Some Republicans Say Democrats ‘Own’ Charlie Kirk’s Killing

In the hours after conservative icon Charlie Kirk was shot and killed, some House Republicans and MAGA figures were quick to blame Democrats and left-wing groups for the violence.

Some even called for liberals broadly to be investigated and punished.

On the House floor, an extended and expletive-riddled shouting match broke out between some Democrats and Republicans after a moment of silence was called for Kirk, during which Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, accused Democrats of being responsible for the shooting.

“You fucking caused this!” Luna shouted, according to one lawmaker who was on the House floor.

Following the incident on the floor, House Republicans echoed Luna’s sentiment.

“The Democrat party needs to understand that they’re more than a little culpable in this and in President Trump’s assassination attempts, and they’re being aided and abetted by a left-wing press corps,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin told NOTUS, blaming especially the Democrats who shouted during the fight on the House floor.

“I think if these Democrats keep up with this violent political rhetoric, they should be censured,” he added. “They should be removed from every single one of their committees.”

Shortly after news of Kirk’s shooting broke, Rep. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, told reporters, “Democrats own what happened today.”

Later that evening, President Donald Trump posted a video on Truth Social blaming the “radical Left” for Kirk’s death.

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

Trump said his 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 our country.”

Kirk’s killer has not yet been identified or captured, nor has any suspected motive been revealed by law enforcement. FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X that a person of interest was in custody, but later said that person had been released and the “investigation continues.”

Despite the lack of known motive, some allies of President Donald Trump argued for a broad crackdown of the political left in response, building off of Republicans’ recent claims that Democrats have been fostering violent crime in American cities.

“It’s time for the Trump administration to shut down, defund, & prosecute every single Leftist organization,” Trump ally Laura Loomer posted on X. “We must shut these lunatic leftists down. Once and for all.”

Fellow MAGA loyalist and former Senate candidate Blake Masters posted similarly: “Left-wing violence is out of control, and it’s not random. Either we destroy the NGO/donor patronage network that enables and foments it, or it will destroy us.”

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo called explicitly for government action similar to the FBI’s illegal targeting and harassment of communist and activist groups in the 1960s. “The last time the radical Left orchestrated a wave of violence and terror, J. Edgar Hoover shut it all down within a few years. It is time, within the confines of the law, to infiltrate, disrupt, arrest, and incarcerate all of those who are responsible for this chaos,” he wrote on X.

Elon Musk, in a very brief X post, said the left was “the party of murder.” Katie Miller, the wife of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, wrote, “You have blood on your hands.

Right-wing influencer Andrew Tate posted only two words: “Civil war.”

Political violence has been increasing in the United States over the last several years across the entirety of the political spectrum. There are disturbingly many examples: Trump was targeted twice on the campaign trail in 2024; Minnesota Democrat Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were killed by a shooter in June. The home of Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, was set on fire while he and his family slept inside in April. Paul Pelosi, the husband of Democratic lawmaker and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, was attacked by a man who broke into their San Francisco home in 2022.

Past shooters, even those of important political figures, sometimes have muddled ideologies that do not align clearly with what might be assumed about their motivations. For example, the FBI could not find a “definitive” ideology for the man who tried to assassinate then-presidential-candidate Trump in July 2024.

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin urged people to “resist the temptation just to point fingers.”

“It doesn’t help a very difficult situation for people to be blaming violence like this on political parties or political factions,” he said.

Some left-aligned groups are already prepared to fight a crackdown if it comes.

“Calling for the political investigations or prosecutions of liberals or anyone who opposes the president across the political spectrum, that’s un-American,” Michael Sozan, a senior fellow at the progressive group Center for American Progress, told NOTUS.

“Almost all civil-society organizations, for the past many months, have been keenly aware of the rhetoric that’s being used against them, and the threats that are being made against them and the attempt to neuter them,” Sozan said. “Especially in these really challenging times, civil-society organizations are going to continue to find ways to to retain their strength.”

This article has been updated with comments from President Donald Trump.