Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C) is encouraging his party to ‘look in the mirror’ as Republicans rush to blame ‘the left’ for violent rhetoric after the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last week
At a Senate Judiciary Committe hearing with FBI Director Kash Patel on Tuesday, Tillis pointed to several comments by right wing figures calling for war in response to Kirk’s murder which he argued serves to escalate matters and makes Patel’s job harder.
“Within 24 hours of Mr. Kirk’s shooting we had the guy that does the podcast for the War Room and another guy who’s denied the Sandy Hook shootings say, ‘we’re at war.’ How on earth are we deescalating the situation? And with the tensions as high as they were last week, with going out and saying, ‘we’re at war,'” Tillis said. “There are people out here on our side of the aisle that still need to look in the mirror.”
“That kind of rhetoric and that kind of mobilization makes your job more difficult and puts us in a position where we’re not being as productive as you want the FBI and state and local law enforcement to be,” the senator said.
While leading Democrats condemn Kirk’s murder, popular right-wing figures including former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and Elon Musk used Kirk’s killing to declare war and called for retribution and a crackdown on the political left.
