsible for the terrorism we see in our country today and it must stop immediately,” he said.
Mr. Trump vowed that his administration “will find people who contribute to this atrocity and other political violence, including organizations that fund and support it, as well as those who pursue our judges, law enforcement officers and others who order our country.”
He likens the incident to attempts in Butler, Pennsylvania and other events in July 2024, such as fatal shootings of United Healthcare executives in New York in the second half of last year, attacks by immigration and customs law enforcement officers and attacks by House Majority Leader Steve Scaleise and three other places in practice in 2017 Congressional baseball game.
Earlier, he ordered the flag to fly to Sunday on the half-mast.
The president was the first to announce Mr. Kirk’s death in the Truth Society Post Wednesday afternoon, the post also praised Mr. Kirk and expressed condolences to his family.
The grief and support for Mr. Kirk’s family has been painful.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle quickly condemned the political violence, but tensions broke out, with some Republican lawmakers saying the death was in the hands of the left hand.
“Democrats have that,” Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican of South Carolina, said on Capitol Hill.
The shooting was marked as a political assassination by the governor of Utah.
