White House joins GOP speech policing, citing Kirk

Vice President J.D. Vance hosts the late Charlie Kirk's podcast

'When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out,' said Vance

(Image credit: Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images)

What happened

President Donald Trump and other top White House officials yesterday said they would join a broader Republican push to punish people who cheered or downplayed Charlie Kirk’s murder and target left-leaning groups and nonprofits they alleged supported violent protests against conservatives. “When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out,” Vice President J.D. Vance said on Kirk’s podcast, which he guest-hosted from the White House. “And hell, call their employer.” Dozens of people have been fired over Kirk-related posts.

Who said what

The White House officials offered few names and no evidence that liberal networks were financing or fomenting violence, though Vance accused the Ford Foundation and George Soros-funded Open Society Foundation of funding a “disgusting article” in The Nation that he claimed was used to justify Kirk’s killing. “Neither group appears to have provided money to The Nation in the past five years,” if ever, The Washington Post said, and the motive for Kirk’s slaying “remains unclear.”

Yesterday’s developments “underscore the extraordinary amount of time and resources” the White House has dedicated to advancing Kirk’s legacy and harnessing the “emotions surrounding his killing to potentially suppress dissent,” the Post said. (The Post “fired Karen Attiah, an opinion columnist, for posts” that “quoted Kirk denigrating the intelligence of prominent Black women,” The Associated Press said.)

What next?

The “actions being discussed” by the White House included “reviewing the tax-exempt status of left-leaning nonprofit groups and targeting them with anticorruption laws,” The Wall Street Journal said, though both proposals “face hurdles,” including “being accused of hypocrisy, given Trump has for years railed against government weaponization and what he views as attacks on free speech.”

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.