Vance urges people to go hard against anyone ‘justifying or celebrating’ Charlie Kirk’s killing – live

Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah says she has been fired from the newspaper over social media posts about gun control and race in the aftermath of far right commentator Charlie Kirk’s killing.

Attiah, 39, recounted in a Substack post that she had been dropped as a Post columnist after 11 years for “speaking out against political violence, racial double standards, and America’s apathy toward guns”.

The Post, she wrote, accused “my measured Bluesky posts of being ‘unacceptable, ‘gross misconduct’ and of endangering the physical safety of colleagues – charges without evidence, which I reject completely as false”.

Attiah continued: “They rushed to fire me without even a conversation. This was not only a hasty overreach, but a violation of the very standards of journalistic fairness and rigor the Post claims to uphold.”

The columnist’s job was understood to be in jeopardy after she clashed with Post opinion editor Adam O’Neal, formerly of the Economist and the Wall Street Journal, who has reportedly offered buyouts to writers whose work does not fit with the editorial mix of the newspaper owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos.

The Bezos-owned Amazon contributed $1m to the fund for the inauguration of the second presidency of Donald Trump, for whom Kirk was a close ally. And the Post decided to forego endorsing a candidate in the November election won by Trump, a Republican, after the newspaper’s editorial board had voted to endorse Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.

Rachel Leingang

Earlier, we reported comments made by vice-president JD Vance claiming that “people on the left are much likelier to defend and celebrate political violence”.

“The data is clear,” Vance said, hosting an edition of the Charlie Kirk Show. “This is not a both-sides problem. If both sides have a problem, one side has a much bigger and malignant problem, and that is the truth.”

The poll Vance is citing actually notes that it is far more common on both sides to be unsupportive of violence. YouGov’s polling shows that Americans overall are far more likely to say it’s always or usually unacceptable to be happy about the death of a public figure they oppose, than they are to say this is acceptable (77% v 8%).

The poll also found that liberal Americans were more likely than conservatives to defend feeling joy about the deaths of political opponents – 16% of liberals say this is usually or always acceptable, including 24% of those who say their ideology is very liberal and 10% who say they are liberal but not very liberal. That compares with 4% of conservatives and 7% of moderates.

But even among the very liberal, the share who say it’s unacceptable to feel joy about the deaths of political opponents outnumbers those who say it’s acceptable by a ratio of more than two to one (56% v 24%).

Younger Americans are also about twice as likely as older Americans to defend feeling joy at political opponents’ deaths, but even among this group most people say this is unacceptable.

But there is evidence of a rise in support for violence to achieve political goals on both sides, support for violence and actually committing violence are two different things. And the ideology of those who do commit violence don’t right-left align neatly at all.

Robert Pape, who directs the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, which studies terrorism and conflict, noted in a recent piece in the New York Times that his research has found rising support among both left- and right-leaning Americans for the “use of force” to achieve political means.

The May survey was “the most worrisome yet”, he wrote. “About 40 percent of Democrats supported the use of force to remove Mr. Trump from the presidency, and about 25 percent of Republicans supported the use of the military to stop protests against Mr. Trump’s agenda. These numbers more than doubled since last fall, when we asked similar questions.”

If you zoom out over time, political violence is more commonly done by the far-right, said Luke Baumgartner, a research fellow at George Washington University’s program on extremism. But today’s violent actors are “much more ideologically diffuse, and they don’t strictly adhere to a single ideology”.

“People don’t start their journey as a violent extremist expert on a given ideology,” Braniff said. “There are underlying risk factors in their lives. Those risk factors go unaddressed … Ideology is often a lagging indicator for someone who’s gravitating towards violence.”

Trump ‘making the world a more dangerous place’, say top Democrats

Chris Stein

The top Democrats on three key House committees accused Donald Trump of “making the world a more dangerous place” through his policies towards adversaries like Russia and Venezuela, as well as his handling of domestic unrest.

Jim Himes, the ranking member of the House intelligence committee, along with his counterparts Adam Smith of the armed services committee and Greg Meeks of the foreign affairs committee, said:

From literally rolling out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin during his disastrous summit, to enacting steep tariffs against allies and partners, and driving India and other countries into the waiting arms of Russia, China, and North Korea, he is weakening America, not making it stronger.

The president “is undermining our national security and making the world a more dangerous place”, the trio wrote. In addition to Trump’s outreach to Putin, they cited his decision to send national guard troops onto the streets of Los Angeles and Washington DC, his deadly strike on a boat alleged to be transporting drugs off the coast of Venezuela and his order to rechristen the Department of Defense into the Department of War.

“Trump’s brazen disregard for the law and our coequal branches of government along with his bumbling attempts to exert strength by lashing out at those he views as insufficiently loyal at home and abroad have allowed existing conflicts around the world to worsen and new conflicts to arise,” they wrote.

