Trumpist Right Launches Purge of Anyone Who Dares Criticize Charlie Kirk
INSIDE: Tanya Chutkan ... Kash Patel ... RFK Jr.
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Seizing on Kirk’s Killing to Pull Off a Power Grab
In the aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the Trump administration and its MAGA allies have launched a new project to target Kirk critics, threatening their employment in government and in the private sector.
On the government side:
DoD: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has dispatched underlings on a hunt for service members and DoD civilians who have mocked or condoned Kirk’s killing on social media so that they can be punished. “Several service members have been relieved from their jobs because of such posts,” NBC News reports.
DHS: The department has taken action against at least three employees, Government Executive reports.
VA: Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins warned of punishment for department employees who were caught “justifying, celebrating or mocking” Kirk’s death, per Government Executive.
While the government’s internal campaign seems mostly focused (I say this with a skeptical eye still intact) on those condoning political violence, in the private sector, the purge has broadened to include criticism of Kirk and his extremist right-wing politics:
At least a dozen employers have put staffers on leave or dismissed them over remarks about Kirk, the WaPo reports.
Universities — including Ole Miss, Middle Tennessee State, and Austin Peay, among others — have fired or suspended employees over online comments about Kirk.
A public school teacher in South Carolina was fired for a post on Facebook: “Thoughts and prayers to his children but IMHO America became greater today. There I said it.”
DC Comics cancelled a new series after the author called Kirk a “Nazi b*tch.”
WaPo columnist Karen Attiah said this morning that she was fired by the newspaper for Bluesky posts that it deemed “unacceptable” and “gross misconduct.” By her account, Attiah’s posts condemned political violence. The one post she sjared that directly mentioned Kirk quoted Kirk disparaging Black women.
You might reasonably find some of the social media posts in question offensive, but to get caught in a debate over randos on social media is to lose the bigger picture. The tribal, political, and power imperatives of Trump’s MAGA project mean the right wing must seize on his death and hold it up as a totem of loyalty among the faithful while at the same time making it an un-passable litmus test for the institutions – corporations, universities, media – that Trump was already targeting. They can’t pass the test because either they refuse to take it, in which case they are targeted anew, or they play along and in doing so capitulate and prove what Trump wants so desperately to believe: that they are all just as craven as he is.
Headline of the Day
Reuters: Charlie Kirk’s allies warn Americans: Mourn him properly or else
Seems Like This Should Be Big News
Reuters reviewed a document that showed Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook told her lender that the Atlanta property at the center of the Trump administration’s bogus mortgage fraud claim against her wouldn’t be used as her primary residence. The Financial Times similarly reported that Cook listed the home as vacation property.”
Trump Admin Pushes To See How Cruel It Can Be
Another weekend with emergency court proceedings over Trump anti-immigration policy.
Given the current state of law, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan seemed reluctant to step in to prevent migrants who were removed by the Trump administration to Ghana from being sent by Ghana to their home countries, where they face persecution, including torture.
But despite her reluctance Chutkan in an emergency hearing on Saturday still wasn’t buying the Trump administration’s argument that it had no control over what Ghana did, even if it reneged on diplomatic assurances it made not to turn around and send the migrants to their home countries.
“I have not been shy about saying that I think this is a very suspicious scheme,” Chutkan said.
Chutkan suggested it was no accident that Ghana was reneging and that the administration was getting the outcome it wanted.
This so-called chain refoulement – illegally using third countries as middlemen to handle the transfer of migrants to countries that the U.S. is legally prohibited from deporting to directly – has been an ongoing issue for several months.
Still, after a flurry of weekend filings and extreme gamesmanship from the Trump administration of initially refusing to give the other side in the case a copy of a key filing it made, Chutkan had not ruled to protect the migrants.
Expect a ruling from Chutkan as soon as this morning.
