Tamara Keith of NPR examines President Trump’s response to the assassination of Charlie Kirk as well as his reaction to a political shooting of 2017 and at other times of political violence.
Scott Detrow, host:
We are going to take a few minutes now to see how President Trump has managed all of this. At difficult times for the nation, it is often the role of the president to give meaning, resolution and calm. Consider George W. Bush in the immediate wake of September 11 as a recent example. This week, in the hours immediately after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, President Trump adopted a different approach. He blamed his political opponents.
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President Donald Trump: radical political violence has injured too many innocent people and took too many lives.
Detrow: Trump said his administration would come for people and organizations that contribute to political violence. The main correspondent for the White House NPR, Tamara Keith, joins us now. Hey, tam.
Tamara Keith, Byline: Hi, Scott.
Detrow: You have covered Trump for a long time. It is unfortunately far from the first violent political act to which he had to respond as president. So how does its manipulation here compare to other times?
Keith: Trump and his family members were close enough to Charlie Kirk, so this attack was personal for Trump. And his response was immediately partisan. Compare this to what happened after the shooting in a practice of the Congress Baseball team in 2017. In this case, republican legislators were targeted by a man who had been a supporter of Bernie Sanders. But in a written address, Trump adopted a very traditional approach and said that the nation was the strongest when we are unified.
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Trump: We can have our differences, but we do well in times like these to remember that all those who serve in the capital of our country are there because, above all, they love our country.
Detrow: And, Tam, we have to talk about a big factor here – the president himself was shot dead last summer during this gathering in Butler, Pennsylvania. Remind us of his rhetoric after this attempted assassination against him.
Keith: Yes, it was interesting because many of his supporters were very quick to blame the left rhetoric, but Trump was more selected. And in this case, the ideology of the shooter, who has been killed by the police, is, to date, still quite clear. His list of potential targets included Democrats and Republicans.
Detrow: As we have said, unfortunately, many examples to choose, but I want to ask questions about a recent example that many people have mentioned this week, and it was the targeted attacks against the Democrats of Minnesota last summer who killed the former speaker of the Melissa Hortman Chamber. How did Trump respond this summer after these shots?
Keith: Hortman and her husband were murdered. Another democratic legislator was seriously injured. It was a targeted attack. Trump posted on the attack on social networks, saying that such horrible violence will not be tolerated in the United States of America. But he did not enter the partisan nature of targeting, and he has not really mentioned it since.
Detrow: I mean, is it fair to say that it minimizes it when violence comes from the political right?
Keith: Yes, let me give you another example. In 2018, a supporter of Trump who sent explosives to the Democrats and also CNN was placed in police custody. President Trump responded by praising the police and criticizing the media for mentioning the political affiliation of the suspect. He said that the media used an individual’s sinister actions to score political points against him and the Republicans.
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Trump: However, when a supporter of Bernie Sanders tried to kill the Republicans of the Congress and seriously injured a big man named Steve Scalie, and others, we did not use this attempted murder of mass for a political gain because it would have been false.
Keith: So, in 2018, he said that a supporting response to a terrible crime would be wrong. But in this case, with the murder of Charlie Kirk, Trump firmly sticks to his point of view that democrats and hard rhetoric on the left are to be blamed.
Detow: You say quite firmly. Is it fair to say that he has not softened his rhetoric since the alleged aggressor was placed in police custody?
Keith: right. He was on Fox & Friends yesterday, and Ainsley Earhardt gave him the opportunity to offer a unifying message.
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Ainsley Earhardt: How do we distribute this country? How can we get back together?
Trump: Well, I’m going to tell you something that will cause me trouble, but I don’t care. Radicals on law are often radical because they do not want to see the crime. They don’t want to see the crime.
Keith: So take this, then compare him to the way he describes the other side.
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Trump: Left radicals are the problem, and they are vicious, and they are horrible, and they are politically wise.
Keith: And in this way, Trump is like so many others in this polarized country who think that their team is essentially good and it is the other side that is bad. The difference, of course, is that he is the President of the United States.
Detow: Tamara Keith of NPR, thank you very much.
Keith: You are welcome.
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