Discourse that allows us to express a wide range of ideas, opinions, and analysis that can be used as an opportunity to critically examine and observe what our experience means to us beyond the given social/cultural contexts and norms that are provided us.
The conversation delves into the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk, exploring the implications of gun violence, media coverage, and the racial dynamics surrounding the incident. Joy Reid and Mehdi Hasan discuss the mainstream media's portrayal of Kirk, the rise of right-wing extremism, and the historical context of racial violence in America. They emphasize the need for honest discourse about political violence and the responsibility of media outlets in shaping public perception. In this conversation, Joy Reid and Michael Harriot discuss the historical context of political violence, the statistics surrounding it, and the narratives perpetuated by the right. They emphasize the importance of acknowledging the role of billionaires in shaping political discourse and the need for unity among diverse communities to combat the rising tide of extremism. The discussion also highlights the significance of understanding the motivations behind political violence and the necessity of confronting these issues head-on to ensure a more equitable future. Read Michael Harriot's post on the facts of U.S. violence here:
Joy-Ann Lomena Reid (AKA Joy Reid) is a best-selling American author, political journalist and TV host. She was a national correspondent for MSNBC and is best known for hosting the Emmy-nominated, NAACP Award-winning political commentary and analysis show, The ReidOut, from 2020 to 2025. Her previous anchoring credits include The Reid Report (2014–2015) and AM Joy (2016–2020).
How the Right’s Narratives Collapsed When the Suspect Wasn’t an Outsider The phrase “one of us” encapsulates this moment. Tyler Robinson is not an outsider to the movement Charlie Kirk helped foster; he is its inevitable product. The violent rhetoric, the celebration of white grievance, the attacks on immigrants and LGBTQ people—all of it created fertile ground for radicalization. But don’t expect a reckoning. Denial is too deeply woven into the project of white nationalism. To admit the truth—that the greatest threat comes from within—would demand reflection, responsibility, and change. And that is the mirror America refuses to face.
People look at a photo of Charlie Kirk, the CEO and co-founder of Turning Point USA, who was shot and killed, at a vigil in his memory, on September 11, 2025, in Orem, Utah. Lindsey Wasson/AP New York
Dozens of social media posts and messages about the murder of Charlie Kirk, including some that celebrated his death, are being spotlighted by conservative activists, Republican elected officials and a doxxing website as part of an online campaign to punish the posters behind the messages.
Prominent far-right influencer Laura Loomer, a US senator, and a site called “Expose Charlie’s Murderers” have all drawn attention to people who have posted messages about Kirk’s Wednesday assassination.
The campaigns show how social media posts or personal messages — even by accounts with few followers or from people who are not public figures — could easily be surfaced and publicized, and people’s personal information can be spread across the internet at a time when doxxing is easier than ever.
The Charlie’s Murderers site, whose domain was registered anonymously and which says it is not a doxxing site, claims it has “received nearly 30,000 submissions,” according to a message on the site’s front page on midday Saturday. Currently, there are a few dozen submissions published on the site. “This website will soon be converted into a searchable database of all 30,000 submissions, filterable by general location and job industry. This is a permanent and continuously-updating archive of Radical activists calling for violence.”
Most people whose messages have been posted on the site do not seem to refer to themselves as activists, nor did it seem many were calling for violence. Administrators for the site did not respond to a request for comment. The site also opened an X account on Friday.
Loomer posted on X on Wednesday, hours after the fatal shooting, that “I will be spending my night making everyone I find online who celebrates his death Famous, so prepare to have your whole future professional aspirations ruined if you are sick enough to celebrate his death.” CNN was unable to reach Loomer for comment.
On X, one account has begun a running “Trophy Case” — a “mega-thread of all of the people Twitter gets fired, updated live as the news comes in,” with dozens of entries of people it claims have lost their jobs.
New York —
Dozens of social media posts and messages about the murder of Charlie Kirk, including some that celebrated his death, are being spotlighted by conservative activists, Republican elected officials and a doxxing website as part of an online campaign to punish the posters behind the messages.
Prominent far-right influencer Laura Loomer, a US senator, and a site called “Expose Charlie’s Murderers” have all drawn attention to people who have posted messages about Kirk’s Wednesday assassination.
The campaigns show how social media posts or personal messages — even by accounts with few followers or from people who are not public figures — could easily be surfaced and publicized, and people’s personal information can be spread across the internet at a time when doxxing is easier than ever.
