Trump’s WashingtonHow President Trump is changing government, the country and its politics.Good evening. Tonight, I’m covering one Republican governor’s attempt to stop the nation from fighting over the death of Charlie Kirk. We’ve also got more details on the suspect and a look at why Kirk became so influential with young men. We’ll start with the headlines.
A Republican governor tries to stop the blame game
As President Trump announced on television this morning that the authorities had caught the man believed to be Charlie Kirk’s killer, he was quick to lay the blame for America’s gruesome tally of political violence on his political opponents. “The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime,” he said. “The radicals on the left are the problem, and they’re vicious, and they’re horrible, and they’re politically savvy.” In the days since the open-air assassination of Kirk, a 31-year-old right-wing youth activist whom the president treated like family, an already divided nation has been further cleaved by a fight over who is responsible. Trump has led his supporters in blaming “the radical left” and those who criticized Kirk’s polarizing politics. Into this cauldron of grief and vengeance stepped Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah, another Republican, on Friday morning, pleading for something different. “We can return violence with violence,” Cox said. “We can return hate with hate, and that’s the problem with political violence — is it metastasizes. 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.” It is usually the job of a president to unify the nation in moments of rupture and sorrow. But on Friday, it was Cox who decided to give it a try. “I don’t want to get too preachy,” said Cox, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who has long urged people to tone down political rhetoric, “but I think it’s important that we, with eyes wide-open, understand what is happening in our country today.” Cox made an impassioned plea to de-escalate the politics of revenge that threaten to overtake the moment. His was a full-throated appeal for the practice of forgiveness, urging the country to find a way to lower the political temperature in a deeply fraught moment. “History will dictate if this is a turning point for our country,” Cox continued, “but every single one of us gets to choose right now if this is a turning point for us.” Elsewhere in the nation, of course, the desire for revenge was bubbling away. Online, right-wing activists are encouraging their followers to expose anyone celebrating Kirk’s killing, as my colleagues Alan Feuer, Ken Bensinger and Pooja Salhotra reported this afternoon. Vitriol and fear have intensified on Capitol Hill. A fight broke out at a vigil for Kirk in Idaho, while false reports about campus shooters have proliferated in recent days. One prompted gunfire and injuries at the U.S. Naval Academy. Cox might be fighting a losing battle. He drew on what he said were the words of Kirk himself before asking young people — the group Kirk connected with so easily — to find a way out of the cycle of political violence that some experts warn the assassination could inflame. “He said, ‘Always forgive your enemies, nothing annoys them so much,’” Cox said. Calling social media a “cancer,” he urged people to get offline, “touch grass” and hug a family member. Yet even as Cox called for calm, he shared information that had the potential to further inflame the political anger around Kirk’s killing. Citing investigators’ interview with a family member, the governor said the suspect, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, had recently become “more political.” He said unfired cartridges found alongside the gun believed to have been used to kill Kirk were engraved with messages, including “Hey, fascist! Catch!” As Friday wore on, the fight over Kirk’s death was continuing online. A few hours after Cox spoke, an account on X run by the Republican National Committee wrote in a post that “Charlie Kirk’s shooter used the exact same language that Democrats use every day to describe conservatives.” “We know who radicalized him,” the post said, before linking to examples of Democrats using the word “fascist” to describe Trump or his administration. THE MOMENT
A pause for prayerCharlie Kirk was killed in public, as people filmed videos from seemingly every angle. In the aftermath of his death, graphic images of the assassination feel unavoidable. So in this space, where we try to spend a moment with an image you might not have seen, I’m featuring something very different. This photograph was taken on Thursday by the photographer Adriana Zehbrauskas outside the headquarters of Turning Point USA. It is a simple photograph depicting grief and prayer. Kirk, my colleagues Elizabeth Dias and Ruth Graham wrote this week, is being mourned by many of his Christian supporters as a martyr. Got a tip?
How Charlie Kirk connected with young menCharlie Kirk was 31, closer in age to college students than to most national politicians. He would arrive at colleges ready for rhetorical combat, inspiring some and appalling others. My colleagues Sabrina Tavernise and Alyce McFadden talked with several young men who saw Kirk as their champion. Kirk did not have to attend college — or even believe it was worthwhile — to attract fervent followings on campuses throughout the country. Widely considered liberal bastions, campuses were Kirk’s primary work space, and he arrived with a message of conservatism. He found young people navigating a maelstrom of political and cultural forces that sometimes caused extreme turbulence on university grounds. His clear, if occasionally caustic, answers to the country’s most vexing problems cut through, particularly for young men coming of age at a time of social isolation when lives are increasingly lived online. “It’s kind of scary to say what you believe in, especially in this cancel culture,” said Porter LaFeber, a 22-year-old studying sciences at Utah Valley University who was at an event on Wednesday where Mr. Kirk was killed. “Charlie Kirk seemed like he just went totally above that. He kind of gave a voice to the people that were maybe a little bit scared.” Gabe Saint, 23, president of the University of Wyoming chapter of Turning Point USA, said Kirk understood that “the youth, the young conservatives, are kind of like an animal of their own.” Political establishments on both sides of the aisle had left young people wanting more, he said. Mr. Kirk delivered that. “He just kind of understood that we were struggling,” Mr. Saint said.
What the bullet engravings may meanUnfired cartridges found with the gun that officials say was used to kill Charlie Kirk were engraved with a variety of messages, the authorities said on Friday. My colleague Richard Fausset explains what they mean. Many of the messages, which were described by Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah at Friday morning’s news conference, evoked the flippant, sarcastic, in-jokey chatter often found on online message boards and in-game chats.
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