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Inflaming Tensions, Trump Threatens Political Left With Retribution Over Killing of Charlie Kirk
With the suspect still at large and the motive unknown, the president "seized the moment of widespread mourning to spread more hatred and division."
Sep 11, 2025
Despite the fact that the murderer of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk remained unidentified and still at large, President Donald Trump declared the "radical left" as "directly responsible" for the assassination in remarks from the White House on Wednesday night—comments that critics say shows Trump is more than willing to exploit the killing for his own purposes while sowing more, not less, political violence in the future.
In a video address from the Oval Office, Trump said that criticism of Kirk from the left was "directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now."
The president didn't specify which opponents of Kirk he believed contributed to his killing; over the years the influencer, who frequently visited college campuses to debate students, clashed with and was criticized by supporters of abortion rights, gun control, and immigrants' rights. But Trump said his administration would "find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it."
Trump did not detail how the White House would determine what groups "contributed" to Kirk's killing.
"Radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives," he asserted, though he did not mention any of the political violence—which is statistically more pervasive—on the political right.
The president was echoing sentiments expressed by far-right influencer Laura Loomer who has played a key role in shaping the Trump administration, lobbying for the hiring and removal of certain aides.
"It’s time for the Trump administration to shut down, defund, and prosecute every single leftist organization," Loomer said Wednesday, even before Kirk was publicly pronounced dead. "We must shut these lunatic leftists down. Once and for all. The left is a national security threat."
In a Thursday op-ed for Common Dreams, author and journalist Christopher D. Cook laments how "Kirk had barely been declared dead when President Trump hideously used his killing to falsely blame and attack the left."
The president, writes Cook, "seized the moment of widespread mourning to spread more hatred and division, in a reckless, angry televised speech that hurled blame at the left despite not a scintilla of evidence about Kirk's assassin or their politics."
Trump named a number of victims of political violence in recent years, including US Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), who was shot in 2017 by a man who opposed the president; and Trump himself, who survived two assassination attempts last year.
The president did not mention the killing earlier this year of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman, a Democrat. The suspect in Hortman's killing was an evangelical Christian who strongly opposed abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) also asserted without any evidence that critics of the far-right agenda that Kirk embraced were to blame for his killing, specifically suggesting that her Democratic colleagues were implicated in the assassination.
"Democrats own what happened today," she told reporters. "Some raging leftist lunatic put a bullet through his neck."
Mace added that it was "ridiculous" to suggest that by her logic, Republican lawmakers "own" Hortman's assassination.
The comments from Trump and Mace, wrote Cook, only show that these are "not the people who are going to lead us out of this ugly toxic pit" of political violence now pervasive in the United States.
At Zeteo, journalist Mehdi Hasan listed several other recent acts of political violence in which the suspected or confirmed perpetrators held right-wing ideologies, including the attempted assassination of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro earlier this year; the assault of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband in 2022; and the attempted kidnapping of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020.
"There is no equivalent or even similar list of Obama or Biden supporters who have carried out murders, attempted murders, or violent attacks against Republicans or conservatives in recent years," wrote Hasan. "In fact, according to statistics compiled by the ADL's Center on Extremism, 2024 was the third year in a row in which all of the extremist-related killings in the United States were carried out by... right-wingers."
On the social media platform X, Texas Monthly senior writer Robert Downen pointed out that some far-right white supremacists had also "reviled" Kirk.
"I'm not speculating about the shooter," said Downen. "I just have been stunned how quickly people have jumped with certainty to partisan conclusions. Because in extremism spaces, the Charlie Kirk Hater-to-Nazi pipeline is canon. It's how we got a generation of antisemitic extremists."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was quick to rebuke the suggestion that Democrats or left-wing groups are to blame for the rise in politically motivated attacks or the emergence of violence as a commonplace, acceptable occurrence in American culture.
"Oh, please," she said when a reporter asked her whether Democrats should tone down their rhetoric. "Why don't you start with the president of the United States, and every ugly meme he has posted, and every ugly word."
