Jessica Costescu writes for the Washington Free Beacon about one major media outlet’s disturbing response to a political assassination.
As news came in that Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA, was shot while giving a speech at Utah Valley University, MSNBC blamed the murder on Kirk’s “hate speech.”
“We don’t know the full details of this yet,” MSNBC political analyst Matthew Dowd said. “We don’t know if this was a supporter shooting their gun off in celebration, so we have no idea about this. But following up what was just said, he’s been one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this, who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups. And I always go back to: Hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions.”
“And I think that’s the environment we’re in. You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place,” he added.
Dowd was responding to MSNBC anchor Katy Tur, who described Kirk as a “divisive figure, polarizing, lightning rod, whatever term you want to use.” She also suggested the Trump administration would likely “use this as justification for something.”
Meanwhile, MSNBC politics reporter Allan Smith decried Kirk as having “been front and center on a lot of the more divisive social and cultural issues that have driven the MAGA movement,” blaming the shooting on Kirk’s political advocacy.
“I mean, you talk about trans rights, a lot of issues around racial justice,” Smith continued. “He has taken the sort of contrarian, more MAGA approach to a lot of these issues and he has, you know, he’s been pretty inflammatory in his rhetoric throughout the years.”
