By Nandita Bose and Helen Coster
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Vice President JD Vance and another top official in President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday argued that serving the memory of Charlie Kirk means pursuing left-leaning groups they portray as bent on undermining national unity.
Vance, who guest-hosted the slain conservative activist’s livestream show, amplified right-wing calls for a broadside against leftist groups after Kirk was assassinated last week as he addressed college students.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Vance’s guest on the program, said Kirk’s final message to him called for a coordinated effort against unnamed left-wing groups accused of promoting violence, pledging the federal government would use “every available resource” to dismantle them.
“With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people,” he said. “It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name.”
Later, Miller told reporters at the White House that the Trump administration is looking at holding criminally accountable a network of “nonprofit entities” that organize attacks on law enforcement, use doxxing and supply materials used in riots. He did not provide evidence of such wrongdoing.
The remarks by top Trump administration officials on Monday offered the clearest indication yet of what steps the White House is weighing in response to Kirk’s death. Critics have for days expressed worry that Trump would use Kirk’s assassination as a pretext to crack down on political opponents.
Investigators have yet to piece together why the alleged gunman, Tyler Robinson, allegedly shot Kirk on Wednesday. Investigators found messages engraved into four bullet casings, which included references to memes and video game in-jokes, though experts warned that the messages offered no clear indications about a political motivation.
Right-wing groups have pushed the administration to do more than prosecute the shooter.
Vance, who hosted “The Charlie Kirk Show” podcast for more than two hours, went further than other administration officials by naming two institutions: the Open Society Foundations, funded by billionaire and Democratic donor George Soros; and the Ford Foundation, accusing the philanthropic organizations of funding an article in The Nation magazine that he criticized. Both groups said they do not currently fund The Nation.
DISAGREEMENT OVER KIRK’S LEGACY
“I read a story in The Nation magazine about my dear friend Charlie Kirk,” Vance said during the podcast. “George Soros’ Open Society Foundation funds this magazine, as does the Ford Foundation and many other wealthy titans of the American progressive movement.”
Elizabeth Spiers, who wrote the article headlined “Charlie Kirk’s Legacy Deserves No Mourning,” noted she “explicitly stated that no one should ever be killed for their views” in her article and suggested Vance either misunderstood her piece or was deliberately misrepresenting her words to sow division and personally target her.
In her article, Spiers described Kirk as “an unrepentant racist, transphobe, homophobe, and misogynist who often wrapped his bigotry in Bible verses because there was no other way to pretend that it was morally correct.”
A number of civil rights advocates have over the years criticized Kirk’s views on Black people, women, the LGBT community, Muslims and immigrants, citing his public comments that they called derogatory and racist. Kirk’s supporters cast him as an influential, charismatic and devout Christian figure committed to civil debate of controversial issues, and credit him with galvanizing younger voters for Trump.
A spokesperson for the Open Society Foundations called Vance’s accusations “disgraceful” and said the group’s work is “entirely peaceful and lawful.” A spokesperson for the Ford Foundation said The Nation has received only a single grant, in 2019, and currently provides no funding to the outlet.
The Nation said it stood by Spiers’ critique of Kirk. “In our 160 years of publication, we’ve long believed that dissent is the highest form of patriotism and we are proud of our journalistic legacy in pursuit of a more equal and just world,” the publication added in a statement.
A wave of violence across the political spectrum has afflicted the United States in recent years, targeting both Democrats and Republicans.
Trump, who has a history of using severe rhetoric against political opponents, blamed the “radical left” almost immediately after Kirk was shot and before a suspect was identified.
On Friday, police arrested 22-year-old Robinson, of Utah, and charged him with Kirk’s murder. State records show Robinson was a registered voter but had no political party affiliation.
(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Helen Coster, Additional reporting by Kanishka Singh; Editing by Donna Bryson and Matthew Lewis)
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