In a podcast put together Wednesday evening in the wake of Kirk's assassination, journalist David Sirota said that "what we desperately need right now in this country are leaders who lower the temperature, leaders who will try to pull us back from the brink."
Instead, Sirota warned, "we have a president right now who seems mostly interested in using the bully pulpit to actually bully people. Inflaming every cultural conflict he can stick his nose into—all for the cause of grabbing more power and money for himself and his family."
In place of more anger, hatred, and calls for political retribution, Sirota told his audience he wanted to offer a different message.
"It's a simple message whether you are a leftist, a liberal, a centrist, a conservative, or a MAGA fan," said Sirota. "Your life has value and your political opponents' lives have value too. You can hate your adversaries' ideas, and you can fight hard for your cause, but the moment we stop seeing each other as human beings and we start concluding that violence is the answer, that's the moment we let the soulless corporations, the ruthless authoritarians, and the sociopathic demagogues win."
The "nihilism" and "greed" of too many, he added, "are creating the conditions for a civil war—one that we must all do our part to stop. Before it becomes unstoppable."
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Trump FBI Director 'Acted Unlawfully' and 'Deliberately Chose' to Politicize Agency: Lawsuit
Patel allegedly told an FBI official that "the FBI tried to put the president in jail and he hasn't forgotten it."
Sep 10, 2025
A new lawsuit alleges that Trump-appointed FBI Director Kash Patel knowingly broke the law during a campaign to politicize the entire agency.
In a complaint filed Wednesday, former FBI officials Brian Driscoll Jr., Steven Jensen, and Spencer Evans claim that Patel "not only acted unlawfully but deliberately chose to prioritize politicizing the FBI over protecting the American people."
The complaint then laid out evidence of Patel's alleged lawbreaking, including a conversation in which the FBI director said that he had been directed by White House officials "to fire anyone who they identified as having worked on a criminal investigation against President Donald J. Trump."
According to Driscoll, Patel told him that there was nothing he could do to prevent these agents from losing their jobs because "the FBI tried to put the President in jail and he hasn't forgotten it." The complaint says Driscoll proceeded to inform Patel that firing FBI agents for this reason would be illegal, to which he responded that "he understood that and he knew the nature of the summary firings were likely illegal and that he could be sued and later deposed."
The lawsuit also details a conversation that Driscoll had with Paul Ingrassia, a 29-year-old White House liaison who directly asked him questions of an overtly political nature, including:
- "Who did you vote for?"
- "When did you start supporting President Trump?"
- "Have you voted for a Democrat in the last five elections?"
Driscoll refused to answer any of these questions, the lawsuit stated.
The complaint further sheds light on the actions of Emil Bove, a former Trump attorney who earlier this year was confirmed as a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.
During a meeting with Bove in late January, Driscoll and Jensen informed him that messages from the Office of Personnel Management urging federal employees to voluntarily resign or face potential termination were creating "panic and anxiety" among FBI agents.
Bove allegedly responded that creating panic and anxiety "was the intent" of the messages.
In addition to all this, the complaint offers insights into the way that Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino react to criticism from right-wing influencers on social media.
In one instance, the complaint alleges, Patel and Bongino found themselves taking heat from some prominent accounts on X because they'd promoted Jensen, who had played a role investigating and prosecuting Trump-supporting Capitol rioters, to serve as acting director in charge of the Washington Field Office.
Patel, tired of the criticism he was receiving for promoting Jensen, asked him if he would consider filing defamation suits against the angry internet trolls to take some pressure off him.
"Jensen declined, noting that he was unconcerned with the viewpoints of online personalities and would remain focused on the FBI's mission," the complaint notes.
Driscoll, Jensen, and Evans were all ousted from the FBI this past August as part of what critics contend was an authoritarian purge whose goal was "to weaponize federal law enforcement and replace highly experienced public servants with political hacks eager to carry out Trump's retribution agenda."
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House Judiciary, Oversight Dems Want Answers on Potential Misuse of FBI
The FBI helping to locate Democratic state legislators who fled Texas to block GOP gerrymandering "raises serious questions about potential overreach and misuse of federal power," said members of Congress.
