Friday, September 19, 2025

Charlie Kirk shooting: Trump blames ‘radical left’, but does not mention attacks on Democrats as search for suspect continues – follow live

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Trump blames ‘radical left political violence’ for killing of Charlie Kirk, fails to mention killing of Democratic lawmaker in Minnesota

In an Oval Office address delivered before the person who killed the conservative activist Charlie Kirk has even been identified, Donald Trump blamed ‘the radical left’ for the shooting and promised a crackdown.

“For years those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today and it must stop right now,” Trump said.

“My administration will 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, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials and everyone else who brings order to out country.”

He then provided a list of incidents of what he termed “radical left political violence, including the attempt to kill him last year, the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the 2017 shooting of Republican congressman Steve Scalise and what he called “the attacks on Ice agents.”

The president’s list notably did not include violence against Democrats, like the murder of Melissa Hortman, a Minnesota state lawmaker, and her husband, and the shooting of another Democratic state lawmaker and his wife in June, by a man who a hit list of 45 elected officials — all Democrats.

He also chose to omit the attack on former House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, the Trump supporter who sent pipe bombs to leading Democrats, or the threats to the life of his first vice-president, Mike Pence, by pro-Trump rioters who beat police officers on January 6 2021.

Donald Trump assigned blame for the killing of Charlie Kirk, a rightwing activist, to ‘the radical left’, despite the fact that no one yet knows the identity of the killer.
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Key events

US authorities have no suspect in custody over the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk after hours of confused statements from officials about the Utah killing.

“This shooting is still an active investigation,” the Utah Department of Public Safety said in a statement, adding it was working with the FBI, the Utah county attorney’s office, the Utah county sheriff’s office and local police departments.

After two suspects were taken in and released, “there is an ongoing investigation and manhunt for the shooter”, the statement said.

Reuters reports the department’s statement as saying the shooting was “believed to be a targeted attack” by a shooter from the roof of a building but that it could not give further details “to protect the integrity of our investigation”.

An officer walks with a police dog after the Utah campus shooting. Photograph: Marielle Scott/EPA

As reported earlier, Utah governor Spencer Cox initially told a press conference that police were interviewing a “person of interest”, while Beau Mason, the Utah Department of Public Safety commissioner, told the same press conference that the perpetrator – suspected of firing a single shot – remained “at large”.

FBI director Kash Patel said an unnamed person had been detained for questioning, then released. “Our investigation continues,” he wrote on social media.

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Here’s footage we’ve just published of the moments leading up to Charlie Kirk’s shooting at the university campus event in Utah.

As reported, he had just been asked a question about mass shooters before an apparent shot rang out and people soon began running for cover.

The footage also has people later describing the chaotic scenes, including a man who says “everyone was just jumping on top of each other, no one was trying to get shot, everyone was just covering each other up, because no one knew if there were going to be more shots fired”.

Warning: some viewers may find this footage distressing.

Charlie Kirk shooting: suspect still at large after rightwing activist shot and killed – video

Australian political leaders have expressed disbelief at what US officials are calling a “political assassination”.

Acting prime minister Richard Marles said his thoughts went out to Charlie Kirk’s family.

“There is absolutely no place for political violence,” he told Australian Broadcasting Corporation television.

That’s the message that we have to take from this … that is not a way in which to resolve arguments and disputes and discussions in society.

Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, said on X that Kirk’s death was “deeply distressing”.

There is no space for political violence in any democracy. My thoughts, and those of all Australians, are with his family and loved ones.

Australian Associated Press quoted the conservative senator James Paterson as echoing Marles’ comments and telling Sky News: “It does seem that there has been an uptick in this sort of violence recently, and that is not a good thing.”

In Australia, the head of Turning Point’s Australian organisation said he was devastated by Charlie Kirk’s death and compared him to a martyred prophet.

“Often, prophets are made most powerful when they’ve been martyred, and I think that’s what’s going to happen with Charlie Kirk,” Joel Jammal told the Australian Associated Press news agency.

I think [the killing] is going to solidify his vision, his movement.

His vision set down the pathway to show how we can breathe our values into politics.

Kirk, 31, co-founded the rightwing youth activist group Turning Point USA in 2012 to promote conservative, anti-woke views among young people.

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A moment of silence on the floor of the US House of Representatives over Charlie Kirk’s killing has turned into a shouting match between Republicans and Democrats.

