Donald Trump Jr. used the 24th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to single out transgender people as “more violent” than Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, two Islamic extremist terrorist groups.

“I can’t name, including probably like Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, a group that is more violent per capita than the radical trans movement,” the president’s son said during an appearance on The Megyn Kelly Show.

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Charlie Kirk died in a red state on Trump’s watch. He needs to tone down his violent rhetoric.

The comments followed the death of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk in Utah on Wednesday, shot by an unidentified assailant still at large.

Trump Jr. claimed without evidence that there are many “mass killings” committed by transgender people that the public doesn’t know about, “because you’re not allowed to talk about the truth.” His claims aren’t supported by data.

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“I’m sure people are totally sane after jacking themselves up on hormones given to them by some rainbow hair freak doctor because they think men can somehow magically become women,” he added derisively.

In their conversation, Trump Jr. and Kelly seized on a report by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday indicating investigators found ammunition featuring “expressions of transgender and antifascist ideology” in the magazine of the rifle investigators believe was used in the shooting.

A senior law enforcement official said that information has not been verified, the Daily Beast reports.

Following the mass shooting at a church and Catholic school in Minneapolis last week, carried out by a former student who may have been trans, the Justice Department discussed plans to deny gun ownership to trans people.

Trump Jr’s virulent rant continues a pattern of scapegoating trans people as evidence of a “radical left” hellbent — in his telling — on destroying America.

Referring to trans people last month on X, Trump Jr. posted, “It’s almost like guns aren’t the problem.”

“It feels like they have done practically every mass shooting in America for the last few years,” he told Kelly on her podcast.

The facts, however, contradict Trump Jr’s feelings. Among mass shootings since 2013, just 0.1% of cases involved a transgender person, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Other authoritative sources report that between 96% and 98% of mass shootings in the U.S. have been committed by cisgender men.

Since Trump’s crusade against the transgender community went into overdrive during the 2024 presidential campaign, he and his allies have used trans people as an example of Democrats’ and the left’s “insanity”, a strategy Trump Jr. echoed on Kelly’s show.

Democrats are “actually insane,” Trump Jr. said, abetted by the “craziness and insanity coming out” of left-leaning media outlets like MSNBC.

“It is truly sick,” he added.

On Wednesday, Trump Jr’s father pumped the gas on that characterization, claiming it is “Radical-left political violence” that “has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives.”

Once again, the facts don’t align with Trump and his allies’ gut — or political — reaction. The list of attacks on Democrats is long, including two Democratic Minnesota lawmakers this summer, the attempted murder of Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi’s husband last year, the attempted pipe-bombing of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in 2018, and other incidents — not least of all, the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

Together with assaults on Republicans, political violence is a rare, and dark, bipartisan issue.

Asked on Wednesday if Democrats need to “tone down their rhetoric,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) replied, “Oh, please. Why don’t you start with the president of the United States? And every ugly meme he’s posted and every ugly word.”

An X post following Kirk’s death by top Trump advisor Stephen Miller, the author of many of those ugly words, was a chilling reminder of who has the president’s ear, and an indication of what they may have in store for the country.

“All of us,” Miller wrote, “must now dedicate ourselves to defeating the evil that stole Charlie from this world.”

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