The statement delivered by Donald Trump, read stiffly right after Charlie Kirk was fatally shot, blamed assassinations in the United States on “the radical Left.”
He said:
“For years, those on the radical Left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today.”
He concluded that:
“… radical Left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives.”
But if we look at the record, how many of the 24 people responsible for the 31 targeted political killings or attempted killings since 2018 were actually from the Left? Let’s break it down.
In 2018, Cesar Altieri Sayoc was sentenced to two decades in prison for sending pipe bombs to nine leading Democrats, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Maxine Waters. Sayoc was a registered Republican.
Two years later, 13 men conspired to punish Michigan’s Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer for COVID restrictions. They were all tied to far-right extremism.
That same year, Roy Den Hollander killed human rights attorney Marc Angelucci, then tried to assassinate federal judge Esther Salas. He ended up murdering her son and gravely wounding her husband. Hollander was an ardent Trump supporter on the far right.
In February 2022, Quintez Brown attempted to assassinate Louisville’s Democratic mayoral candidate Craig Greenberg. Brown’s views were linked to Black nationalism, pan-Africanism, and revolutionary socialism.
By October of that year, David DePape broke into Nancy Pelosi’s home, attacking her husband Paul Pelosi with a hammer while searching for the House Speaker. DePape is also a Trump-aligned extremist.
Later in 2022, Solomon Peña, a Republican and failed state office candidate, hired gunmen to fire at the homes of Democratic legislators in New Mexico.
In August 2023, Craig Robertson was fatally shot by the FBI after making violent threats against President Joe Biden and others. He was an army veteran with radical right-wing views.
In July 2024, Trump himself was targeted at a rally in Pennsylvania. The shooter, Thomas Crooks, killed one person and injured three others, including Trump, whose ear was grazed by shrapnel. Crooks was a registered Republican. Not long after, another Trump supporter, Ryan Routh, was charged in a separate assassination attempt on Trump. That case is still underway.
In April 2025, Cody Balmer attempted to kill Pennsylvania’s Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro by setting fire to his home. The arson caused severe damage but no injuries. Balmer was a Trump supporter.
By June 2025, Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were murdered by Vance Boelter, a registered Republican and Trump loyalist. Boelter then tried to kill Senator John Hoffman, leaving him and his wife seriously wounded.
And most recently, right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk was shot by Tyler Robinson, a young man from a staunch Republican Mormon family. Robinson has no formal party ties but has reportedly adopted the ideology of far-right extremist Nick Fuentes.
So how many attackers from this list are associated with the Democratic Party, progressives, or mainstream leftist groups? The answer: none. The only individual who could be described as Left-leaning is Quintez Brown.
This does not even account for the mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, chanting “Hang Mike Pence” while setting up gallows, or the rioters intent on killing Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Ilhan Omar. Nor does it include offenders like Brett Forsell, jailed for lower-level attacks on lawmakers. Nearly all of those cases are also rooted in right-wing extremism. Despite this reality, after Kirk’s killing Elon Musk tweeted: ‘The Left is the party of murder’.
Even before Tyler Robinson surrendered, Fox News host Sean Hannity declared: “The Left has given us ten non-stop years of rage and hatred and vile language and it is undeniable that it is poisoning the minds of many people in our country.” Such rhetoric — deeply hypocritical and meant to deflect — quickly spread through the conservative media ecosystem and across global platforms.
Trump himself has been one of the biggest accelerants of political violence. By July last year, he had issued more than 40 public calls for physical attacks on opponents. FBI statistics also confirm a sharp rise in violent crime starting in 2016, reversing decades of decline.
Even defense lawyers have pointed to Trump’s role. During Cesar Sayoc’s trial, his attorney argued: “We believe that the President’s rhetoric contributed to Mr Sayoc’s actions in this offence.”
And after Kirk’s killing, Trump once again stoked the flames, saying:
“We have radical left lunatics out there and we just have to beat the hell out of them.”
Yes, he said it again. That brings his calls for violence to nearly 50, ensuring more bloodshed will follow. Ironically, Trump himself laid out the true solution when he remarked from the Oval Office after Wednesday’s shooting:
“It’s long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year …”
What his supporters don’t recognize is that Trump is the chief demonizer. The only real way to stop this spiral of political violence is to remove him from the stage.
