{"id":47430,"date":"2025-09-15T18:37:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T23:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=47430"},"modified":"2025-09-15T22:17:34","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T03:17:34","slug":"trump-ramps-up-attacks-on-left-democrats-after-kirk-assassination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=47430","title":{"rendered":"Trump ramps up attacks on left, Democrats after Kirk assassination"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

President Trump\u2002<\/u><\/a>is ramping up his attacks on the left in the wake of last week\u2019s killing of Charlie Kirk,<\/u><\/a> providing fuel to the White House\u2019s efforts to clamp down on left-leaning groups and institutions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump has at nearly every turn since Kirk\u2019s assassination argued the problem in the country stems from left-wing groups. The strategy has animated Republicans, who are mourning Kirk as a free speech champion and political martyr, but it ignores what his Democratic critics contend is Trump\u2019s own history of normalizing political violence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a four-minute video posted hours after Kirk was shot, Trump said years of attacks from the left comparing figures like Kirk to Nazis was \u201cdirectly responsible for the terrorism that we\u2019re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When co-host Ainsley Earhardt\u2002<\/u><\/a>asked Trump how the country can come together, noting there are \u201cradicals\u201d on both the right and the left, Trump defended those on the right as concerned about crime, while condemning those on the left as \u201cvicious\u201d and \u201chorrible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Sunday, Trump again insisted the problem \u201cis on the left.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cWhen you look at the agitators, you look at the scum that speaks so badly of our country, the American flag burnings all over the place, that\u2019s the left, that\u2019s not the right,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other Republicans have backed Trump\u2019s rhetoric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just hours after Kirk was shot, Reps. Nancy Mace\u2002<\/u><\/a>(R-S.C.) and Anna Paulina Luna\u2002<\/u><\/a>(R-Fla.) both accused Democrats of creating an environment that makes conservatives targets of violence. And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene\u2002<\/u><\/a>(R-Ga.) called for a national divorce Monday in a\u2002lengthy post<\/u><\/a>, blaming the left for the death of Kirk and saying \u201cmillions on the left celebrated and made clear they want all of us dead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet political violence affects both parties, and both sides have fallen victim to attacks perpetrated by those with opposing ideologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that in mind, many Democrats have pushed back on Trump\u2019s assertion that political violence was somehow more rooted within the left than the right. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo one party is immune from political violence,\u201d Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro\u2002<\/u><\/a>(D) wrote in a post on the social platform X<\/u><\/a>. \u201cMy family and I can attest to that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shapiro who was home with his family in the governor\u2019s mansion when a man set the house ablaze earlier this year on the first night of Passover, apparently targeting him over his position on Israel and Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUsing the rhetoric of rage and calling some of our fellow Americans \u2018scum\u2019 \u2014 no matter how profound our differences \u2014 only creates more division and makes it harder to heal,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are at an inflection point in America,\u201d Shapiro wrote. \u201cViolence transcends party lines \u2014 and the way to address it and have true peaceful debate is for leaders to speak and act with moral clarity. That needs to start with the President.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rep. Joe Morelle\u2002<\/u><\/a>(N.Y.), the top Democrat on the House committee that oversees member security, the House Administration Committee, said efforts \u201cto assign blame to huge numbers of people\u201d were irresponsible and would only further inflame tensions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just so counterproductive to be laying blame at any ideological person or group. And frankly, it just furthers the escalation of the tensions that exist. I mean, we should be doing everything we can now to encourage people both on our side and the other side of the ideological divide to be calm and to be thoughtful in this moment, to be prayerful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That Trump is going after Democrats is hardly a surprise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump does not sell him self as a uniter, and much of his time in office has been spent playing to his political base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some Democrats think Trump\u2019s attacks on them related to Kirk\u2019s killing will thus fall flat, politically.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe American people weren\u2019t born yesterday. They\u2019ve seen Trump whip up political violence & divide us,\u201d Rep. Jason Crow\u2002<\/u><\/a>(D-Colo.) wrote in sharing a social media post from Trump last year showing a pickup truck emblazoned with an image to make it appear then-President Biden\u2002<\/u><\/a>was tied up in the bed of the vehicle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe incited a mob to storm the Capitol and beat cops \u2014 then he pardoned violent criminals,\u201d Crow continued, referencing Jan. 6, 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow he\u2019s trying to exploit a tragedy in order to silence his political opponents.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tensions are showing no signs of easing.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller\u2002<\/u><\/a>claimed Monday that there was a broad network of left-leaning organizations fomenting violence, though he did not provide specifics. He vowed to use the full strength of the federal government to \u201cidentify, disrupt, eliminate and destroy this network.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

California Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2002<\/u><\/a>(D), who condemned both Kirk\u2019s shooting and has urged the rejection of political violence in \u201cEVERY form,\u201d said Miller\u2019s comments appeared to use the shooting as a basis for going after the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWake up, America. Stephen Miller has already publicly labeled the Democratic Party as a terrorist organization,\u201d Newsom wrote Monday on X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t about crime and safety. It\u2019s about dismantling our democratic institutions. We cannot allow acts of political violence to be weaponized and used to threaten tens of millions of Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vice President Vance, who hosted Kirk\u2019s radio show Monday from the White House campus, bringing Miller on as a guest, said the administration would take action to address what he called \u201cfestering violence that you see on the far left.\u201d And he insisted it was the left, not the right, that was more likely to accept political violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile our side of the aisle certainly has its crazies, it is a statistical fact that most of the lunatics in American politics today are proud members of the far left,\u201d Vance said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other Republicans have offered different signals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) has urged the public not to point fingers at the other side as more becomes known about the killer\u2019s motive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is one person responsible for what happened here, and that person is now in custody and will be charged soon and will be held accountable,\u201d he said at a press conference announcing the arrest of a suspect<\/u><\/a> in the shooting, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe problem with political violence, is it metastasizes, because we can always point the finger at the other side,\u201d he said, \u201cand at some point we have to find an off-ramp, or it\u2019s going to get much, much worse. But see, these are choices that we can make.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

thehill<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Trump\u2002is ramping up his attacks on the left in the wake of last week\u2019s killing of Charlie Kirk, providing fuel to the White House\u2019s efforts to clamp down on left-leaning groups and institutions.  Trump has at nearly every turn since Kirk\u2019s assassination argued the problem in the country stems from left-wing groups. The strategy has animated Republicans, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":47431,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[34612,34644,1230],"class_list":["post-47430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-kirk","tag-left-and-democrats","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47430","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=47430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47432,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47430\/revisions\/47432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}