Trump adopts messenger-in-chief role after Charlie Kirk's death

WASHINGTON: Since the U.S. conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot in a brazen display of violence, President Donald Trump has embraced the role of spokesman in an extraordinary way.

Trump was first to confirm the news to a country in shock that Kirk was dead and first to announce that the latest suspect was in custody. He shared when Kirk’s funeral would take place and said he would attend. Before a suspect was detained, Trump blamed without presenting evidence the “radical left” for Kirk’s murder, with many of his followers repeating the accusation and calling for vengeance amid a wave of right-wing anger.

Kirk, a popular but divisive podcast host and author of a half-dozen books, left behind a wife, prominent friends and legions of followers after being gunned down on a Utah college campus on Wednesday where he was giving a speech.

Yet it is Trump who has taken on a central role in messaging after his political ally’s grisly public death, delivering information that typically would come from law enforcement or local officials rather than the nation’s top leader.

His actions contrast with the more cautious approach of past presidents. But they are very much in line with his penchant for direct communication, defying convention and putting himself in the middle of domestic and international issues.

“The one thing about Donald Trump is he is a very detailed individual,” said Mercedes Schlapp, a senior adviser to Trump in his first term. “Whether he is building the Rose Garden Club or we have this awful tragedy, he wants to be the one to break the news.”

Trump ordered flags to be flown at half-staff, said he would award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom and saw his vice president accompany Kirk’s casket back to his home state on Air Force Two – all fairly unusual ways for the U.S. government to honor a political operative who has never held office or served in the military.

Trump had a personal and political relationship with Kirk, the co-founder and president of the conservative student group Turning Point USA he credits with helping him appeal to young voters.

“Charlie had a magic over the kids,” Trump said on Friday on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends,” recalling how his teenage son Barron was awe-struck by the charismatic 31-year-old activist.

Kirk was also a sharply partisan figure whose combative style and anti-LGBTQ and anti-immigrant rhetoric often brought him to clash with others online and in public. His far-right views on abortion, civil rights and gun control also garnered strong reactions from the groups his comments targeted.

Trump has called for a non-violent response from his supporters but sidestepped reporters’ questions over how to unify the country in the midst of its most sustained surge in political violence since the 1970s. Trump himself was the subject of two assassination attempts last year.

Trump downplayed the extremism from the political right, telling reporters on Thursday that “we just have to beat the hell out of them,” stoking his supporters’ calls for political revenge against the “radical left.”

Twenty-two-year-old Tyler Robinson of Utah was arrested on Thursday night for the shooting. Motives remained unclear, with investigators closely scrutinizing messages engraved into four bullet casings. Experts have said they could reference left- or right-leaning groups.