Seizing on Kirk Killing, Trump and Allies Pledge a Crackdown on Political Opponents 

President Donald Trump and leading figures on the far-right are calling for a crackdown on their political opponents in response to the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Trump issued a broad call to go after “organizations that fund … and support” political violence, while a top MAGA leader called for the administration to “prosecute every single leftist organization.”

Kirk, 31, was fatally shot Wednesday while speaking at a college in Utah. The ghastly act of political violence has been widely condemned by elected officials across the political spectrum.

The calls for revenge against the political left came before authorities had a suspect in custody. FBI officials said Thursday morning they have identified, but have yet to apprehend, a subject but did recover a rifle that they believe was used in the shooting.

The extreme rhetoric has raised fears that Trump and his allies will use Kirk’s killing as a pretext to attack their political opponents, suppress liberal political activity and suspend democratic rights.

Among the calls, prominent voices on the MAGA right have demanded vengeance in the form suspending left-leaning political organizations, sending the military to Democratic cities and additional violence.

Trump, in a taped address from the Oval Office Wednesday night, blamed “the radical left” for Kirk’s murder and terrorism — a term he routinely uses to refer to his political rivals.

“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’re seeing in our country.”

The president went further, vowing to investigate undefined “organizations” as a reaction to Kirk’s murder.

“My 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,” he said. 

“Radical-left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives,” the president added.

Trump connected Kirk’s murder with other instances of political violence against high-profile conservatives, including the assassination attempt against him in Butler, Pennsylvania, during the 2024 election campaign.

Trump did not mention recent political violence against Democrats, including the June killing of Melissa Hortman, the former Democratic speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives. 

Trump’s commitment to investigate “organizations” echoed claims made by Christopher Rufo, a prominent conservative activist who has close ties to the Trump White House.

“The last time the radical Left orchestrated a wave of violence and terror, J. Edgar Hoover shut it all down within a few years,” Rufo said. “It is time, within the confines of the law, to infiltrate, disrupt, arrest, and incarcerate all of those who are responsible for this chaos.”

Elon Musk, a former Trump administration official and one of the richest people in the world, claimed on his social media platform that “the Left is the party of murder.”

In a separate post, Musk advocated for violence. 

“If they won’t leave us in peace, then our choice is fight or die,” Musk said without specifying who “they” were.

Laura Loomer, a far-right conspiracy theorist with significant though ill-defined power within the White House, said the Trump administration must “prosecute every single leftist organization” in response to Kirk’s killing.

“We must shut these lunatic leftists down. Once and for all,” Loomer claimed. “The Left is a national security threat.”

And the far-right influencer Mike Cernovich called on Congress to probe “every billionaire funding left extremism.”

The rhetoric surrounding Kirk’s death comes as senior White House officials are increasingly associating their opponents with domestic terrorism.

“The Democrat Party is not a political party. It is a domestic extremist organization,” Stephen Miller, Trump’s homeland security advisor, said in a recent Fox News interview unrelated to Kirk’s death. 

Kirk’s killing, Miller claimed in a social media post, was the result of an unspecified “ideology” that’s “at war with family and nature” and must be defeated. 

“There is an ideology that has steadily been growing in this country which hates everything that is good, righteous and beautiful and celebrates everything that is warped, twisted and depraved,” Miller said. 

“The fate of millions depends upon the defeat of this wicked ideology. The fate of our children, our society, our civilization hinges on it,” he added.