We stand for returning the United States to a place that supports our international partners and allies, rejects autocratic and authoritarian regimes, respects the rule of law and the separation of powers at home, and prioritizes the prosperity and security of all Americans, not the ego of a fragile and weak President.

Robert Tait

The Rev William Barber, a left-leaning social activist, has condemned last week’s murder of Charlie Kirk and also called for a more general denunciation of political violence and “public violence” arising from policy choices.

His comments came during an online event commemorating the 62nd anniversary of one of the most notorious acts of political violence of the 1960s, the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Street church in Birmingham, Alabama on 15 September 1963 by members of the Ku Klux Klan, which killed four Black school girls.

“This past week, there was a brutal, ugly on-camera assassination of brother Charlie Kirk and we must all despise it,” said Barber. He went on:

Despise that it left him dead, his wife heartbroken without a husband, and his children without a father. All of us should be bothered. I know about what it means to have folk say they want to kill you or assassinate you. All of us should denounce it and pray for the family and stand against this viciousness and violence of his murder.

But if you didn’t get bothered by the political death that’s happening in this country, the political violence and the public violence, until the other day, his must be challenged too, according to our deepest faith tradition.

Because the Prophet says our trouble is rooted in policy violence. We must cry out against the 800 people that are dying every day from poverty and low wealth. You can’t ignore that.

Barber, founding director of Yale Divinity School’s centre for public theology, has led a series of Moral Monday organized by Repairers of the Breach, a group committed to social justice.

‘Call them out, call their employer’: Vance urges people to go hard against anyone ‘justifying or celebrating’ Kirk’s killing

Rachel Leingang

To close out as guest host of Charlie Kirk’s podcast, JD Vance went hard against what he called the far left and an increased tolerance for violence on it, saying the administration would be working to dismantle those who celebrate Kirk’s death and political violence against their opponents.

Vance said that after he left Kirk’s family in Arizona, he read a story in the Nation, a leftwing publication, where the author detailed Kirk’s views and, he said, took a quote about a supreme court justice out of context to imply it applied to all Black women.

The magazine was not a “fringe blog” but a “well-funded, well-respected magazine whose publishing history goes back to the American civil war. George Soros’s Open Society Foundation funds this magazine, as does the Ford Foundation and many other wealthy titans of the American progressive movement,” Vance said, hinting at the organizations the administration might target in the aftermath of Kirk’s murder. Vance later mentioned that the foundations that helped fund the magazine are tax-exempt, a sign that the government could go after that status.

“Charlie was gunned down in broad daylight, and well-funded institutions of the left lied about what he said so as to justify his murder,” Vance claimed. “This is soulless and evil, but I was struck not just by the dishonesty of the smear, but by the glee over a young husband’s and young father’s death.”

Vance said Erica Kirk asked his wife, Usha, for advice on how to tell her children that their father had been murdered on the vice-president’s visit to escort Kirk’s remains back to Arizona. As she was asking for that advice, Vance said, “there were people dancing on that father’s grave”.

While Vance said he “desperately” wants national unity and appreciated the many condolences he received from Democratic friends and colleagues, he said there is no unity without confronting the truth. “The data is clear, people on the left are much likelier to defend and celebrate political violence,” he said. “This is not a both-sides problem. If both sides have a problem, one side has a much bigger and malignant problem, and that is the truth.”

He acknowledged that political movements are like pyramids, made up of activists, influencers, politicians and organizations, and most of the members of those groups would not commit murder. But, he said, many are creating an environment where these acts of violence are more likely. He said that during a visit earlier this year to Disneyland with his family, people shouted at his kids and told them to disown their father.

“Are these women violent? Probably not. Are they deranged? Certainly,” Vance said. “And while 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.”

He said the nation can only get to a point of unity with “people who acknowledge that political violence is unacceptable and when we work to dismantle the institutions that promote violence and terrorism in our own country”. The Trump administration would be working to do that in the coming months and will “explore every option to bring real unity to our country and stop those who would kill their fellow Americans because they don’t like what they say”, he said.

“When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out. Hell, call their employer. We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility, and there is no civility in the celebration of political assassination,” Vance said.

Maurene Comey, a former federal prosecutor who brought criminal cases against Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell and music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, sued the Trump administration on Monday over her abrupt July firing.

Comey, the eldest daughter of former FBI director and longtime Trump adversary James Comey, said in a lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court against the justice department and the executive office of the President that she was not provided any cause for her removal.

“Defendants fired Ms Comey solely or substantially because her father is former FBI Director James B Comey,” Maurene Comey’s lawyers wrote in the lawsuit. A justice department spokesperson declined to comment.

