After Kirk’s killing, Obama says the nation is in a ‘political crisis’

By TYLER PAGER

Former President Barack Obama suggested earlier this week that President Donald Trump and his allies were using the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk to stoke division and silence debate about Kirk’s ideas.

Obama, speaking in a moderated conversation in Erie, Pennsylvania, as part of the Jefferson Educational Society’s 17th annual global summit, did not mention Trump by name. But he said that Trump’s attacks in recent days on his political rivals and his threats of drastic actions to stifle his opposition after the killing of Kirk had exacerbated tensions in the country.

“When I hear not just our current president, but his aides, who have a history of calling political opponents ‘vermin,’ enemies who need to be ‘targeted,’ that speaks to a broader problem that we have right now, and something that we’re going to have to grapple with — all of us,” Obama said.

Kirk was shot and killed last week at a university event in Utah. Prosecutors on Tuesday formally charged Tyler Robinson, 22, with Kirk’s murder and said they would seek the death penalty. In the charging documents, prosecutors said Robinson had sent text messages confessing to the shooting and saying of Kirk, “I had enough of his hatred.”

Obama called Kirk’s death “horrific and a tragedy.” But he said that Americans should still be able to debate Kirk’s ideas, noting several areas where he disagreed with the conservative activist.

“Whether we’re Democrats, Republicans, independents, we have to recognize that on both sides, undoubtedly, there are people who are extremists and who say things that are contrary to what I believe are America’s core values,” Obama said.

Drawing more of a contrast with Trump, he referred to his own presidency and to past Republican leaders he said had believed in unifying a fractious country.

“I think George W. Bush believed that,” Obama said. “I believe that people who I ran against — I know John McCain believed it. I know Mitt Romney believed it. What I’m describing is not a Democratic value or Republican value. It is an American value. And I think at moments like this, when tensions are high, then part of the job of the president is to pull people together.”

Those tensions, he added, had amounted to a “political crisis of the sort that we haven’t seen before.”

At one point, Obama mentioned Dylann S. Roof, the white supremacist who killed nine Black people in 2015 at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.

“As president of the United States, my response was not: Who may have influenced this troubled young man to engage in that kind of violence? And now let me go after my political opponents and use that,” he said.

Trump and his top advisers have blamed the “radical left” for Kirk’s death, and have promised to crack down on people and organizations they argue have fomented political violence. Over the years, both Democrats and Republicans have been victims of political violence, and in the case of Kirk, authorities said the gunman acted alone.

In an interview on Fox News last week, Trump appeared to excuse violence by “radicals on the right,” saying their anger was justified because they were trying to reduce crime.

In recent months, Obama has gone increasingly public with his criticisms of Trump and his administration, including Trump’s attacks on the judiciary, the freedom of the press and the right to protest. Citing those examples, he has warned that the country is “drifting into something that is not consistent with American democracy” and more closely resembles “autocracies.”

Obama has called on universities to resist attacks that violate their academic freedom. Several have cut deals with the Trump administration to avoid losing federal funding.

He has also criticized Democrats for failing to speak out against Trump and his policies. In July, at a private fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee held at the home of Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, the former president argued that Democrats had been intimidated by Trump and his administration.

“It’s going to require a little bit less navel-gazing and a little less whining and being in fetal positions,” Obama said at the event. “And it’s going to require Democrats to just toughen up.”

Obama has taken note of Democrats’ efforts to fight back against the Trump administration. He cheered on Texas Democratic legislators who tried to resist new congressional maps that were drawn up by Republicans, under pressure from Trump, to give themselves an edge in the midterm elections. He has also shown support for Gov. Gavin Newsom of California in his effort to counter Republicans by redrawing California’s maps, calling his approach “responsible.”