The Charlie’s Murderers site, whose domain was registered anonymously and which says it is not a doxxing site, claims it has “received nearly 30,000 submissions,” according to a message on the site’s front page on midday Saturday. Currently, there are a few dozen submissions published on the site. “This website will soon be converted into a searchable database of all 30,000 submissions, filterable by general location and job industry. This is a permanent and continuously-updating archive of Radical activists calling for violence.”
Most people whose messages have been posted on the site do not seem to refer to themselves as activists, nor did it seem many were calling for violence. Administrators for the site did not respond to a request for comment. The site also opened an X account on Friday.
Loomer posted on X on Wednesday, hours after the fatal shooting, that “I will be spending my night making everyone I find online who celebrates his death Famous, so prepare to have your whole future professional aspirations ruined if you are sick enough to celebrate his death.” CNN was unable to reach Loomer for comment.
On X, one account has begun a running “Trophy Case” — a “mega-thread of all of the people Twitter gets fired, updated live as the news comes in,” with dozens of entries of people it claims have lost their jobs.
And after MSNBC fired senior political analyst Matthew Dowd after he said Kirk’s rhetoric might have contributed to his shooting, President Donald Trump himself weighed in.
“They fired this guy, Dowd from (MSNBC), who’s a terrible guy, terrible human being, but they fired him. I hear they’re firing other people,” Trump said on Fox News on Friday morning. On his Substack after the firing, Dowd said the “Right Wing media mob” attacked him on several platforms. CNN has reached out to Dowd for comment.
Some of the people whose posts have been highlighted say they’re now receiving a barrage of harassment and are worried about becoming the victims of violence.
For example, Canadian independent journalist Rachel Gilmore posted that she is “terrified” about retaliation from Kirk’s “far-right fans” after the shooting. That post is the first listed on the anonymous website, including a part where Gilmore said she hoped Kirk survives. She said in a video online that she did not celebrate Kirk’s death and said she hoped he survives in another post. She also said she received a “tsunami” of threats and called the last 48 hours of her life “a living hell.”
Rebekah Jones, a former Florida coronavirus data scientist who in 2022 claimed the state of Florida pressured her to manipulate pandemic data, said she contacted the police twice about death threats and about the “hit list,” her name for the anonymous site. Jones posted about Kirk on Wednesday, writing: “Save your sympathies for the innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire of MAGA’s violent political messaging machine.” The website republished that post along with other pieces of Jones’ personal information.
“It is absolutely fair to call it a coordinated harassment campaign,” said Laura Edelson, assistant professor at Northeastern University and director of the Cybersecurity for Democracy Project. “That’s absolutely why it exists, to coordinate and target the harassment toward the selected individuals.”
Charlie Kirk debates students during his American Comeback tour stop at California State University, Northridge on March 6, 2025. Benjamin Hanson/AFP/Getty Images
Who is getting fired?
Some Republican elected officials are also publicizing people who posted about Kirk’s murder, including some public-sector employees like teachers.
Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee said a Middle Tennessee State University employee should be removed after writing they had “ZERO sympathy” for Kirk’s death. The university confirmed to CNN in a statement that the employee was fired “effective immediately.”
“No university employee who celebrates the assassination of Charlie Kirk should be trusted to shape the minds of the next generation in the classroom. The firing of this MTSU employee was the right decision, and it sends a clear message that this kind of reprehensible behavior must not be tolerated,” Blackburn said in a statement to CNN.
GOP Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina also encouraged the firing of a public school teacher, whom the school district later confirmed to local news was no longer employed with the district.
DC Comics canceled the just-released “Red Hood” comic book series after its author, Gretchen Felker-Martin, made comments about Kirk’s death on social media.
In since-deleted posts captured in screengrabs shared by other social media users, Felker-Martin allegedly wrote on social media after news of Kirk’s death: “Hope the bullet’s OK.”
“At DC Comics, we place the highest value on our creators and community and affirm the right to peaceful, individual expression of personal viewpoints. Posts or public comments that can be viewed as promoting hostility or violence are inconsistent with DC’s standards of conduct,” the company, which like CNN is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, said in a statement. CNN has reached out to representatives for Felker-Martin for comment.
In most places, private companies can fire employees for any reason — and that includes crass social media posts, said Jeffrey Hirsch, a professor of labor and employment law at the University of North Carolina. It’s a little trickier for public sector employees, but their firings are also justified if the speech is “so egregious it disrupts operations.”
In a 1987 case, the Supreme Court decided that it was constitutionally protected speech, and not grounds for firing, for a government employee to tell her co-workers she was sorry that a would-be assassin failed to kill President Reagan.
