President Donald Trump’s heated reaction to the assassination of Charlie Kirk has provided a stark contrast with the way his predecessors have tended to deal with moments of crisis through American history.
In the face of national tragedy, the public often looks to the commander-in-chief to serve as a unifying and guiding voice to move forward.
But following the fatal shooting of Kirk, a 31-year-old Republican activist who was close with the president and his family, Trump used his social media to post a video blaming “the radical left” for the assassination and ”the media” for creating a tense political environment.
“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals,” Trump said in the video. “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”
Some have criticized Trump’s reaction at a time when a U.S. president might usually be expected to seek to calm the situation.
“Trump’s response to the murder of Charlie Kirk was the complete wrong tone for a president to make,” Chase Oliver, the former presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party, said on X in response to the video. “He should have cooled tensions and instead decided to inflame them. I don’t think that was the best way to respond when the nation needed calm,” Oliver added.
Republican Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska told NBC News that he wished Trump had tried to unite the country.
Former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, also a Republican, told Politico he was “looking” for the person that the country can turn to for a soothing voice but couldn’t “claim that I can identify that person.”
“With all these terrible things happening, you would think that our president would at least make an attempt to bring us together, but he didn’t,” late-night host Jimmy Kimmel said on his show this week.
Trump’s reaction stood in contrast to former President Joe Biden, who delivered a six-minute-long Oval Office address condemning political violence after Trump survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally last year.
“Lower the temperature in our politics,” Biden urged the nation at the time. “Remember, while we may disagree we are not enemies. We’re neighbors, we’re friends, co-workers, citizens and most importantly we are fellow Americans.”
“A former president was shot, an American citizen killed while simply exercising his freedom to support the candidate of his choosing. We cannot, we must not, go down this road in America,” Biden said at the time, adding that there was “no place in America for this type of violence.”
Despite Biden’s strong condemnation of the violence, after law enforcement intercepted what is believed to be a second assassination attempt on Trump’s life last year, Trump blamed “the rhetoric of Biden and Harris.”
Trump blaming “the radical left” for the political violence against Kirk follows a familiar pattern of the president pointing the finger at liberals in tense moments.
After Paul Pelosi, the husband of Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi, was attacked inside the couple’s home, Trump blamed Democratic-run cities for the violence. While Trump called the incident “a sad situation,” he also spread conspiracy theories about it and mocked Pelosi in a speech.
However, Trump has also demonstrated an ability not to point fingers.
In June, after Melissa Hortman, a Democratic state lawmaker from Minnesota, was assassinated alongside her husband and John Hoffman, another Democratic state lawmaker, survived an assassination attempt alongside his wife, Trump condemned the political violence.
But while listing off examples of political violence in his Truth Social video this week, Trump did not mention the recent assassination of Hortman, nor the attempted assassination of former Democratic Representative Gabby Giffords.
“Does the president have a responsibility at this moment? Yes,” William Barber, a pastor and civil rights activist, told Politico. “But I’m saying that in our history there has never been one person. So it’s the president, pulpits and politicians that hold key leadership positions that must step into this moment.”
In a statement to The Independent, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said: “President Trump speaks the truth. Every single night Jimmy Kimmel gets on TV and divides the American people by fueling hatred and spreading lies about the President, his supporters, and any American who doesn’t agree with his worldview. The only thing he should be doing on air is apologizing for his divisive rhetoric — and Kimmel is an absolute ghoul for pointing fingers at President Trump following the tragic assassination of his dear friend, Charlie Kirk.”
A White House spokesperson also highlighted a portion of Trump’s speech to Politico in which he asked “all Americans to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died. These values of free speech, citizenship, the rule of law, and patrioci devotion and love of God.”
Republican Representative Greg Murphy of North Carolina encouraged members of Congress “on BOTH SIDES” to “calm the rhetoric and look towards peace.
“It is OK to disagree. It doesn’t mean the other person is evil,” Murphy wrote on X.
For the most part, current and former leaders from both parties have denounced the political violence against Kirk and expressed sympathy for his family. Former presidents Biden, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush all released statements strongly opposing the violence.
But other high-profile Republicans, such as former senior adviser Elon Musk, have followed in Trump’s footsteps in pointing the finger at those they disagree with. Republican Representative Derrick Van Orden also blamed the media for the shooting.