Aug 08, 2025
Democrats on key panels in the U.S. House of Representatives wrote to top Trump administration officials on Friday to demand answers about the potential misuse of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Texas legislators' gerrymandering battle.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Thursday that FBI Director Kash Patel approved his request for the bureau to "assist" with locating Democratic Texas legislators who fled to Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York to block a rigged congressional map that Republicans are trying to pass during a special session to appease President Donald Trump and help the GOP keep control of Congress next year.
Cornyn told radio host Mark Davis that Patel assigned FBI agents from two Texas cities, Austin and San Antonio, to meet his request. The senator also suggested that the state Democrats may be breaking the law by accepting money for travel—which came from Beto O'Rourke's political action committee, Powered by People, and the George Soros-backed Texas Majority PAC, according to The Texas Tribune—but neither Cornyn nor the director has provided details about FBI involvement.
Four Democratic leaders in the U.S. House want those details. Two members from Texas—Reps. Greg Casar and Jasmine Crockett—joined Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (Md.) and Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia (Calif.) for a Friday letter to Patel and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, as the FBI is part of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Trump is reportedly deploying the FBI to hunt down Texas Democrats that are blocking Republican attempts to rig future elections. It’s a gross abuse of power. Oversight Dems and @democrats-judiciary.house.gov, led by @repcasar.bsky.social, @crockett.house.gov, and Robert Garcia, are investigating.
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— Oversight Dems (@oversightdemocrats.house.gov) August 8, 2025 at 11:12 AM
The congressional Democrats expressed "great concern about the abuse of federal public safety resources for completely political purposes and without a law enforcement rationale," and demanded information about the FBI's "involvement in efforts to locate or apprehend" Texas lawmakers "who are not accused of any federal crime but have chosen to break quorum during the current legislative session."
"Breaking quorum has occurred periodically in the Texas political process for more than a century," they noted. In this case, over 50 Democrats "left the state to counter President Trump's aggressive moves to consolidate power by redrawing congressional district lines in Texas to prevent being investigated by a Democratic majority" in the U.S. House.
Reports from the past 24 hours "suggest that the FBI is diverting federal law enforcement away from fighting terrorism, drug trafficking, and other federal crimes to instead harass and target Texans' duly elected representatives, and thus raise urgent questions about the legal basis, scale, and appropriateness of federal law enforcement involvement in a state-level political matter," the letter continues, calling on the Trump officials to reply to a list of 10 questions by August 21.
"Given the FBI's crucial role as a federal law enforcement agency, it is essential that its actions be guided by clear legal authority, political neutrality, and an appropriate respect for the autonomy of state legislatures and their members," the letter stresses. "The involvement of federal agents in a state-level political dispute raises serious questions about potential overreach and misuse of federal power."
Trump's effort to redo Texas' congressional map—a model that the White House is trying to push in other GOP-controlled states—and related concerns about FBI involvement come amid broader fears about how the president and his allies are impacting the bureau.
Multiple media outlets reported Thursday that the administration is ousting at least three top officials—former acting Director Brian Driscoll, Walter Giardina, and Steven Jensen—as part of what critics called a "campaign to weaponize federal law enforcement and replace highly experienced public servants with political hacks eager to carry out Trump's retribution agenda."
Raskin said in a lengthy Friday statement that "Patel's unceremonious firing of Brian Driscoll reflects the accelerating purge at the FBI of anyone who refuses to pledge their blind and paramount loyalty to Donald Trump over the rule of law and the Constitution."
"Instead of investigating and stopping child predators, the FBI is now redacting their names from the Epstein files," Raskin said, referring to records from the federal case against deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who was a friend of Trump. "Instead of hunting down terrorists and criminals, the FBI is tracking down state legislators standing up for voting rights."
"Instead of rewarding agents who love this country and keep their oath to the Constitution, the FBI is sacking them and replacing them with hacks and fanatics," he continued. "The firing of Mr. Driscoll and other career agents is a shameful affront to the rule of law and typifies the Trump administration's campaign to replace nonpartisan career law enforcement professionals with political loyalists and incompetent sycophants."
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