And it’s extra sensitive for teachers, Hirsch said, since they work with young people, especially if the posts are applauding political violence. “The reality of the situation is, if they’re getting flooded, even if it’s from one political wing, with complaints, it’s likely to push an employer to fire somebody,” he said.
People visit a memorial for Charlie Kirk at the Turning Point USA headquarters on September 12, in Phoenix. Eric Thayer/Getty Images
A range of posts
In other cases, some social media users highlighted Kirk’s pro-Second Amendment stance, including past news reports that he said some gun deaths were “unfortunately” worth it to keep the Second Amendment.
The highlighted social media entries span a range of responses to Kirk’s shooting. One post, for example, simply noted the world continued on.
The website says its explicit aim is to get the people it spotlights fired. It was registered through a privacy service with an address in Iceland.
And the site’s name already implies that the people whose information it shares are responsible for Kirk’s murder, paving the way for harassment, Hank Teran, CEO at open-source threat intelligence platform Open Measures, told CNN. The website also echoes back to Kirk-founded conservative group Turning Point’s “Professor Watchlist,” whose purpose was to unmask what it called “radical professors,” but often led to harassment and violent threats directed toward people named on that list.
Altogether, “it could be reasonable to conclude that there’s some intent to incite harassment,” Teran said.
High political tensions across the country are ramping up people’s emotional responses, said Edelson, the Northeastern professor, and it “creates a need to do something.”
The blanket blame on “the left” in some cases extends the blame past the shooter into an amorphous enemy, Whitney Phillips, assistant professor of information politics and ethics at the University of Oregon, told CNN.
“Attempts to call out people designated as being celebratory of Kirk’s death, or merely critical of Kirk’s life, work to give shape and weight to that enemy,” Philips said. That feeds into “a false culture war framing.” As a result, she said, disconnected groups can be perceived as “a downright spiritual enemy of conservatives, and by extension, of America itself.”
[Tyler Pager reported from Washington and Nick Corasaniti from New York.]
President Trump and his top advisers are escalating their attacks on their opponents in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s killing, placing the blame for political violence on Democrats alone and signaling a broad crackdown on critics and left-leaning institutions.
Mr. Trump blamed the “radical left” almost immediately after Mr. Kirk was shot, before the authorities had identified a suspect. He promised to find those responsible for political violence, as well as the “organizations that fund it and support it.”
Mr. Trump has an expansive view of those he deems radical, applying that term to almost all of his political adversaries. In his second term, Mr. Trump has pushed the boundaries of his authority to exact retribution on political opponents and institutions.
The death of Mr. Kirk, a popular young conservative activist, has added fuel to Mr. Trump’s campaign against his opponents. He and his administration have promised to bring the killer to justice while using the moment to blame the left — and only the left — more broadly.
Critics of the administration now worry that Mr. Kirk’s murder could be used as a pretext to move even more aggressively against those who speak out against Mr. Trump.
The authorities were still working to discern a motive in the killing on Saturday morning. The suspect had recently spoken with a family member about the fact that Mr. Kirk was going to hold an event in Utah, according to a police affidavit, and he and his relative discussed “why they didn’t like him and the viewpoints he had.”
America in recent years has seen a wave of violence across the political spectrum, targeting Democrats and Republicans, but Mr. Trump has focused only on attacks against conservatives and his allies. On Friday, he appeared to excuse right-wing radicals by arguing they were motivated by a desire to reduce crime.
And while the president has provided few specifics about how he plans to address rising political violence or mete out punishments, several administration officials vowed to scrutinize speech by those who have denounced Mr. Kirk — a self-declared supporter of free speech — and his often inflammatory views.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that his agency was closely tracking any military personnel who celebrated or mocked Mr. Kirk’s death, and Christopher Landau, the deputy secretary of state, suggested the administration would strip visas from individuals who celebrated Mr. Kirk’s death.
“I want to underscore that foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country,” Mr. Landau wrote on X.
On Capitol Hill, Representative Clay Higgins, Republican of Louisiana, said he would use his congressional authority to seek immediate bans for life from social media platforms for anyone who “belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk.”
“I’m also going after their business licenses and permitting, their businesses will be blacklisted aggressively, they should be kicked from every school, and their drivers licenses should be revoked,” he wrote on X. “I’m basically going to cancel with extreme prejudice these evil, sick animals who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination. I’m starting that today.”
Mr. Trump also renewed his call on Friday for prosecutors to file racketeering charges against George Soros, one of the Democratic Party’s biggest donors. Mr. Trump and his allies have long claimed without evidence that Mr. Soros foments violent protests.
