Rep. Nancy Mace sparked outrage on Wednesday after she blamed Democrats for the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk during an event at Utah Valley University. “Democrats own this,” Mace said on Capitol Hill. “Democrats own this.”
When HuffPost pressed her on why she would make such a claim, given that no suspect or motive had been identified, she pointed to the fact that Kirk had been speaking about transgender mass shooters at the time. “I mean, give me a fucking break. This guy’s talking about mass trans violence, tranny violence — I’m not going to filter myself — and got shot in the neck like that,” she said.
Police said as of Wednesday evening, they still had no suspect in custody. Kirk’s spokesperson confirmed that he died shortly after the attack.
While most lawmakers across both parties expressed condolences and denounced political violence, Mace’s remarks stood out for their harshness.
“This political violence has got to stop now. They shot President Trump in the head. They tried to assassinate him a month after that. You had a Bernie Sanders bro shoot up the congressional baseball game. You had some wingnut kill some legislators over in Minnesota,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin told HuffPost.
On the House floor, Speaker Mike Johnson led a moment of silence for Kirk and his family. But the solemnity didn’t last long. Rep. Lauren Boebert could be heard muttering, “Silent prayers get silent results,” which set off a shouting match. Some Democrats yelled that Kirk wasn’t the only victim of gun violence that day. Johnson had to repeatedly bang his gavel to restore order.
“We need every political leader to decry the violence and to do it loudly,” Johnson told reporters afterward. “The problem is in the human heart. It’s gotten out of hand.”
Outside the Capitol, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas grew emotional when talking about Kirk. He described him as a powerful voice in the conservative movement. “When I was in college, we used to be able to walk in those doors, just walk right into the Capitol, and didn’t have any of the security. Obviously, airports were the same,” Roy said. “And the more we just have this, like, sickness in society, the more we have to clamp down, the more you have to have, you know, security barriers and lock down our society, because people are just sick, and there’s obviously no place for it.”
Mace, speaking again outside the House, defended herself by saying she has spoken against violence of all kinds. “I’ve spoken out against violence of all kinds, when it’s been a Republican or Democrat alike, but what I don’t usually see is Democrats [speaking out] when something happens to us,” she said. “They need to own the rhetoric. They need to own what’s happening in this country right now.”
Democrats, however, responded swiftly. From President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama to top Democratic leaders in Congress, statements condemning the shooting poured in. “I am shocked by the murder of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said. “Political violence of any kind and against any individual is unacceptable and completely incompatible with American values.”