British royals to fete Trump as his team seeks to 'dismantle' left-leaning groups

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump will be praised and feted by the British royal family this week during a rare state visit as his presidency enters a new phase following the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk: “Dismantling” left-leaning organizations, creating new heartburn for Democrats.

Top White House officials on Monday spoke passionately about such groups without naming any, contending they have been radicalizing young people and promising to punish them criminally and by turning off the spigot of federal funding.

“Importantly, we have to talk about this incredibly destructive movement of left-wing extremism that has grown up over the last few years. And I believe it is part of the reason why Charlie was killed by an assassin’s bullet,” Vice President JD Vance said Monday as he guest-hosted Kirk’s popular podcast. “We’re going to talk about how to dismantle that and how to bring real unity.”

Later during the podcast, Vance dismissed the notion of any blanket plea for national unity.

“There is no unity with someone who lies about what Charlie Kirk said in order to excuse his murder,” he said. “There is no unity with the people who celebrate Charlie Kirk’s assassination,” Vance said pointedly. “And there is no unity with the people who fund these articles, who pay the salaries of these terrorist sympathizers who argue that Charlie Kirk, a loving husband and father, deserved a shot to the neck because he spoke words with which they disagreed.”

Trump has made similar remarks in the days since Kirk was shot and killed during an event at Utah Valley University, including Tuesday as he departed the White House for London. And where most of his predecessors used moments of tragedy to call for national unity, the 47th president has raised eyebrows by saying one side is almost exclusively to blame.

“Most of the violence is on the left,” he told reporters Tuesday on the South Lawn — even though his top Justice Department officials have not yet laid out what they believe the shooting suspect’s motive was, nor drawn any lines connecting 22-year-old Tyler Robinson to far-left groups. A few hours later, aboard Air Force One, Trump said: “We had the horrible tragedy. But we’re going to have to do something about that — we can’t let that happen.”

Asked Monday afternoon in the Oval Office if, as he did following Kirk’s murder, he should have ordered flags to half mast in June after a gunman killed the Democratic leader of the Minnesota House and her husband in their home, the president feigned ignorance.

“I’m not familiar. The who?” he asked the reporter who asked the question, before later adding: “Well, if (Democratic Gov. Tim Walz) had asked me to do that, I would have done that. But the governor of Minnesota didn’t ask me. ... I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

Trump’s words to the country last Wednesday, hours after Kirk was pronounced dead, amounted to marching orders for members of his administration.

“It’s long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible,” he said in a video recording from the Oval Office. “For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals.”

“This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now,” he added. “My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity, and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country.”

Stephen Miller, the president’s deputy chief of staff for domestic policy, was more blunt in an X post the following day.

“There is an ideology that has steadily been growing in this country which hates everything that is good, righteous and beautiful and celebrates everything that is warped, twisted and depraved,” he wrote. “It is an ideology that looks upon the perfect family with bitter rage while embracing the serial criminal with tender warmth.”

Miller then described in dark tones the administration’s plans in the wake of Kirk’s killing: “The fate of millions depends upon the defeat of this wicked ideology. The fate of our children, our society, our civilization hinges on it. Now we devote ourselves, with love and unyielding determination, to finishing the indispensable work to which Charlie bravely devoted his life and gave his last measure of devotion.”

‘Something dark’

Despite violent acts carried out by individuals on the political right in recent years, Trump on Friday defended those he called “radicals on the right.”

“I’ll tell you something that’s going to get me in trouble, but I couldn’t care less. The radicals on the right, oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime,” he told the “Fox & Friends” morning show.

“They’re saying, ‘We don’t want these people coming in. We don’t want you burning our shopping centers. We don’t want you shooting our people in the middle of the street,’” the president said. “The radicals on the left are the problem.”

Trump’s comments came amid a wave of social media posts from self-described conservatives claiming that Kirk’s assassination meant “war” against people on the left.

Some Democratic lawmakers have said they expect Trump, Vance, Miller and other administration officials to try doing exactly what they have espoused since Kirk was killed.

“Pay attention. Something dark might be coming. The murder of Charlie Kirk could have united Americans to confront political violence. Instead, Trump and his anti-democratic radicals look to be readying a campaign to destroy dissent,” Connecticut Sen. Christopher S. Murphy wrote on X.

“(The) right has been looking for a pretext to destroy their opposition for a long time. Increasingly, the right views the left as an existential (threat) to a white, Christian majority nation and thus must be destroyed … at any cost,” Murphy continued. “That’s why it was so important for Trump sycophants to take over the (Justice Department) and FBI, so that if a pretext arose, Trump could orchestrate a dizzying campaign to shut down political opposition groups and lock up or harass its leaders.”

Asked Monday which left-leaning organizations his administration would target, Trump replied: “A number of them.” Miller, standing nearby, then elaborated.

“There are these nonprofit entities that organize, as the president mentioned, attacks on ICE officers, attacks on border patrol agents, organized doxing campaigns, which are a violation of federal law,” he said. “I think the key point the president’s been making is somebody is paying for all of this.”

“Under the president’s direction, the attorney general is going to find out who is paying for it,” he added. “And they will now be criminally liable for paying for violence.”

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