The Full Weight of the Federal Government Is Being Used to Memorialize Charlie Kirk

American flags at the White House fly at half-staff after the death of Charlie Kirk, the CEO and co-founder of Turning Point USA, Thursday, Sept. 11, 2025, in Washington. Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

After the shocking murder^[2] of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk on Wednesday afternoon, tributes and expressions of grief poured in from conservative politicians and activists, along with expressions of sympathy and denunciations of political violence from both sides of the aisle. Now, however, numerous government and elected officials are taking their protection of Kirk’s legacy a step further, indicating they’ll use the power of their offices to discourage, punish, or, in some cases, fire anyone who speaks ill of him. 

Several Trump administration officials and members of Congress have said they’re tracking statements that appear to impugn Kirk. A partial list of those threatening retribution include: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and one of his assistants, Sean Parnell; Navy Secretary John Phelan; Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau; and members of Congress like Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) and Clay Higgins (R-Louisiana). In some cases, people accused of disparaging Kirk or refusing to sufficiently mourn his death are alleged to be members of the military or work for the federal government in some capacity. But in numerous other cases, they’re private citizens who wrote comments about Kirk’s death on their extremely small social media accounts. 

No matter how small the reach of these posters may be, their comments are being brought to light by several MAGA activists, including Trump confidante Laura Loomer, who has spent much of the last two days identifying people she says have posted mocking or disparaging comments about the slain, 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA. Chaya Raichik, the person behind the MAGA-friendly Twitter account Libs of TikTok has done the same. (Loomer, whose feuds with other right-wing figures are manifold and very complicated, denounced Kirk herself online in July,^[3] writing, “Lately, Charlie has decided to behave like a charlatan, claiming to be pro-Trump one day while he stabs Trump in the back the next.”) They’re joined by an army of smaller accounts who have also taken up the cause of identifying—and in some cases doxxing—people they accuse of mocking Kirk’s death or simply speaking ill about his career, for example, by accusing him of promoting racist or anti LGBTQ sentiments.

The crusade to silence any voices that may not conform to the hagiography has unfolded quickly. Hegseth and Parnell—who serves as his assistant at the newly-renamed Department of War—said they will adopt a “zero tolerance” policy for mockery of Kirk’s death. “It is unacceptable for military personnel and Department of War civilians to celebrate or mock the assassination of a fellow American,” Parnell wrote on X.^[4]

“We are tracking all these very closely — and will address, immediately,” Hegseth added^[5]. “Completely unacceptable.” 

Navy Secretary John Phelan tweeted,^[6] “I am aware of posts displaying contempt toward a fellow American who was assassinated. I want to be very clear: any uniformed or civilian employee of the Department of the Navy who acts in a manner that brings discredit upon the Department, the @USNavy^[7], or the @USMC^[8] will be dealt with swiftly and decisively.”

Nor does the state-backed protection of Kirk’s legacy apparently stop with US citizens. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau tweeted that foreign nationals who mocked Kirk’s death would be barred from entering the United States. “In light of yesterday’s horrific assassination of a leading political figure,” he wrote^[9]. “I want to underscore that foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country. I have been disgusted to see some on social media praising, rationalizing, or making light of the event, and have directed our consular officials to undertake appropriate action. Please feel free to bring such comments by foreigners to my attention so that the @StateDept^[10] can protect the American people.” 

In a similar vein, Tennessee Sen. Blackburn wrote on X^[11] that she was calling for the firing of a Secret Service agent who reportedly said on Facebook that Kirk “spewed hate and racism on his show.” She added, “It’s time to root out the rot in the Secret Service.”

It makes some sense that service members would be punished for mocking or making light of Kirk’s death—after all, they have stringent social media guidelines^[12] that extend back decades. The Secret Service, too, conducts social media screenings^[13] of employees and potential employees. 

In other cases, though, elected officials seem to be targeting private citizens exercising their First Amendment rights to speak about Kirk’s exceedingly polarizing career
^[14]

Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-California), for instance, wrote on X^[15] that she had contacted the superintendent and principal in a district where an art teacher is accused of writing “One Nazi down” on Facebook after Kirk’s murder.

“Cheering political violence is always wrong,” Miller-Meeks tweeted, “and should NEVER be done by those who educate our children. I will be contacting the superintendent and principal first thing in the morning to ensure this is addressed immediately.” The art teacher was subsequently placed on leave^[16] pending an investigation. 

Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana suggested several measures against people who either criticized Kirk online or celebrated his murder. “I’m going to use Congressional authority and every influence with big tech platforms to mandate immediate ban for life of every post or commenter that belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk,” Higgins declared on X^[17], in a statement suggesting actions that were not legal and one that clearly overstepped his authority. “If they ran their mouth with their smartass hatred celebrating the heinous murder of that beautiful young man who dedicated his whole life to delivering respectful conservative truth into the hearts of liberal enclave universities, armed only with a Bible and a microphone and a Constitution… those profiles must come down. So, I’m going to lean forward in this fight, demanding that big tech have zero tolerance for violent political hate content, the user to be banned from ALL PLATFORMS FOREVER. I’m also going after their business licenses and permitting, their businesses will be blacklisted aggressively, they should be kicked from every school, and their drivers’ licenses should be revoked. I’m basically going to cancel with extreme prejudice these evil, sick animals who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination.” 

In response to public pressure from the people finding negative comments about Kirk, private companies have also posted a cavalcade of statements on X indicating that they’ll fire or suspend identified employees. That includes, thus far, entities as diverse as restaurants^[18], universities^[19], Fox Sports Las Vegas^[20], and MSNBC, which fired reporter Matthew Dowd for saying Kirk promoted hate speech^[21]. Other people who have been quickly dismissed from their roles include a man who served on the Las Vegas Realtors board of directors and who’d been scheduled to begin serving^[22] as the incoming board chair, while the New Orleans Fire Department said it would conduct an “administrative review^[23]” of a comment from one of its employees.

Meanwhile, the honors for Kirk have come thick and fast. After ordering^[24] that flags be flown at half mast, President Donald Trump has announced plans to award Kirk a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida) has called for a statue of Kirk to be placed in the US Capitol^[25], while Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) announced that she would introduce a resolution to have Kirk lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda, an honor usually reserved for elected officials and veterans. Vice President JD Vance, a close friend of Kirk’s, used Air Force Two^[26] to bring Kirk’s casket back to his home state of Arizona, helping to carry the casket himself to the waiting plane. In a video of their arrival, Vance’s wife Usha could be seen holding the hand of Kirk’s wife Erika^[27] as the two women emerged together, Erika’s head bowed. 

Soon after Kirk’s death, many conservative and far-right activists called loudly and widely for revenge^[28], variously blaming the left, the Democratic Party, the media, and an “anarcho-terrorist” network for the environment that led to the murder. Prominent extremist groups and pardoned insurrectionists have also said they’ve been galvanized by Kirk’s death^[29], and plan to use it to intensify future organizing, as well as seek their own forms of revenge. When Trump announced Friday afternoon on his favorite TV show Fox & Friends that a suspect had been arrested, he downplayed the idea^[30] that the far-right acts violently. “The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime. The radicals on the left are the problem, and they’re vicious and they’re horrible and they’re politically savvy.”