Charlie Kirk’s widow vows to uphold his legacy as debate rages over suspect Tyler Robinson’s motive: Live updates

“We got him,” Cox said at a news conference to announce the arrest of Robinson who was taken into custody Thursday on suspicion of capital murder, weapons and obstruction offenses.

Here’s everything we know…

Calls to get people fired have flooded X. A newly registered site, “Expose Charlie’s Murderers,” lists 41 names of individuals it claims were “supporting political violence online” and says it is working on a backlog of over 20,000 submissions.

A Reuters review of the screenshots and comments posted on the site shows that some of those featured joked about or celebrated Kirk’s death. One was quoted as saying, “He got what he deserved,” and others were quoted offering variations on “karma’s a bitch.”

Others, however, criticized the far-right figure while explicitly condemning violence.

Still, more seem to have done little more than point out that a longtime gun control opponent was shot to death. At least three accurately quoted Kirk’s 2023 comments, in which he told a crowd that some gun deaths were “worth it,” saying that the annual cycle of firearm-related killings in the United States was “a prudent deal” in exchange for the Constitution’s Second Amendment.

One person featured on the site said their employer has been overwhelmed with phone calls, with callers threatening not to stop until they are fired or disciplined. The person said they plan to avoid the office in the coming days.

To be very, very clear, I don’t condone the murder of Charlie Kirk,” the person told Reuters in a phone call, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid further harassment. “But I do, at the same time, have to appreciate the irony of this situation,” they said, referring to Kirk being shot in the neck with a rifle after years of outspoken opposition to gun control.

Reuters could not determine who manages the website. The site did not respond to inquiries about its ownership, methodology, or why quoting Kirk accurately might be considered “supporting political violence.”

Squarespace, the site’s host, did not reply to messages from the news agency seeking comment.

Jay Childers, an associate professor of communications at Kansas University, said there has been a long history of government officials and political elites trying to control rhetoric and suppress dissent.

“I do not think this moment is really new in that sense,” he said, although he noted that “the ability for anyone to post their thoughts on the internet certainly makes far more people potential targets of any attempts to control political speech.”

With reporting from Reuters

“This is not good for us, it is not good for us to consume,” he said. “I would encourage people to log off. Turn off. Touch grass. Hug a family member. Go out and do good in your community.”

Cox’s delivery immediately received praise from Democrats.

President Donald Trump’s heated reaction to the assassination of Charlie Kirk has provided a stark contrast with the way his predecessors have tended to deal with moments of crisis through American history.

But following the fatal shooting of Kirk, a 31-year-old Republican activist who was close with the president and his family, Trump used his social media to post a video blaming “the radical left” for the assassination and ”the media” for creating a tense political environment.

President Donald Trump said Friday that in response to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, he would like to see “revenge” manifested at the ballot box.

The president went on the Fox & Friends morning show, where he broke the news that law enforcement officials had detained a person suspected of killing Kirk at a speaking engagement at Utah Valley University in Orem.

Eric Garcia reports on the president’s remarks.

Others have faced torrents of online abuse or seen their offices flooded with calls demanding their firing, part of a surge in right-wing rage following the killing.

Some Republicans want to go further and have proposed deporting Kirk’s critics from the United States, suing them into poverty, or banning them from social media for life.

“Prepare to have your whole future professional aspirations ruined if you are sick enough to celebrate his death,” said conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, a prominent ally of President Donald Trump, and one of several far-right figures organizing digital campaigns on X, to identify and publicly shame Kirk’s critics.

Louisiana Rep. Clay Higgins posted on X that anyone who “ran their mouth with their smartass hatred celebrating the heinous murder of that beautiful young man” needed to be “banned from ALL PLATFORMS FOREVER.”

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said on X that he was disgusted to “see some on social media praising, rationalizing, or making light of the event, and have directed our consular officials to undertake appropriate action.”

Republicans’ anger at those disrespecting Kirk’s legacy contrasts with the mockery some of the same figures— including Kirk – directed at past victims of political violence.

For example, when former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, was attacked with a hammer by a conspiracy theorist during a break-in at their San Francisco home shortly before the 2022 midterm elections, Higgins posted a photo mocking the attack. He later deleted the post.

Loomer falsely suggested that Paul Pelosi and his attacker were lovers, calling the brutal assault on the octogenarian a “booty call gone wrong.” Speaking to a television audience a few days after the attack, a grinning Kirk called for the intruder to be released from jail.

“If some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area wants to really be a midterm hero, someone should go and bail this guy out,” he said.

Speaking on CBS Mornings on Saturday, Josh Stein, Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, observed: “You cannot cherry-pick which incidents of violence you’re going to condemn.. We have to condemn all political violence. Violence against one particular politician, no matter their party, makes us all less safe.”

With reporting from Reuters

The last person to talk to conservative activist Charlie Kirk before he was shot dead by a sniper on a Utah university campus has broken his silence by posting a video to social media giving his version of events and expressing his shock.

“I don’t know how to make this video, it’s been a rough 24 hours,” Hunter Kozak, 29, a mathematics student at Utah Valley University, says in the video first posted to Instagram.

Joe Sommerlad has the story.

Josh Marcus has the story.

FBI Director Kash Patel’s bizarre parting words to the late Charlie Kirk after saying a suspect had been caught, 33 hours after his assassination, could threaten the prosecution of Kirk’s alleged killer, a former prosecutor said Saturday.

Patel said he would see Kirk in the utopian realm from Norse mythology, likened to a heaven for warriors.

“To my friend Charlie Kirk, rest now, brother, we have the watch, and I’ll see you in Valhalla,” the FBI director said.

Patel’s comments sparked widespread confusion and mockery online, largely due to the use of Norse mythology, given that Patel is Hindu and Kirk is an evangelical Christian.

On the legal side, however, Patel’s comments could raise questions in court about whether the FBI’s investigation was compromised or at least affected by impartiality, Robert James, former district attorney for DeKalb County in Georgia, warned during an appearance on CNN Saturday.

“You have to be careful when you’re running an investigation as a law enforcement officer,” he said.

“Impartiality is very important when you’re looking at facts and determining who did what, what the motivation was, and that sort of thing. So you never want to put yourself in a position where lawyers get involved and then you open yourself up to cross-examination in a courtroom about your perception or perspective, and it happens in high-profile homicide cases all the time.”

James further warned: “For instance, I’ve prosecuted cases where police officers were killed, and the same police department investigated those cases and it’s always a question when the officers are on the stand, whether or not their opinions are slanted or motivated by the grief or anger of what happened, and so it’s the same type of scenario here, so you have to be careful.”

Alfonso Serrano, a politics editor at The Conversation, spoke with University of Massachusetts Lowell scholar Arie Perliger after Kirk’s shooting. Perliger studies political violence and assassinations and spoke bluntly about political polarization in the United States.