Washington – Following The murder of Charlie Kirk, President Donald Trump can be in a unique position to reduce the anger that American politics resists and conduct a movement to unite a bitterly divided country if he chooses.
But, the political strategists and the officials of both parties told NBC News, that is not the path that Trump seems to be taking.
Trump has been an objective of murder attempts and a source of vitory rhetoric. He knows firsthand the passions that drive American voters and, if he renounced partisan attacks and asked others in both parties to do the same, that gesture could send a healing message.
With the murderer still in general and a human hunting, Trump, in his video response, blamed family sheets. In an Oval office message on Wednesday, he highlighted the “radical left” and did not mention the cases in which elected Democratic officials in Minnesota and Pennsylvania were objectives of violent attacks.
Representative Don Bacon, R-Neb., Said the moment is mature for Trump to present a unifying message.
“I wish I did,” he told NBC News. “But I would say this: he is a populist, and the populists stop at anger.”
A republican agent, who was granted anonymity to speak frankly, said they were shaken by Kirk’s murder but finally was not surprised by violence, fearing “will worsen next year.”
“I think there is really much the [Trump] The administration can do, “said the person.” Trump has many excellent qualities, but he is not the type of leader who “will call Better Angels” and, to be fair, the left currently does not have anyone who can, “.
In his appearance, Trump also promised that his administration will discover un specified people and groups that “contributed to this atrocity and other political violence.”
When asked how Trump plans to carry out that promise, the White House press office did not respond directly. Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, wrote in an email: “The president was clear: the author or the perpetrators of this horrible act will pay for what they did. They will be trapped, and will be taken to justice. And any other work that participates in the political violence directed as the tragic murder of Charlie Kirk will be responsible for the greatest extension of the law” “”.
Trump had a new opportunity to go to Kirk’s death on Thursday during a commemorative ceremony of September 11 in the Pentagon. This time, he avoided any partisan comments and took a more measured tone.
“Charlie was a giant of his generation, a champion of freedom and an inspiration for millions and millions of people,” Trump said.
A tall White House official said in an interview on Thursday that Trump is feeling the weight of Kirk’s death. The 31 -year -old conservative activist was close to Trump’s political operation, helping the president to be voters.
“He is disappointed and sad,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “The president feels exclusively that we are in a place in this country where some people do not believe in having a different vision, and are willing to be violent about it.”
“The most immediate thing is that people want to find the murderer,” the official continued. “That is the most immediate practical consideration, and to honor Charlie. Then we will see what else we can do in the next days and weeks to try to prevent this kind of thing, but we will also hold people responsible for people who encourage this type of thing, of which there are many things. These things not only happen in a vacuum.”
Like Trump, the official invoked the president’s adversaries, saying that “many on the left have used a violent rhetoric.”
As an example, the official mentioned the Democratic governor of California, Gavin Newsom, “new scene”, as Trump calls it, who last month said about the president: “We are going to hit this stalker in the mouth.”
Erin Perrine, a republican operation for a long time that he has worked for Trump’s campaign, told some Democrats who blamed Trump after the shooting. Illinois governor JB Pritzker said Wednesday that Trump’s “rhetoric often encourages him.”
“Those same people give us a conference on reducing rhetoric,” said Perrine.
Steve Bannon, the president’s allied ally, called Kirk a “victim of war” in his podcast and, in an interview with NBC News, said the Democrats sought political unity only in their terms. “The left always wants to unite the country when they are losing the narrative,” he said. “We will only have to see who the shooter is before we can define a specific course of action.”
Some Republicans and Democrats He fears that Kirk’s murder marks a non -return point for the policy of the nation, with violence a terrifying inevitability. The threats against the members of Congress in Congress have been increasing lately, according to the US Capitol Police. Uu. A spokesman for the National Democratic Committee said Thursday that there was a threat of a bomb at the group’s headquarters in Washington. The Capitol Police determined that it was not credible.
Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat of Virginia, said that a member of the suburban school board told him that he would not apply for re -election a year ago, explaining that his salary “would not cover the cost of a funeral.”
To Cardenas, who as president of the American Conservative Union in 2013 presented Kirk at the CPAC event of that year, he said in an interview: “These protests on the murder of Charlie Kirk are understandable.”
But he backed into adage, “this is not who we are,” a formulation that people often use to explain national tragedies.
“In fact, it’s exactly who we are,” Cárdenas said.
Consoiring a scared nation is often part of a president’s work. An iconic moment of the mandate of Barack Obama occurred in 2015 when he sang “Amazing Grace” during a praise for the pastor killed by a black church in Charleston, South Carolina.
George W. Bush presided over a stimulating moment for the country when he launched the first launch of a World Series game at Yankee Stadium in the month following the terrorist attacks of September 11.
Rahm Emanuel, who worked in the White Houses of Bill Clinton and Obama, was heard back to the bombing of the city of Oklahoma of 1995 that killed 168 people.
Emanuel, who worked as the main advisor of the White House at that time, said that Clinton traveled to Oklahoma four days later and delivered relaxing comments.
“To his mind, what you think of ‘Bully Pulpit’ was that the voice of a president has a moral tone,” Emanuel said. “At this time we are a long time in Bully and Zero Pulpit.”
Kirk was shot dead while talking at an outdoor event on the Campus of the University of Utah Valley. Subsequently, some Republicans modeled the type of unifying message that Trump has avoided so far.
The Governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, a Republican, who speaks on national television later, cited acts of violence against members of both parties, including a fire attack against the Democrat Pennsylvania, Governor Josh Shapiro. Shapiro was allegedly attacked in the April incident due to his position on the war in Gaza.
In his comments, Cox also referred to what the authorities described as the “politically motivated murder” of the former president of the Chamber of Representatives of the Democratic State of Minnesota, Melissa Hortman. Her husband and her dog were also killed in the attack in June.
“Our nation is broken,” Cox said. “We have recently had political murders in Minnesota. We had an attempt to murder about the governor of Pennsylvania. And we had an attempt to murder about a presidential candidate and former president of the United States and now current president of the United States.”
“If someone in the sound of my voice will celebrate even a little in the news of this shooting, I beg you to look in the mirror and see if you can find an angel better there somewhere.”
Another Republican official also invoked Hortman’s murder. Bacon told NBC News that political rhetoric demonization “has an impact.”
He added: “I have to remind people, we also had democrats killed in Minnesota, right?”
Trump’s political personality is that of a warrior, not a conciliatory. For this president, “it is almost not possible for him to transcend the policy at this time,” said Sarada Peri, writer of White House speeches for Obama.
“It would be little authentic,” he added.
But Trump has a vice president. It is often the number 2 who assumes the role that a president, for any reason, cannot or will not work.
He entered Vice President JD Vance, who was close to Kirk. Until now, publications on Vance’s social networks have not chosen guilt, focusing more on Kirk’s life.
On Thursday, the vice president changed plans abruptly, discarding an appearance scheduled at the commemorative ceremony of September 11 in New York to fly to Utah. It was expected to meet there with the family and surviving friends of Kirk.
Then it was expected that the Air Force Dos transported the Kirk coffin, along with his family, to Phoenix, said a source familiar with the plans to NBC News. Kirk had based his political organization, Turning Point USA, there.
“You ran a good career, friend,” Vance wrote in X. “We have it from here.”
