White House joins GOP speech policing, citing Kirk
Yesterday’s developments ‘underscore the extraordinary amount of time and resources’ the White House has dedicated to advancing Kirk’s legacy
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.”
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
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.
-
Trump’s huge ballroom to replace razed East WingSpeed Read The White House’s east wing is being torn down amid ballroom construction
-
‘The trickle of shutdowns could soon become a flood’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Trump begins East Wing demolition for ballroomspeed read The president’s new construction will cost $250 million
-
The GOP: Merging flag and crossFeature Donald Trump has launched a task force to pursue “anti-Christian policies”
-
Trump declares ‘armed conflict’ with drug cartelsspeed read This provides a legal justification for recent lethal military strikes on three alleged drug trafficking boats
-
Cancel culture: Now coming from the RightFeature Conservatives are encouraging the firing of hundreds of Americans over their negative opinions on Charlie Kirk
-
Trump vows vengeance against the LeftFeature The Trump administration cracks down on ‘hate speech’ from the Left after the murder of Charlie Kirk
-
What does Trump designating antifa a terror organization let him do?Today’s Big Question Concerns about ‘broad First Amendment violations’



