Sen. Lindsey Graham says President Trump sees the shooting death of Charlie Kirk as a direct attack against his Make America Great Again movement.
“Charlie Kirk is one of the top three people in the country that allowed President Trump to win in 2024 by his efforts,” Mr. Graham said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And I think President Trump sees this as an attack on his political movement, what he created.”
“A year ago, people tried to blow his head off. So this is not for me the ‘all do it,’” the South Carolina Republican said, alluding to the 2024 assassination attempt on Mr. Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. “This is unique and different. This is an attack on a movement by using violence.”
Mr. Kirk played a lead role in helping rally voters to the polls for Mr. Trump in the 2024 election, zeroing in his efforts on winning over young voters.
Mr. Kirk was continuing those efforts Wednesday when he was shot and killed while debating members of the crowd who showed up to see him at Utah Valley University campus.
Tyler Robinson, 22, has been arrested for the shooting and will be formally charged in court on Tuesday.
Mr. Graham urged Americans to reject political violence.
“If you are offended by what somebody says or does, then take up a political cause to fight back, not a gun, not a bomb, not a knife,” he said.
Mr. Graham said there has been an ongoing effort by the “radical left to dehumanize the MAGA movement.”
“President Trump is not just president of the United States. He’s the leader of a movement,” he said. “Charlie Kirk was his chief lieutenant.”
“This is viewed by many people in the MAGA movement, conservatives like myself, is an attack on the movement, not just traditional, political violence,” he said.