Reuters notes that Comey’s lawsuit could test the administration’s ability to swiftly fire line prosecutors, as the president’s critics warn that he is seeking to politicize the DoJ. The department has been firing prosecutors who have worked on cases involving Trump or his political allies.

Trump fired James Comey during his first term and has attacked the former FBI director for his role in investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, which Trump won.

Line prosecutors like Maurene Comey are not politically appointed, and their careers with the DoJ frequently span both Republican and Democratic administrations. Comey is asking a judge to reinstate her in her former role as a prosecutor with the Manhattan US attorney’s office, where she worked for 10 years.

On 16 July, just two weeks after the verdict in Combs’s two-month trial, Comey said she received an email from the justice department’s human resources director informing her she had been terminated. The email did not provide a reason for her firing, but cited article II of the US constitution which lays out the president’s powers, her lawsuit said.

Comey said she then asked Manhattan US attorney Jay Clayton – Trump’s pick for the role – why she was fired. “All I can say is it came from Washington,” Clayton said, according to Comey’s lawsuit.

A spokesperson for the Manhattan US attorney’s office declined to comment.

Rachel Leingang

More high-profile Trumpworld guests are joining JD Vance as he guest-hosts a two-hour podcast in Charlie Kirk’s stead.

Robert F Kennedy Jr said Kirk was a “spiritual soulmate” to him after Kirk invited him on his show in 2021 to speak freely about vaccines. Kennedy endorsed Trump at a Turning Point rally in Arizona amid fireworks and sparklers on stage, which was “Charlie’s orchestration”. Kirk helped shepherd him into his role as health secretary, Kennedy said, and also helped his daughter-in-law get a role in the administration.

Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, praised Kirk and Turning Point for delivering Trump to the White House and for not joining calls during the election to oust Wiles from the Trump campaign.

Wiles said Kirk advocated for bringing in different political factions in key administration roles to expand the Maga movement. Those groups became Trump voters, she said, but now the Trump team had three and a half years to “coach voters to being Republicans so that in 2028 we can take the White House, the House and the Senate”.

Vance put it plainly: “If it weren’t for Charlie Kirk, I would not be the vice-president of the United States.” Kirk was perhaps the “most important person” in getting the Trump campaign over the finish line and getting Vance on the ticket, other than the president himself, he said.

Vance said he was not sure how Kirk’s role in the movement gets filled. Turning Point’s infrastructure on college campuses and in the conservative youth movement is strong, he said, but Kirk was “genuinely irreplaceable” as a talent. “How do you find a person who goes into these places, who takes very difficult questions, sometimes very hostile questions, and to your point, is actually engaging with them?”

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed Donald Trump last Tuesday morning that Israel planned to attack Hamas leaders in Qatar shortly before last week’s strike occurred, Axios is reporting, citing three Israeli officials with direct knowledge.

The White House has repeatedly said it was notified that morning by the US military and only after missiles were in the air, giving Trump no opportunity to oppose the strike – but the White House knew earlier, even if the timeline to stop it would have been tight, seven Israeli officials have told Axios.

Rachel Leingang

Tucker Carlson and JD Vance are talking about how Charlie Kirk would often work to keep the right wing aligned despite ideological disagreements, most recently over foreign policy decisions in Israel and Iran.

Carlson said he would often use “ugly language” himself to describe these disagreements privately, which Kirk would never participate in. “He just never forgot there was a person behind those views and that inspired me, and God commands that of us,” Carlson said.

Vance shared how Kirk would express his disagreements with the Trump administration on immigration and foreign policy. Kirk wanted to see more deportations and was questioning the administration earlier in the year on why the numbers weren’t higher. Now, Vance said, Trump has ramped up deportations. “Part of that success comes from people like Charlie applying pressure,” Vance said. “Pressure is a friend, pressure is somebody who cares deeply about the issue.”

Carlson said Kirk faced pressure from Turning Point donors over his foreign policy positions but did not relent despite “enormous pressure”.

On foreign policy, Kirk reached out to Vance in advance of Iran strikes this summer, saying he was concerned about the US getting involved in a regime change war in the Middle East again. In those intra-party disagreements, Vance said, Kirk showed how to disagree on the issue but not lose the broader political alignment.

“That’s something I’m going to try to take from Charlie’s legacy is not that we’re always right, not that we can’t take criticism, but that we all should try to work together,” Vance said.

Rachel Leingang

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told JD Vance on the Charlie Kirk Show that Kirk’s strategies inform how she approaches her job. As a college student, she had inquired about starting a Turning Point USA chapter on her campus, she said.

Vance asked Leavitt how critical Kirk was to Trump’s victory, adding that Kirk would always tell Vance not to worry about Arizona going for Trump because Turning Point had the ground game solidified there.

