{"id":13792,"date":"2025-09-11T06:50:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T06:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/13792\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T06:50:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T06:50:06","slug":"violence-condemned-after-fatal-shooting-of-trump-ally-charlie-kirk-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/13792\/","title":{"rendered":"Violence condemned after fatal shooting of Trump ally Charlie Kirk \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The killing of the rightwing activist Charlie Kirk<\/a> at a Utah college prompted outrage from Democrats and Republicans over the latest act of political violence in the United States<\/a>, with Donald Trump<\/a> lamenting the loss of a key ally.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie,\u201d the US president posted on his Truth Social platform.<\/p>\n

The president ordered flags to be lowered to half mast to honour Kirk, who was prominent in Trump\u2019s Make America Great Again (Maga) movement.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump, who survived an assassination attempt while campaigning in July 2024, also blamed the violence on the \u201cradical left [who] have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis\u201d in an evening video address. \u201cThis kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we\u2019re seeing in our country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Kirk was shot while speaking<\/a> at a campus event at Utah Valley University in Orem, south of Salt Lake City, on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Who was Charlie Kirk, the right-wing provocateur shot in Utah?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Videos posted to social media from Utah Valley University show Mr Kirk speaking into a handheld microphone while sitting under a white tent emblazoned with the slogans The American Comeback and Prove Me Wrong.<\/p>\n

A single shot rings out and Mr Kirk can be seen reaching up with his right hand as a large volume of blood gushes from the left side of his neck.<\/p>\n

Stunned spectators are heard gasping and screaming before people start to run away.<\/p>\n

Mr Kirk was speaking at a debate hosted by his nonprofit political organisation.<\/p>\n

Immediately before the shooting, Mr Kirk was taking questions from an audience member about mass shootings and gun violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?\u201d the person asked.<\/p>\n

Mr Kirk responded: \u201cToo many.\u201d<\/p>\n

The questioner followed up: \u201cDo you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCounting or not counting gang violence?\u201d Mr Kirk asked.<\/p>\n

Then a single shot rang out.<\/p>\n

The assailant wore dark clothing and fired from a building roof some distance away to the courtyard where the event took place.<\/p>\n

The identity and motives of the shooter are not yet known.<\/p>\n

US authorities still have no suspect in custody after hours of confused statements from officials about the killing. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis shooting is still an active investigation,\u201d the Utah Department of Public Safety said in a statement, adding it was working with the FBI, the Utah county attorney\u2019s office, the Utah county sheriff\u2019s office and local police departments. After two suspects were taken in and released, \u201cthere is an ongoing investigation and manhunt for the shooter\u201d, the statement said.<\/p>\n

Utah Governor Spencer Cox described the death of Mr Kirk as an \u201cassassination\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in touch with President Trump, with FBI director Kash Patel. We are completely aligned with our state and federal partners as we work through this case,\u201d Mr Cox said at a news conference. \u201cI want to be very clear that this is a political assassination.\u201d<\/p>\n

US vice-president JD Vance called Mr Kirk \u201ca genuinely good guy and a young father\u201d and tweeted prayers.<\/p>\n

Secretary of state Marco Rubio said he was \u201cheartbroken and outrages [sic] by the assassination of Charlie Kirk,\u201d calling the 31-year-old \u201can incredible husband and father and a great American\u201d.<\/p>\n

Former vice-president Kamala Harris said she was \u201cdeeply disturbed\u201d by the shooting of Mr Kirk, who organised against her presidential campaign last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me be clear: political violence has no place in America. I condemn this act, and we all must work together to ensure this does not lead to more violence,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe tent where Charlie Kirk was fatally shot while speaking during an event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. Photograph: Kim Raff\/The New York Times<\/p>\n

Congress\u2019s top Republicans and Democrats joined in the condemning the attack. \u201cPolitical violence, which this attack seems to be, has no place in this country \u2013 none,\u201d said John Thune, the Republican Senate majority leader.<\/p>\n

Gabby Giffords, whose time as a congresswoman was cut short when she was grievously injured in a 2011 mass shooting, said: \u201cDemocratic societies will always have political disagreements, but we must never allow America to become a country that confronts those disagreements with violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The House oversight committee took a break from considering more than a dozen bills to change laws in Washington DC as part of Mr Trump\u2019s militarised crackdown on crime in the district to hold a moment of silence in Mr Kirk\u2019s honour.<\/p>\n

\"CharlieCharlie Kirk with Donald Trump at a rally in Tampa, Florida in 2022. Photograph: Todd Anderson\/The New York Times<\/p>\n

Former Democratic president Barack Obama condemned political violence as \u201cdespicable\u201d and said it had \u201cno place in our democracy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy,\u201d he wrote. \u201cMichelle and I will be praying for Charlie\u2019s family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats seen as potential presidential contenders in 2028 also denounced the violence. \u201cThe attack on Charlie Kirk is disgusting, vile, and reprehensible. In the United States of America, we must reject political violence in EVERY form,\u201d said Gavin Newsom, the California governor.<\/p>\n

Some conservatives echoed Mr Trump and were quick to blame liberals for the shooting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Left is the party of murder,\u201d said Elon Musk, the Tesla chief executive who threw the federal government into turmoil earlier this year as chair of Mr Trump\u2019s department of government efficiency initiative.<\/p>\n

Mr Kirk emerged in recent years as one of the most influential young conservatives in the country and established himself as a close ally of Mr Trump. He cofounded Turning Point USA in 2012 and became a fixture on college campuses, where he hosted rallies like the one in Utah that often draw large crowds.<\/p>\n

Even though he was not part of the administration, his influence in the White House was significant. Since the November election, he helped vet prospective appointees, testing their loyalty to Mr Trump. – AP\/Guardian\/Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The killing of the rightwing activist Charlie Kirk at a Utah college prompted outrage from Democrats and Republicans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[969,42,43,40,38,41,39,115],"class_list":{"0":"post-13792","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories","15":"tag-united-states"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}