Conservative leader Charlie Kirk shot dead in Utah
Trump adviser and hard right activist shot during college campus tour
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Top conservative leader and Trump adviser Charlie Kirk died Wednesday after being shot at Utah Valley University.
President Donald Trump announced Kirk’s death on his social media platform and offered prayers for his family.
Kirk, the president of Turning Point USA, a juggernaut of a conservative organization dedicated to enlisting young voters into the American right, was speaking at the Utah college Wednesday when he was shot in the neck.
The announcement of Kirk’s death rocked the political world Wednesday. As online partisans pointed fingers at each other with no evidence, most elected leaders called for a quelling of shooting as a means for political change.
“Political violence has become all too common in American society, and this is not who we are. It violates the core principles of our country, our Judeo Christian heritage, our civil society, our American way of life, and it must stop,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, told reporters Wednesday.
Political violence has rocked the U.S. for years now, knowing no partisan boundaries, from the assassination of a top Minnesota Democratic lawmaker and her husband by an anti-abortion activist earlier this year and the attempted assassination of Trump last summer in Butler, Pennsylvania to the January 6th attack on the Capitol five years ago and a shooting by a supporter of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders at a Congressional baseball practice in 2017.
Former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who miraculously survived an assassination attempt in 2011 then became an ardent gun control advocate, said Kirk’s “murder breaks my heart. My deepest sympathies are with his wife, two young children, and friends.”
“Democratic societies will always have political disagreements, but we must never allow America to become a country that confronts those disagreements with violence,” Giffords said. “Attacks against political or ideological opponents are cowardly and un-American, and must be universally condemned.”
It was unclear early Wednesday evening if a suspect had been apprehended, amid conflicting reports.
*** This story will be updated.
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My wife was following this on TV. I've been at the computer. Her thought is that since the murderer got away, that this was all part of a plan to silence Kirk. He is a potent influencer on the right, and he is a large proponent of releasing the Epstein files, and evidently not such a fan of Trump's, hard right yes, but Trump cultist no. He could have swung the right against Trump.
Charlie’s death is not only tragic for America 🇺🇸, it is 10,000 times more so for his family and those who knew him and loved him.
That being said — and this IS NOT a knock on law enforcement — Charlie’s assassin has long disappeared into the ether, his rental car returned to the airport, and he has flown either to his home, or next assignment.
REMEMBER THIS, BOYS AND GIRLS: This was a contracted termination; a professional ‘hit’, as was taken out earlier this year on Minnesota’s former House Speaker and her husband.
The DOJ (Feds) are running point in this case, as Governor Timpon (Walz) can’t tie his shoes without tripping on them.
Sadly — without a miracle — Charlie’s killer will forever go uncaptured, because a professional assassin whose sole motives are financial, and people are just targets of opportunity to them…