The commotion began when Republican representative Lauren Boebert rose after the moment of prayer to ask that the House also say a prayer for Kirk, according to multiple lawmakers who were on the floor during the incident, Axios reports.

Democrats then shouted “what about the kids in Colorado”, referring to a school shooting in Colorado that also occurred on Wednesday afternoon. Boebert responded that she was about to reference that tragedy before she was interrupted, the report continues.

Republican representative Anna Paulina Luna, who worked as Kirk’s director of Hispanic engagement at Turning Point USA, then stood up and yelled at Democrats: “You caused this!”

That prompted a raucous Democratic response, with Democratic representative Jahana Hayes, a leader on the gun violence prevention task force, shouting: “Pass some gun laws!”

Footage of the commotion from C-Span can be seen here on Instagram.

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Utah Valley University resisted pressure to bar Charlie Kirk from speaking

Utah Valley University, where conservative activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot on Wednesday, resisted pressure to cancel his appearance despite an online petition written by a student and signed by nearly 1,000 people.

Instead, last week the university, which is the state’s largest public university, released a statement on “Free Expression and Neutrality,” in which the administrators wrote:

At Utah Valley University, we affirm our commitment to free speech, intellectual inquiry, and constructive dialogue. The university respects the rights of student clubs and organizations to invite various speakers to campus. As a public institution, UVU upholds First Amendment rights and fosters an environment where ideas — popular or controversial — can be exchanged freely, energetically, and civilly.

In a statement after the fatal shooting on Wednesday, the university president, Astrid Tuminez wrote that Kirk “was invited by the student group Turning Point USA to speak on our campus”.

Kirk was the founder of the student group that invited him.

“We firmly believe that UVU is a place to share ideas and to debate openly and respectfully,” Tuminez added. “Any attempt to infringe on those rights has no place here. We do not condone any form of violence at UVU and seek to make our campus a safe place for all.”

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In 2023, Charlie Kirk said gun deaths were a cost worth paying for the right the bear arms

The fatal shooting of rightwing activist Charlie Kirk, who was a loud proponent of the second amendment, has reignited the heated political debate over gun control on social media.

Throughout the day, as Kirk’s many fans mourned his death, supporters of gun control have drawn attention to remarks the activist and youth organizer made in 2023, at Turning Point USA Faith event.

“The second amendment is not about hunting. I love hunting. The second amendment is not even about personal defense. That is important. The second amendment is there, God forbid, so that you can defend yourself against a tyrannical government,” Kirk said.

“Having an armed citizenry comes with a price, and that is part of liberty,” Kirk added.

“So we need to be very clear that you’re not going to get gun deaths to zero. It will not happen,” he said.

“You will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won’t have a single gun death. That is nonsense,” he said. “But … I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”

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Trump blames ‘radical left political violence’ for killing of Charlie Kirk, fails to mention killing of Democratic lawmaker in Minnesota

In an Oval Office address delivered before the person who killed the conservative activist Charlie Kirk has even been identified, Donald Trump blamed ‘the radical left’ for the shooting and promised a crackdown.

“For years those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today and it must stop right now,” Trump said.

“My administration will 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, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials and everyone else who brings order to out country.”

He then provided a list of incidents of what he termed “radical left political violence, including the attempt to kill him last year, the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the 2017 shooting of Republican congressman Steve Scalise and what he called “the attacks on Ice agents.”

The president’s list notably did not include violence against Democrats, like the murder of Melissa Hortman, a Minnesota state lawmaker, and her husband, and the shooting of another Democratic state lawmaker and his wife in June, by a man who a hit list of 45 elected officials — all Democrats.

He also chose to omit the attack on former House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, the Trump supporter who sent pipe bombs to leading Democrats, or the threats to the life of his first vice-president, Mike Pence, by pro-Trump rioters who beat police officers on January 6 2021.

Donald Trump assigned blame for the killing of Charlie Kirk, a rightwing activist, to ‘the radical left’, despite the fact that no one yet knows the identity of the killer.
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Republican Nancy Mace rushes to blame Democrats for killing of Charlie Kirk, avoid questions on assassination of Minnesota Democrat

Without waiting for evidence about what motivated the person responsible for the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk, the rightwing activist and founder of a pro-Trump youth group, Republicans in politics and media rushed on Wednesday to place the blame on Democrats.