“We’re going to look into Soros because I think it’s a RICO case against him and other people because this is more than protests,” he said on Fox News. “This is real agitation; this is riots on the street — and we’re going to look into that.”
A spokesman for Mr. Soros’s organization, Open Society Foundations, denied the allegations and called the threats “outrageous.”
Stephen Miller, a top adviser to the president, characterized the current moment in America as a battle between “family and nature” and those who celebrate “everything that is warped, twisted and depraved.”
He said the “fate of millions depends upon the defeat of this wicked ideology.” After the shooting of Charlie Kirk at a university outside Salt Lake City, Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah called for people to lower the political temperature and stay off social media. Credit: Kim Raff for The New York Times
In an interview on Thursday with Scott Jennings, a conservative radio host, Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, said that before Mr. Kirk’s death, the administration had been working on “a more comprehensive plan on violence in America, the importance of free speech and civil speech,” though she did not provide any details. White House officials also declined to answer questions about the plan.
Experts warn that the polarization in the country is growing increasingly dire.
“We’re watching grief, anger, blame and calls for retribution all occurring in parallel and all occurring in the public sphere,” said Sean Westwood, an associate professor of government at Dartmouth College and the director of the Polarization Research Lab.
He added: “In that kind of environment, the loudest voice is going to prevail, and in the moment, that loudest voice is calling for further division. So unlike the past, where we’ve had leaders pushing us together, we now have leaders who are pushing us apart, and that could lead to more violence.”
Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah, a Republican, took a strikingly different approach during the news conference where officials announced the arrest of a suspect on Friday. Mr. Cox asked for people to lower the political temperature and stay off social media.
“We can return violence with violence, we can return hate with hate, and that’s the problem with political violence — is it metastasizes,” he said. “Because we can always point the finger at the other side. And at some point, we have to find an off-ramp, or it’s going to get much, much worse.”
Liberal organizations fear that the Trump administration will use the shooting to justify a crackdown on their operations, targeting their cash flow, nonprofit status or contributors.
Jess O’Connell, a political strategist who co-founded the Democracy Security Project, said left-leaning civil and nonprofit organizations had been grappling with heightened security threats since Mr. Trump took office. But the president’s explicit calls to crack down on left-wing activists have dramatically escalated those fears, she said.
“The president has been looking for anything he can use to justify a big crackdown on his perceived political enemies that includes not just nonprofits but civic and cultural organizations,” she said. “It’s a danger to all of us when the president picks sides on who we should mourn.”
Sean Kennedy, a conservative activist who researches left-wing donors at the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, said some scrutiny of liberal money was justified after Mr. Kirk’s shooting — but not all.
“Trump is right to investigate and prosecute left-wing purveyors of political violence,” he said. Still, he added, that “however abhorrent their ideas may be, George Soros isn’t Al Capone and the A.C.L.U. isn’t antifa.”
In Utah on Thursday, officials arrested a 22-year-old man, Tyler Robinson, in connection with Mr. Kirk’s killing. Investigators said they had found messages inscribed on unfired cartridges in the woods near campus, alongside the rifle that had been used in the attack. The messages, they said, suggested familiarity with antifascist symbolism and the irreverent slang of internet memes and role-play communities.
Missing from Mr. Trump’s denunciations of his opponents after Mr. Kirk’s death is any mention of political violence that has targeted Democrats.
Melissa Hortman, the former Democratic speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, was killed in June; Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania was the victim of an arson attack on his home in April while he and his family slept; Paul Pelosi, the husband of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was violently beaten inside his home in 2022 by an intruder who was targeting Ms. Pelosi; and 13 men were arrested in 2020 for plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.
And Mr. Kirk was far from the first prominent Republican targeted: Mr. Trump survived two assassination attempts during the presidential campaign, and in 2017, Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana, was injured in a shooting.
After Mr. Kirk was killed, Mr. Trump ordered all flags to be lowered to half-staff and said he would award Mr. Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor.
Shane Goldmacher, Lisa Lerer and Theodore Schleifer contributed reporting.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Tyler Pager is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
Nick Corasaniti is a Times reporter covering national politics, with a focus on voting and elections.
A version of this article appears in print on Sept. 14, 2025, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Amplifies Attacks On Foes After Kirk Death. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper
Martyrs are used by messianic movements to sanctify violence. To show any mercy or understanding toward the enemy is to betray the martyr and the cause the martyr died defending.
