Prominent SC GOP voices blame Democrats for Charlie Kirk’s assassination
As they mourned the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, some of South Carolina’s top Republican voices placed the blame on Democrats.
The Turning Point USA co-founder’s murder led to a broad condemnation of political violence from Democratic and Republican leaders on social media. Kirk was fatally shot in the neck Wednesday afternoon while speaking at Utah Valley University.
But some prominent Republicans suggested that recent political violence primarily impacts conservatives.
“There’s no question that we’re seeing a vast majority of violence targeting conservatives and people of faith,” U.S. Sen. Tim Scott told reporters Thursday morning as he responded to a question about where political violence on both sides of the aisle was stemming from.
In recent years, prominent Republicans and Democrats have been subject to violent attacks. Earlier this summer, two Democratic Minnesota state lawmakers and their spouses were shot in their homes. Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed. Last summer, then-candidate President Donald Trump was shot at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. In 2022, former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, was attacked in his home in an attempt on his wife’s life. And in 2021, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, was subject to a busted kidnapping plan over her COVID-19 policies.
Trump’s supporters also stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, to stop lawmakers from certifying the 2020 election results. Rioters threatened to hang then-Vice President Mike Pence, and many House members feared for their lives.
Now Trump blamed the left for Kirk’s assassination in a Wednesday night video. A suspect and motive has not been identified, as of Thursday afternoon.
“Radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives,” Trump said in a video posted to social media Wednesday.
Trump mentioned the attempt on his own life, the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December and a 2017 shooting of Louisiana Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise. But he did not bring up Hortman’s murder, the foiled abduction attempt on Whitmer or the attack on Pelosi.
Trump’s messaging aligns with what Scott told reporters Thursday. Scott mentioned a Minnesota shooting at a Christian school in August, the murder of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., and the shooting attempts on Trump and Scalise, but he did not acknowledge any other acts of violence that targeted Democrats.
“I am simply saying that to our friends on the left who believe that spewing venom towards other people because you disagree with them,” Scott said. “That is wrong, it is dangerous, and it leads to violence.”
Scott is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which focuses on electing Republicans to the U.S. Senate. Candidates for governor, U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace and Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette also weighed in on the political ramifications surrounding Kirk’s death.
Mace, a Lowcountry Republican, also blamed Democrats for Kirk’s murder on Wednesday. Mace told reporters in Washington that “Democrats own what happened today.” A reporter asked if Republicans “owned” the shooting of Minnesota lawmakers earlier this summer.
“Are you kidding me?” Mace responded. She did not answer the question and repeated “Democrats own this. 100%.”
Evette, who said Wednesday “political violence has no place in our country,” later blamed the “trans and radical leftist agenda” for the “violent culture” in the U.S. on social media Thursday.
Her post came after the Wall Street Journal reported that authorities found ammunition inscribed with transgender and anti-fascist messaging believed to be associated with the perpetrators. However, according to the New York Times, analysts for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had yet to verify the preliminary report.
Evette then pointed to previous statements by prominent Democrats such as U.S. Reps. Jasmine Crocket and Maxine Waters calling for harassment of Republican officials.
“You had Democrat officials saying, ‘Get in their face. When you see a Republican get in their face, yell at them, push them out of restaurants,” Evette said in an interview Thursday. “Maybe I’ve missed a Republican doing that, but I haven’t seen somebody say ‘go after the Democrats, get in their face, kick them when they’re down right. Don’t let them have a moment’s peace.’ And that is the rhetoric that has to stop.”
On Thursday, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-Seneca, who is running for reelection, spoke to reporters with three colleagues, Democratic U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Amy Klobuchar, and Republican Katie Britt.
“I think Democrats, whether they agreed with him or not, understand that this is not the way you have discourse in the country, ” Graham said during a news conference. “We’re just here as a group to say America cannot govern itself this way.”
U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-Santee, also condemned political violence.
“Any act of political violence is unacceptable, has no place anywhere, and must always be condemned,” Clyburn wrote on X.
This story was originally published September 11, 2025 at 3:03 PM.