In Washington, Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace walked up to reporters before Kirk’s death was confirmed and said: “Democrats own what happened today. I am devastated. My kids have called panicking. They, probably all the kids of every conservative in the country called panicking. Just because you speak your mind on an issue doesn’t mean you get shot.”

When the NBC correspondent Ryan Nobles asked, “Then, by that logic, do Republicans own the shooting of the two Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota? Isn’t this on both sides?”, Mace replied: “Are you kidding me?”

“No, I’m asking a serious question”, Nobles said.

“We don’t know what condition Charlie Kirk is in right now. Some raging, leftist lunatic put a bullet through his neck and you want to talk about Republicans right now? No.”

“This is on, the Democrats own this”,” Mace insisted.

On Fox, the host Jesse Watters similarly suggested that political violence was only coming from the left. “We’re going to avenge Charlie’s death,” Watters said.

Connecting the killing of Kirk with the failed assassination attempt on Trump, and the killing of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, Watters said: “They are at war with us! Whether we want to accept it or not, they are at war with us! And what are we gonna do about it? How much political violence are we going to tolerate?”

“This is unacceptable and has to stop, and it has to stop now,” Watters added. “And everybody’s accountable. And we’re watching what they’re saying on television and who’s saying what — the politicians, and the media, and all these rats out there.”

FBI forced out head of Salt Lake City field office last month during purge

As the FBI takes a central role in the investigation of the killing of Charlie Kirk, the rightwing political activist and commentator, the Salt Lake City field office is being led by a newly appointed special agent in charge, Robert Bohls.

That’s because, as MSNBC reported last month, FBI leaders in Washington forced the resignation of a decorated female Pakistani American counterterrorism agent who was appointed in February to run the office.

Mehtab Syed, who led the office from February until the end of July, was one of at least 18 special agents in charge – who run the 53 FBI field offices around the country – to be forced out since the FBI director and diehard Trump loyalist, Kash Patel, took office.

The news channel reported that Syed was told by an aide to Patel that she wasn’t a good fit for the office, according to sources in the bureau. She was offered a lower-level job in the FBI’s Huntsville, Alabama, facility, but decided to retire instead.

Syed was a former head of cyberterrorism and counterterrorism in the Los Angeles field office, a section chief in the counterintelligence section at FBI headquarters, and worked in Pakistan during the US war against al Qaeda, and in Jordan, during the battle to defeat the Islamic State or IS.

Bohls is also an FBI veteran but until this summer, he was section chief of the agency’s cyber operations support section in Washington, according to his yet-to-be-updated LinkedIn account.

According to a federal civil lawsuit filed on Wednesday against Kash Patel, Pam Bondi and the office of the president by Brian Driscoll, the former acting FBI director who was fired last month, agents have been screened for political loyalty to Donald Trump since Patel took office.

The suit alleges that Patel told Driscoll that changes had to be made at the bureau because “the FBI tried to put the president in jail and he hasn’t forgotten it”.

Driscoll also alleges that Patel told him that as long as he “did not donate to the Democratic party, and did not vote for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election”, the vetting that he would be subjected to would not be a problem.

According to Driscoll, when he was interviewed by a White House aide, Paul Ingrassia, for an FBI job in January Ingrassia asked him: “Who did you vote for?”

Driscoll refused to answer the question and told Ingrassia that it was an inappropriate question given the Hatch Act, which bans executive branch employees from engaging in political activity.

Ingrassia, a former rightwing blogger, has been nominated by Trump to lead the office of special counsel, which is responsible for enforcing the Hatch Act.

Driscoll also said that he was asked, and refused to answer: “When did you start supporting President Trump?” and “Have you voted for a Democrat in the last five elections?”

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Utah Valley University has informed students, faculty and staff that its campuses will be closed for the rest of the week, and all classes and campus events will be suspended until next Monday.

The school’s leaders said they are “shocked and saddened by the tragic passing of Charlie Kirk, a guest to our campus” and “grieve with our students, faculty, and staff who bore witness to this unspeakable tragedy”.

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FBI director says ‘subject in custody has been released’ and investigation continues

The person detained for questioning earlier in connection with the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk has now been released, the FBI director, Kash Patel, posted on social media.

“The subject in custody has been released after an interrogation by law enforcement. Our investigation continues and we will continue to release information in interest of transparency,” Patel wrote.