Suspect Arrested: While the federal government surged investigative manpower and technological firepower into the hunt for Mr. Kirk’s killer, the big break came with a single tip — from the suspect’s own family.
Connecting With Young Men: With his right-wing group Turning Point USA, Mr. Kirk engaged controversial topics. Some were inspired. Others found his views appalling.
"I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against."
W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963)
"There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)
"Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent. "
James Baldwin (1924-1987)
"Precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience you must find yourself at war with your society."
"A civilization that proves incapable of solving the problems it creates is a decadent civilization. A civilization that chooses to close its eyes to its most crucial problems is a stricken civilization. A civilization that uses its principles for trickery and deceit is a dying civilization."
Nina Simone (1933-2003)
"There's no other purpose, so far as I'm concerned, for us except to reflect the times, the situations around us and the things we're able to say through our art, the things that millions of people can't say. I think that's the function of an artist and, of course, those of us who are lucky leave a legacy so that when we're dead, we also live on. That's people like Billie Holiday and I hope that I will be that lucky, but meanwhile, the function, so far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times, whatever that might be."
Amilcar Cabral (1924-1973)
"Always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone's head. They are fighting to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children ....Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories..." .
Angela Davis (b. 1944)
"The idea of freedom is inspiring. But what does it mean? If you are free in a political sense but have no food, what's that? The freedom to starve?”
Duke Ellington (1899-1974)
“Jazz is the freest musical expression we have yet seen. To me, then, jazz means simply freedom of musical speech! And it is precisely because of this freedom that so many varied forms of jazz exist. The important thing to remember, however, is that not one of these forms represents jazz by itself. Jazz simply means the freedom to have many forms.”
Amiri Baraka (1934-2014)
"Thought is more important than art. To revere art and have no understanding of the process that forces it into existence, is finally not even to understand what art is."
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” --August 3, 1857
Cecil Taylor (1929-2018)
“Musical categories don’t mean anything unless we talk about the actual specific acts that people go through to make music, how one speaks, dances, dresses, moves, thinks, makes love...all these things. We begin with a sound and then say, what is the function of that sound, what is determining the procedures of that sound? Then we can talk about how it motivates or regenerates itself, and that’s where we have tradition.”
Ella Baker (1903-1986)
"Strong people don't need strong leaders"
Paul Robeson (1898-1976)
"The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative."
John Coltrane (1926-1967)
"I want to be a force for real good. In other words, I know there are bad forces. I know that there are forces out here that bring suffering to others and misery to the world, but I want to be the opposite force. I want to be the force which is truly for good."
Miles Davis (1926-1991)
"Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around."
C.L.R. James (1901-1989)
"All development takes place by means of self-movement, not organization by external forces. It is within the organism itself (i.e. within the society) that there must be realized new motives, new possibilities."
Frantz Fanon (1925-1961)
"Now, political education means opening minds, awakening them, and allowing the birth of their intelligence as [Aime] Cesaire said, it is 'to invent souls.' To educate the masses politically does not mean, cannot mean, making a political speech. What it means is to try, relentlessly and passionately, to teach the masses that everything depends on them."
Edward Said (1935-2003)
“I take criticism so seriously as to believe that, even in the midst of a battle in which one is unmistakably on one side against another, there should be criticism, because there must be critical consciousness if there are to be issues, problems, values, even lives to be fought for."
Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937)
“The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned. There must be pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will.”
Susan Sontag (1933-2004)
"Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager."
Kofi Natambu, editor of The Panopticon Review, is a writer, poet, cultural critic, and political journalist whose poetry, essays, criticism, reviews, and journalism have appeared in many literary magazines, journals, newspapers, and anthologies. He is the author of a biography MALCOLM X: His Life & Work (Alpha Books) and two books of poetry: THE MELODY NEVER STOPS (Past Tents Press) and INTERVALS (Post Aesthetic Press). He was the founder and editor of SOLID GROUND: A NEW WORLD JOURNAL, a national quarterly magazine of the arts, culture, and politics and the editor of a literary anthology NOSTALGIA FOR THE PRESENT (Post Aesthetic Press). Natambu has read his work throughout the country and given many lectures and workshops at academic and arts institutions. He has taught American literature, literary theory and criticism, cultural history and criticism, film studies, political science, creative writing, philosophy, critical theory, and music history and criticism (Jazz, Blues, R&B, Hip Hop) at many universities and colleges. He was also a curator in the Education Department of Detroit’s Museum of African American History. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Natambu currently lives in Berkeley, California with his wife Chuleenan.
