“Morning Joe” called out the Trump administration Tuesday for trying to turn the rising tide of political violence in America, following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last week, into a one-sided issue.
“Charlie Kirk’s savage murder is violence not only against Charlie Kirk, against his wife, against their beautiful children, it’s also violence against the First Amendment, against free speech and against American Democracy,” host Joe Scarborough began. “Those who would use that tragic event to try to stifle free speech … certainly didn’t hear much of what Charlie Kirk had to say.”
Scarborough highlighted comments by President Trump, as well as Vice President JD Vance and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, insisting that conservative Americans have been on the receiving end of a lopsided number of politically violent acts. These comments, Scarborough noted, were made despite the murders of Minnesota Democrat Melissa Hortman and her husband in June.
“I have been baffled over the past several days by people like Stephen Miller talking about this being a one-sided issue,” Scarborough explained. “The same people who are calling for civil war were the same people who said absolutely nothing when she was shot.”
You can watch the full “Morning Joe” segment yourself in the video below.
“Let me just say, anybody who celebrates political violence is sick,” Scarborough added. “Those who try to brush aside political violence when it’s the other side that gets shot or gets beaten or gets burned out of their family homes, they’re sick.”
The “Morning Joe” anchor went on to list acts of political violence that have targeted both Republicans and Democrats in recent years.
“To use Charlie Kirk’s death or if Democrats tried to use Melissa Hortman’s death — I’m talking about elected leaders, not freaks on the outer fringes of social media — it’s just despicable,” Scarborough said. “I don’t know who you think you’re lying to, but we know there’s a problem on both sides. We have to come together or this will continue.”
Scarborough again called Kirk’s assassination an “unspeakable tragedy,” and lamented, “This is not the time to try to use that death to gain political points, and that’s what I’ve been seeing from far too many people on cable news channels and out of politicians in Washington, D.C.” His sentiments were echoed by “Morning Joe” co-anchor Willie Geist.
“The sad reality is that people waited to hear about the shooter and, in some circles, were hoping it was someone from the other side so they could advance a political argument about why this happened,” Geist observed.