The release of the person, just over 90 minutes after their detention was announced, comes after the FBI special agent in charge in Utah, Robert Bohls, had declined to say that a suspect was in custody at a news conference.

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Three student injured in shooting at Colorado high school near Columbine

Police in Jefferson county, Colorado said three students were shot on Wednesday at Evergreen high school, outside Denver.

According to Jacki Kelley, a police spokesperson, the first call from the school came at 12.24pm local time, which means that the shooting at the high school took place within minutes of the shooting of Charlie Kirk in the neighboring state of Utah.

One of the three students rushed to the hospital by emergency services was believed to be the shooter.

More than 100 police officers from around the Denver area rushed to the school to try to help, Kelley said.

The shooting took place in the same county as a 1999 mass shooting at Jefferson county’s Columbine high school that killed 14 people, including a woman who died earlier this year of complications from injuries sustained in the shooting.

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University police won’t say if gun used to kill Charlie Kirk was recovered

At the recently concluded news conference on the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk, a reporter asked the chief of the Utah Valley University police force, Jeff Long, if the gun used in the killing had been recovered.

Long paused and then said: “Um, I, at this point I can’t disclose that.”

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Utah governor says authorities have ‘person of interest in custody’

The governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, just said at a news conference on the killing of Charlie Kirk that “we have a person of interest in custody, who is being interviewed right now”.

“I want to be very clear that this is a political assassination,” Cox also said, without revealing how he knew the motive of the shooter.

“At this point, there is no information that would lead us to believe that there is a second person involved,” Cox added.

The governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, spoke at a news conference on the killing of Charlie Kirk on Wednesday.

Cox appeared to contradict what Beau Mason, the commissioner of the Utah department of public safety, had said just minutes earlier: “The suspect is at large.”

“The only information we have on the suspect, the possible shooter, is taken from closed circuit TV here on campus,” Mason also said. “We do have that. We’re analyzing it. But it is security camera footage that you can. You can kind of guess what the quality of that is. But we do know dressed in all-dark clothing. But we don’t have much better description other than that.”

Cox also said that the first person to be detained at the scene, George Zinn, was determined not to be the assassin, but has been charged with obstructing justice.

Although the FBI director, Kash Patel, posted earlier that a suspect was in custody, the FBI special agent in charge, Robert Bohls, did not confirm that at the news conference.

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Suspect in fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk ‘now in custody’, says FBI director

“The subject for the horrific shooting today that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody,” FBI director, Kash Patel, just announced in a social media post. “Thank you to the local and state authorities in Utah for your partnership with [FBI]. We will provide updates when able.”

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Arizona’s governor, Katie Hobbs, released this statement on the killing of Charlie Kirk, who lived and worked in the state:

I am deeply saddened by the news of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. I am saddened for Charlie’s family, friends, and Arizonans as they mourn his loss, and I am saddened for our country as our politics have descended into horrific violence. This tragedy is not about who Charlie Kirk supported politically. It is about the devastating loss of a father, a neighbor, and an Arizonan who called this state home, and whose life was cut short by senseless violence. We must stand together in rejecting violence, lowering the temperature of our politics, and recommitting ourselves to the values of civility, respect, and community that American democracy requires.

In May, Kirk told supporters of his political campaign group Turning Point Action that he was endorsing Republican congressman Andy Biggs to run against Hobbs in 2026.

“To secure President Trump’s legacy we need to win in 2028,” Kirk said. “To do that, we need to lock down Arizona, and doing that starts with taking down Katie Hobbs and winning back the governor’s mansion.”

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Open-source investigators study video for signs of the shooter

As the police continue to search for the person who shot Charlie Kirk, online sleuths are studying video taken just before and after the shooting for clues as to the person location and identity.

Law enforcement officials told CNN that they have not yet identified a suspect.

Blake Spendley, a former researcher for the Center for Naval Analyses, who now conducts open-source intelligence (Osint) investigations for Hunterbrook Media, posted a video clip on his popular @OSINTTechnical X account showing what appeared to be a figure on the roof of a building on campus before the shooting.

Newly posted footage shows what appears to be an individual on the roof of the Losee Center at UVU in the moments before Charlie Kirk was shot. pic.twitter.com/6LaIyepVf3

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) September 10, 2025

Spendley also posted a second video clip that appeared to show a person running away across the roof after the shooting.

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