President Donald Trump seemed to be in two minds about how his base should respond to the killing of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk.
“We have radical left lunatics out there,” Trump told reporters Thursday before he headed to New York to watch a Yankees game. “And we just have to beat the hell out of them.”
But Trump acknowledged in a separate answer that Kirk, a close ally of his, was a nonviolent person.
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“He was an advocate of nonviolence. That’s the way I’d like to see people respond,” he said.
Trump, whose rise to power was fueled in part by Kirk’s youth-focused conservative activism, has repeatedly blamed his political enemies for the shocking shooting at Utah Valley University on Wednesday.
In a four-minute video posted to Truth Social hours after Kirk was shot dead, Trump lashed out at the rhetoric of the “radical left” while hailing the 31-year-old father of two as a “martyr.”
“We have a radical left group of lunatics out there, just absolute lunatics, and we’re going to get that problem solved,” Trump reiterated to reporters on Thursday.
Kirk’s killer remains on the loose. The FBI has sought the public’s help in identifying a person of interest. He was seen in grainy images wearing a long-sleeved black shirt imprinted with an American flag. He wore glasses, jeans, a hat, and carried a bookbag.
Trump said progress was being made on the manhunt but did not disclose any details.
“He’s an animal, total animal, and hopefully they’ll have him and they’ll get him,” he said of the shooter. “What he did is disgraceful. Charlie Kirk was a great person, a great man, great in every way, especially with youth.”
Asked for his message to other conservative influencers like Kirk, Trump called on his loyalists to put on a brave face.
“Well, we have to be brave in life… I probably shouldn’t be out here talking to you, in all fairness, but we will be brave,” he said.