Leavitt said that Trump winning over more young Americans was “in no small part because of the efforts of Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA” because Kirk could relay the president’s messages to young people on social media, on college campuses and through his podcast.

“The president loved Charlie deeply. You know that, Mr Vice-President, and I know that, and I know he deeply is hurt by this loss, because Charlie played an instrumental role in returning the president to the Oval Office,” she said.

Secretary of state Marco Rubio doubled down today on the administration’s pledge to deny and revoke visas from anyone perceived to be celebrating the killing of Charlie Kirk.

“We should not be giving visas to people who are going to come to the United States and do things like celebrate the murder, the execution, the assassination of a political figure,” he said in an interview with Fox News today.

“And if they’re already here, we should be revoking their visa. Why would we want to bring people into our country they’re going to engage in negative and destructive behavior?”

CNN notes that “the state department has not responded to questions on whether any visas have actually been revoked or how many officials are working on this initiative. It is unclear under what legal authorities the state department would revoke the visas. The agency has said free speech is a priority.”

It follows Rubio’s deputy, Christopher Landau, announcing on X last week that “foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country” and said he had directed consular officials to “undertake appropriate action” against those deemed to be “praising, rationalizing, or making light of” Kirk’s death on social media.

Landau also invited X users to bring such cases to his attention in the comments of his post, which he said would be monitored by consular officials.

Miller again vows to ‘dismantle and destroy’ what he calls ‘domestic terror movement’ in wake of Kirk’s death

Rachel Leingang

Vance is now talking with Miller about “about all of the ways that we’re trying to figure out how to prevent this festering violence that you see on the far left from becoming even more and more mainstream”.

First, Miller shared how Charlie Kirk was ever-present after Trump won last November. Kirk was in the campaign or transition office daily, getting into the weeds of policy ideas, Miller said.

He was so excited about all of us being here, and we would be talking about every executive order, every new regulation, every new policy plan.

Since Kirk’s killing, Miller said he had been feeling “incredible sadness, but there’s incredible anger” and will be focusing his “righteous anger” toward the “organized campaign that led to this assassination, to uproot and dismantle these terrorist networks”.

Detailing what he believes is a “vast domestic terror movement”, Miller mentioned “organized doxing campaigns, the organized riots, the organized street violence, the organized campaigns of dehumanization, vilification, posting people’s addresses, combining that with messaging designed to trigger, incite violence, and the actual organized cells that carry out and facilitate the violence”.

“With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks,” Miller said, adding that they would do this “in Charlie’s name”.

Rachel Leingang

JD Vance said in the days since Charlie Kirk’s killing, he has received messages from people who Kirk spoke to in the lead-up to Vance being selected as vice-president advocating for Vance.

Vance shared how he flew to Utah to take Kirk’s remains back to Arizona, saying he was welcomed into the Kirk inner circle during this time of grief. He said Erica Kirk, Kirk’s wife, told him how Kirk never raised his voice or was cross with her.

“I took for that moment that I needed to be a better husband and I needed to be a better father,” Vance said, saying it was the way he would honor his friend. But he would also, he said, honor his friend by carrying forward his political work, something Erica Kirk stressed the importance of. And that includes dismantling the “incredibly destructive movement of left wing extremism,” Vance said.

Vance: ‘Charlie was the smartest political operator I’ve ever met’

Rachel Leingang

Vice-president JD Vance is hosting the late Charlie Kirk’s podcast today, telling people to “join me as I pay tribute to my friend”.

The show started with a montage of Kirk speaking at Turning Point USA events and Trump rallies, on college campuses and with his family. “Dear Charlie, Thank you,” the broadcast, livestreaming on Rumble, said.

Vance is hosting the show live from his office in the White House complex, he said at the top of the show.

“Every single person in this building, we owe something to Charlie,” Vance said, noting that Kirk was a critical part of getting Vance the VP role and Trump elected to the White House. “Charlie was the smartest political operator I’ve ever met.”

Vice-president JD Vance announced on X that he will host today’s episode of the Charlie Kirk Show.

“Please join me as I pay tribute to my friend,” Vance wrote. The vice-president last week brought Kirk’s casket to Phoenix on Air Force Two.

The episode is set to be posted at noon ET.

The Chinese government will review and approve matters related to TikTok’s technology exports and the licensing of intellectual property rights in accordance with law, an official from China’s cyberspace regulator told Reuters in Madrid after trade talks with the US delegation.

China will not reach a deal with the US at the expense of its own principles and Chinese companies’ interests, said the country’s top trade negotiator, Li Chenggang.

The two sides had reached a basic framework consensus on resolving issues related to TikTok through cooperation, Li said.