{"id":47381,"date":"2025-09-14T11:21:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T16:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=47381"},"modified":"2025-09-14T22:23:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T03:23:37","slug":"haberman-trump-struggling-after-kirk-killing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=47381","title":{"rendered":"Haberman: Trump \u2018struggling\u2019 after Kirk killing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">New York Times White House correspondent&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/people\/maggie-haberman\/\"><u>Maggie Haberman\u2002<\/u><\/a>on Friday said&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/people\/donald-trump\/\"><u>President Trump\u2002<\/u><\/a>and his surrounding staff are \u201cstruggling\u201d after the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cSo many people around President Trump are very close to Charlie Kirk. President Trump was very close to Charlie Kirk. And President Trump faced two assassination attempts, one near miss last year,\u201d she said during a Friday appearance on CNN\u2019s \u201cThe Source.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAnd so all of that is a lot of the context for how people in the White House and the president are responding to this. I think that he is struggling with this in terms of how to deal with this,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Kirk\u2019s fatal shooting has been replayed on social sites for the past four days as online debates have emerged regarding who was to blame for his assassination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The Turning Point USA founder was shot in the neck in front of a crowd of approximately 3,000 on Wednesday and later died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Vice President Vance, House Speaker&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/people\/mike-johnson\/\"><u>Mike Johnson\u2002<\/u><\/a>(R-La.) and other GOP leaders have publicly mourned the loss by sharing personal memories with Kirk in a series of posts and statements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">His surviving wife, Erika, said she hasn\u2019t slept in days following his death but promised to continue Kirk\u2019s work through his Turning Point USA organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Haberman said while Trump will likely not be the \u201cclearest talker,\u201d he\u2019s experiencing pain from the passing of Kirk in a fashion similar to his close confidantes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Earlier this week, Trump described Kirk as a \u201cgiant of his generation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cNo one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie,\u201d the president&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/posts\/115181934991844419\"><u>wrote in a post<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;on the social platform X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHe was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us. Melania and my Sympathies go out to his beautiful wife Erika, and family. Charlie, we love you!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/administration\/5502408-haberman-trump-struggling-after-kirk-killing\/\">thehill<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New York Times White House correspondent&nbsp;Maggie Haberman\u2002on Friday said&nbsp;President Trump\u2002and his surrounding staff are \u201cstruggling\u201d after the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. \u201cSo many people around President Trump are very close to Charlie Kirk. President Trump was very close to Charlie Kirk. And President Trump faced two assassination attempts, one near miss last year,\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":47382,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[34633,34631,34612,1230],"class_list":["post-47381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-struggling-3","tag-haberman","tag-kirk","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47381"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47383,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47381\/revisions\/47383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}