President Donald Trump and his top advisers have threatened to unleash the power of the federal government to punish what they alleged was a left-wing network that funds and incites violence, seizing on Charlie Kirk’s killing to make broad and unsubstantiated claims about their political opponents.
Investigators were still working to identify a motive in the death of Mr Kirk, a prominent conservative activist who was shot last week in Utah.
The Republican governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, has said that the suspect had a “leftist ideology” and that he acted alone.
But Mr Trump and his top allies suggested that the suspect was part of a co-ordinated movement that was fomenting violence against conservatives, without presenting evidence that such a network existed. The United States has seen a wave of violence across the political spectrum, targeting Democrats and Republicans.
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Mr Trump, who has downplayed violence from right-wing or other supporters, said that he would like to designate a range of groups – including the loosely affiliated group of far-left antifascism activists, known as “antifa” – as domestic terrorists and bring racketeering cases against people funding protests.
“We have some pretty radical groups and they got away with murder,” Mr Trump said, without naming additional groups. He added that he was talking to the attorney general, Pam Bondi, about bringing charges under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act against “some of the people that you’ve been reading about that have been putting up millions and millions of dollars for agitation”.
He did not specify who or what he was talking about.
It is unclear how these plans may unfold, or how the White House could legally formalise such an effort without curbing First Amendment rights. Democrats have warned that the Trump White House could be using Mr Kirk’s killing as a pretence to go after political dissent, not just hate speech or violence.
“Pay attention. Something dark might be coming,” Sen Chris Murphy of Connecticut wrote on social media Sunday. “The murder of Charlie Kirk could have united Americans to confront political violence. Instead, Trump and his anti-democratic radicals look to be readying a campaign to destroy dissent.”
Republican Greg Casar said on Monday that while the killing of Mr Kirk was “heinous,” so were the killings of Melissa Hortman, a Democratic state lawmaker in Minnesota, and her husband, who were on a hit list of dozens of left-wing figures; the hammer assault on the husband of former speaker Nancy Pelosi; and the January 6th, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.
“He cannot be allowed to use the horrible murder of Charlie Kirk as pretext to go after peaceful political opposition,” Mr Casar said in a statement.
Two senior administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal planning, said that cabinet secretaries and federal department heads were working to identify organisations that funded or supported violence against conservatives.
The goal, they said, was to categorise as domestic terrorism left-wing activity that they said led to violence, a continuation of existing efforts by federal agencies to try to punish liberal groups they have accused of funding or otherwise supporting violent protests. One tactic has been to target the tax-exempt status of non-profits that are critical of Mr Trump or conservatives.
An administration official said officials would be investigating people behind the recent burning of Teslas in apparent protest of Elon Musk and assaults against immigration agents, and would be looking to draw links between those episodes and organised liberal groups.
Several other officials, from vice-president JD Vance on down, made it clear Monday that they believed that political violence was a liberal problem and not a conservative one.
They used Mr Kirk’s podcast, with Mr Vance as guest host, to announce that they would be cracking down on what they called leftist non-governmental organisations, and that they would use every available lever of the federal government to do so.
“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, eliminate and destroy this network and make the United States safe again for the American people,” said Stephen Miller, the president’s top policy adviser.
From his office at the White House, Mr Vance invited other senior members of the administration to praise Mr Kirk and decry the “far left.” The show was broadcast on the television screens in the White House briefing room and in several West Wing offices.
And while he acknowledged that “our side of the aisle certainly has its crazies,” Mr Vance placed the blame for most political violence on “proud members of the far left”.
“We can thank God that most Democrats don’t share these attitudes, and I do, while acknowledging that something has gone very wrong with a lunatic fringe, a minority, but a growing and powerful minority on the far left,” he said.
Mr Vance said the administration would not go after “constitutionally protected speech” but rather what he described as a network of non-profit non-governmental organisations that “foments, facilitates and engages in violence”.
In the wake of Mr Kirk’s killing, Mr Trump immediately blamed the “radical left” for much of the political violence in the country, and appeared to excuse violence on the right by saying that it was driven by people who “don’t want to see crime”.
The president also promised investigations into who was funding and organising the left, suggesting the violence was somehow co-ordinated. In recent days, Mr Trump has renewed calls for prosecutors to file racketeering charges against George Soros, one of the Democratic Party’s biggest donors. Mr Trump and his allies have long claimed without evidence that Mr Soros foments violent protests.
A spokesperson for Mr Soros’s organisation, Open Society Foundations, denied the allegations and called the threats “outrageous.”
Mr Trump has previously taken steps to mobilise federal law enforcement against his perceived political enemies. In the first term, the Trump administration shifted resources to target the “radical left”, even though law enforcement officials warned about the threat of right-wing extremism.
While the administration has called attention to recent violent attacks targeting Republicans or perpetrated by those who have displayed leftist ideology, national security officials have said political violence is broadly a problem in the United States.
In 2025, a threat assessment issued by the Department of Homeland Security said extremists were “motivated by various ideologies,” including “a combination of racial, religious, gender or antigovernment grievances; conspiracy theories; and personalised factors”.
Juliette Kayyem, a former assistant secretary of homeland security in the Obama administration, said such violent acts went beyond political affiliation of any party.
“These guys have no affiliation,” Ms Kayyem said. “They are, you know, a combination of dystopia, irony and violence.”
Almost immediately after the shooting of Mr Kirk, several Republican lawmakers started calling for action against the left.
Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who before she was elected to office had repeatedly suggested support for executing top Democratic politicians, said on social media on Monday that “millions on the left celebrated and made clear they want all of us dead” after Mr Kirk’s death.
Calling for a “peaceful national divorce,” she added that the United States was “no longer safe for any of us”.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