Clean Up On Aisle Five
President Trump clearly realizes he screwed up with the raid on the Hyundai plant in Georgia, setting off a diplomatic row with South Korea, who saw dozens of highly trained workers handcuffed and shackled by immigration officers during the highly-touted operation. On Sunday, Trump posted what amounted to a lengthy “oops” on social media, and the No. 2 State Department official “expressed regret” over the incident.
Pritzker Successfully Fends Off Trump’s Deployment Threat
It does seem like Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s big public pre-denunciation of President Trump’s threat to send the National Guard into Chicago succeeded in blunting that effort.
President Trump is turning his attention to blue cities in red states, namely Memphis and New Orleans, “after advisers warned him that sending in troops to help with local law enforcement without buy-in from the state’s governor could create legal headaches they want to avoid,” CNN reports.
“Legal headaches” is doing a lot of work there. You might read it as political blowback.
Are Kash Patel’s Days At FBI Numbered?
After the embattled Kash Patel spent some of the weekend playing golf with President Trump at his Bedminster, New Jersey club, Fox News reported that contingency plans are being formulated for removing Patel as FBI director and giving him another role in the administration.
DOJ Is Sharing State Voter Rolls With DHS
The Trump administration confirmed that the Justice Department is sharing the voter rolls it demanded earlier this year with the Department of Homeland Security for it to use to search for noncitizens.
Quote of the Day
U.S. District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco, ruling Friday that the Trump administration’s mass firing of probationary federal employees was illegal, but that the Supreme Court’s decision to let the terminations proceed while the case was pending leaves workers with no way to get their jobs back:
[T]he Supreme Court has made clear enough by way of its emergency docket that it will overrule judicially granted relief respecting hirings and firings within the executive, not just in this case but in others. And, too much water has now passed under the bridge since the Supreme Court stayed this Court’s preliminary injunction reinstating probationary employees. The terminated probationary employees have moved on with their lives and found new jobs. Many would no longer be willing or able to return to their posts. The agencies in question have also transformed in the intervening months by new executive priorities and sweeping reorganization. Many probationers would have no post to return to.
A Big Week Ahead For Vaccines
The CDC vaccine committee stacked with vaccine skeptics by Robert Kennedy, Jr., is set to meet this week. It’s unclear how far the committee will go in using pseudo-science and their own biases to upend vaccine recommendations, especially for children. Public health experts were horrified when the WaPo reported Friday that Trump officials were planning to abuse data in presenting to the panel a misleading picture that connects the COVID vaccine to the deaths of children.
‘I Apologize for That Extremely Callous Remark’
Over the weekend, Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade apologized on the air for his comments last week on Fox & Friends calling for euthanizing mentally ill homeless people. “Or involuntary lethal injection, or something,” Kilmeade said on Wednesday’s show. “Just kill ‘em.”
Two days later, President Trump went on the same show and announced that a suspect had been apprehended in the death of Charlie Kirk.
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Appreciate your Morning Memo. Just saying ...
Here's the late Kirk, who made his bones — and millions — vilifying people other than white, pioneering "collabo" efforts in colleges by assembling "Professor Lists" composed of faculty "turned in" by students for their opinions ONLY, belittling Black people who have succeeded as "inferior, DEI hires", and on and on.
Sure, Kirk may have been a talented organizer amongst young people to enlist as soldiers for the far right, but at bottom he was a grifter making millions on line and in person preaching hate...a latter-day Limbaugh, who Kirk reportedly idolized whilst in his teens.
So, given this rather extensive, well-documented history, people are getting fired, censored, and shamed for merely reprising Kirk's remarks and his world-view? Kirk, an alleged "champion" of free speech, albeit a conditional one — "our" speech yes, but "your" speech is subject to vetting — is seeing that legacy play out in real time, as cowardly "leadership" across companies and institutions round America are going ballistic "rooting out" those voices not sufficiently sympathetic, remorseful, or complimentary of this person.
Well done, mate...even more influential from the grave, as it were.